A real impact from the state budget crisis could soon be felt everywhere on Eastern’s campus.

President Bill Perry sent a campuswide e-mail Friday announcing that a draft of a furlough policy had been submitted to the Council on University Planning and Budget. The university has no current furlough policy.

If the university does not receive its state funding, action will need to be taken.

A significant loss

The policy submitted to CUPB states that no employee would be required to take more than 30 furlough days, or six work-weeks, in one year.

For many on-campus workers, this would be a significant loss.

Mathew Pederson, president of Local 981 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, would like to see the university first look for people willing to accept a furlough.

AFSCME represents about 300 employees on campus, including building service workers, food service employees, and clerical and technical employees, among others.

“They should look for someone who would voluntarily take the time off, who can afford it, not the workers who only make $10 or $11 an hour,” said Pederson, a BSW. “It’s already below the poverty line.”

Bargaining rights

Unions have the right to bargain with the university about the terms of the furlough policy, said John Allison, president of the Eastern chapter of University Professionals of Illinois and an English professor.

“UPI (the instructors union on campus) has the right to bargain over changes that would affect compensation, work load or work environment, all of which are mandatory subjects of bargaining under Illinois labor law,” Allison said.

Clerical and technical workers are in the process of renegotiating contracts, and a furlough policy will be part of those contracts. Other unions on campus will also be negotiating the furlough terms.

“I have indicated by e-mail to President Perry and the administrators that the UPI EIU chapter is asserting its right to bargain concerning any proposed furlough policy,” Allison said.

UPI believes furloughing instructors would be harmful to the university’s main goal – education. Furloughed days would cut into preparation time for classes and class and student meeting time.

“I would like to see that a thorough effort is being made by the administration to reallocate money from less essential operations and services to the essential instructional operations and services, largely the teaching of courses so Eastern can continue our primary mission – to educate our students,” Allison said. “I think pretty much everyone on campus understands the university does potentially confront a real financial problem. I do not believe or want to imply the administration is seeking to be unfair. I do not believe the administration is being irresponsible. UPI wants to be sure that when policies are created that affect our workload or working condition, we have a role in crafting that policy. It’s the state government’s fault.”

Pederson and Allison both want to encourage members of the campus community to put pressure on legislature to make its payments to the university.

“Demand the state gives Eastern its money,” Pederson said. “If the state made its payments on time, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Allison said he’s noticed behavior like this by the state before.

“The state, for a long time, has been far behind on payments to health care and pharmaceutical companies, many were forced to go out of business,” Allison said. “A company can only survive so long without being paid. It would be a shame if the same kind of thing happened to the state universities.”

Possible policies

The State Universities Civil Service System is also working on a furlough policy. Its merit board, which consists of at least one member of the Board of Trustees on each state university campus, will discuss two possible policies and a possible emergency implementation at its meeting today.

One of the proposed policies would require 15 calendar days of prior notice for furloughs; the other requires only prior approval.

Mary Follmer, assistant director of legal services for SUCSS, said “It’s really a matter of semantics. The approval one was thrown out there, and through various comments we came up with the 15 days.”

Eastern hasn’t received any of its state-appropriated funding, and furloughs may be used to alleviate some operating costs.

A furlough is an unpaid leave of absence where affected employees don’t perform usual or customary job duties. Exactly what will happen is still unclear.

“It all depends on what the state does,” Allison said. “If the state honors its financial obligations to Eastern, I do not believe furloughs will occur.”

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or seruholl2@eiu.edu.