University of Illinois Springfield faculty go on strike
[April 06, 2026]
By Ben Szalinski, Jenna Schweikert
SPRINGFIELD — Faculty at the University of Illinois Springfield went on
strike Friday after contract negotiations failed to produce satisfactory
wage increases and address other concerns.
The strike at the campus of 4,300 students at one of the three
University of Illinois system schools marks the first by a public
university in Illinois since three universities went on strike in April
2023. It’s the first strike at UIS since May 2017.
Tenure and tenure-track faculty at UIS have been negotiating with
administrators since last spring, when nontenured faculty avoided a
strike. A 2022 collective bargaining agreement expired last August and
despite help from a federal mediator, the UIS United Faculty Union has
been unable to reach an agreement after voting last month to authorize a
strike.
A group of several dozen faculty members and supporters held a rally on
campus Friday after a 10-hour bargaining session on Thursday failed to
produce a deal.
“This is not where we wanted to be on this beautiful Friday morning,”
said Dathan Powell, an associate theater professor and president of the
UIS faculty union. “We wanted to be in our classrooms. We wanted to be
in our offices with our students, working with them on research, doing
service for this institution to keep it running. But we’re out here.
We’re out here because the administration of this university has not
been valuing its students. It values its students when it invests in its
faculty, in its staff and in the institution itself.”
University ‘disappointed’
The university said in a statement that it is “disappointed” by the
union’s decision to go on strike.
“We remain hopeful the union will return to the table so negotiations
can continue,” the statement said. “UIS is committed to supporting
students who are affected by the faculty’s decision to participate in a
work stoppage and has plans in place to minimize the impact to them. The
university continues to work toward a fair and fiscally responsible
contract that serves the entire university community and hopes to reach
a timely agreement with the union.”
The university told students in an email on Thursday that they should
continue attending classes unless their professor cancels it. Not all
professors are part of the strike and the university said contracts with
other faculty groups prohibit them from engaging in a sympathy strike.
“The students who are worried are rightfully worried, and we are worried
for them because we see that the administration has valued them so
little by refusing to negotiate with the faculty,” Powell told
reporters.
Several UIS students spoke in support of the faculty at the rally.
“When you hurt the faculty, you hurt the students,” UIS communications
student Braden Nuttall said. “We are not separate; we are one. One does
not come without the other. The faculty is not asking for anything more
than what they truly deserve.”
The UIS staff union is also considering going on strike but are
continuing negotiations.
What’s being negotiated
A key point of contention is the size of cost-of-living adjustments. The
administration offered 1% raises, which they said aligns with a
University of Illinois system program on salary and raises. The union is
seeking a 2.6% increase in the current fiscal year and 6% over the next
two years, according to the university’s bargaining update.
“What they’re providing would not even buy or fill a tank of gas,”
University Professionals of Illinois President John Miller said.
The union says wage growth for faculty has been lower than for top
administrators who earn six-figure salaries.
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University of Illinois Springfield theatre professor and faculty
union president Dathan Powell speaks at a news conference about the
UIS faculty strike. Cheers erupted from the crowd as he spoke about
his experiences bargaining with the university. (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Jenna Schweikert)
Faculty are also hoping to boost the $55,000 minimum salary that was set
in 2017 by $11,000 — UIS has offered a $2,000 increase. The union also
wants the university to set aside more money for faculty to attend
conferences, which have also risen in cost.
The union is seeking protections from artificial intelligence, making a
pilot program on employee leave permanent and limiting rate increases
for on-campus parking. They also expressed fear the administration is
trying to walk back agreements from the 2022 contract.
“We want for them to recognize that the faculty and the staff here at
UIS are the ones who provide the support and the education for the
students here, and the way that they can do that is by bargaining with
us collaboratively,” Powell told reporters. “Oftentimes, what happens in
bargaining, however, is that our proposals are presented, we talk
through the logic and the reason behind them, and we are often met with
just a rejection.”
The next bargaining session had not been set as of Friday morning,
Powell said.
Broader budget talks
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In a March 26 email to students obtained by Capitol News Illinois, the
UIS administration said they are working to address a structural deficit
pegged at $19 million in the current fiscal year. Reducing hiring and
targeted budget reductions have helped the university advance its
long-term financial plan, the email said.
UIS’ budget struggles and the strike come as lawmakers down the road at
the Statehouse debate creating a new formula for higher education
funding.
The proposal calls for increasing university funding by about $135
million each year over the next 15 years. That new funding would be
distributed under a formula that sets an adequacy target for each
institution and gives priority for new funding to those institutions
furthest away from their target.
The University of Illinois system is opposed to the bill over fears
funding would be redirected to other universities. According to the
Coalition for Transforming Higher Education Funding, U of I
Urbana-Champaign is funded at 89% of its adequacy target. UIS is at 57%.
“The U of I system has plenty of money, but it has chosen not to fund
UIS at an appropriate level,” Powell told reporters. “There is a cost of
running an institution of higher ed in Illinois, and they are not paying
that to the institution. So the state funds that come into the system
are held up by the system and not dispersed evenly to the campuses that
need it most.”
UIS accounts for 2% of all of the university system’s spending in the
current fiscal year, according to the system’s budget documents. UIUC
receives 44% and the University of Illinois Chicago 31% while the rest
goes to the system’s administration and university’s hospital. UIS also
receives only 3% of state funds allocated to the system.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
