UIC On Strike
By The University of Illinois-Chicago faculty have gone on strike in protest of the corporatization of the university that threatens what faculty do–our ability to teach and research, the stability of our jobs, and the defense of the values of the liberal arts education. Like other universities, UIC has moved resources from faculty to administration, gone to the well of adjunct labor to cover much teaching, and underpaid faculty members in an expensive city.
Hundreds of teachers, students and other supporters picketed the University of Illinois’ at Chicago campus Tuesday as part of a two-day strike called by UIC United Faculty, the union representing more than 1,100 tenured and nontenured faculty members.
The walkout, which featured teachers and their supporters picketing and distributing flyers in front of campus buildings for much of the day, is the first to take place at the university. Despite more than 60 bargaining sessions over 18 months—which were joined by a federal mediator in November—the administration and UICUF has not been able to come to an agreement.
“State universities have been turned into businesses, business corporations with a focus only on the bottom line,” said UICUF’s President Joe Persky. “This must change. A university must devote its resources to guaranteeing our student body a first class education every bit as good as Champaign-Urbana.”
Faculty at UIC are striking to demand an increase in wages for both tenured and nontenured professors, as well as multi-year contracts and “control of governance and curriculum.”
Control over governance and curriculum is an important issue. Faculty have traditionally had a significant say in how the university operates and the core values of the curriculum. That is disappearing rapidly as universities move to the same top-down corporate model that brought you the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, the Great Recession, and the creation of the New Gilded Age. Stands like the faculty at UIC are taking are necessary in order to defend the values that made American higher education the best in the world.
Also, using Hull House as the strike headquarters should warm the heart of any historian.