Chief Steward: UIC members in a
'fight for respect' with management
February 23, 2010
Ahead of our planned Day of Action at UIC on March 4th, SEIU Local 73 Chief Steward Joe Iosbaker sent the following message to our UIC brothers and sisters:
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To: SEIU Local 73 Members at UIC
Last week, UIC Human Resources began to send out the first of three waves of lay off, elimination and “bumping” letters. By now, you might know someone who has been given one. If you don’t know someone now, you might soon.
At the clerical negotiations on February 9th, we asked the HR negotiator for a list of people being affected by layoffs. He denied that he knew of such a list. The layoff letters started to go out two days later. To date, we have yet to receive the “bumping trees” of all those affected.
Clearly, we have a fight for respect by management.
Contract negotiations for the Clerical and Administrative unit have been a real struggle. We have met 16 times and still we are no closer to getting a new contract. We finally have begun negotiations for the Service and Maintenance and the Technical units - can they possibly go better than those for the clerical workers? Maybe it's too soon to tell.
As a union, we have to come together and show management our strength.
We are not alone: the members of the Graduate Employees Organization voted overwhelmingly last week to authorize their leadership to file an “Intent to Strike” notice. This moves them closer to going on strike if they can’t get a fair contract with job security.
The faculty have been organizing to oppose the furlough days that have been pushed on them. And now students are starting to protest the threat of 10 to 20% tuition increases.
We urge all union members to come out to a Day of Action for Affordable Higher Education on Thursday, March 4th. There are three events on the east campus: a forum at noon (including our SEIU Local 73 President, Christine Boardman), a march at 2:00 pm, and at 5:00 pm a Soup Kitchen at University Hall.
As one of the workers who just received a “bump” letter and is faced with losing 10% of my income, I would like to invite all similarly affected members – whether threatened with position elimination, lay off, loss of income, or a “bump” - to join me at the Soup Kitchen at University Hall.
We hope the administration will meet us, so we can express to them what “shared sacrifice” will mean for our lives.
Please contact me or a steward in your area if you are facing losing your position.
In struggle –
Joe Iosbaker
Chief Steward