At long last, the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition Local #6546 ratified a five-year contract with the University of Illinois last evening.
NTFC Local #6546 represents roughly 500 non-tenure-track faculty on the U of I’s campus. They have been negotiating with the university administration since October 2014. In April, NTFC went on strike, first on April 19 and 20 and then a week later. On April 30, a labor agreement was reached between the union and the university.
The contract provides non-tenure-track faculty with three-month advance notice rights prior to the beginning of the semester and gives long-term faculty at least one year of extra job security beyond the duration of their current one year contract. Participation in the Compression, Market, Equity and Retention program (CMER), formerly limited to tenure track faculty, and basic protection of academic freedom are also part of the agreement. In addition, the contract contains provisions that will regularize non-tenure-track participation in faculty governance in the coming years.