Contract renegotiations for the University Professionals of Illinois enters its first stages with a membership meeting today.

Ellie Sullivan, Local 4100 president, will give opening remarks at the 3 p.m. meeting in the Charleston/Mattoon Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

John Allison, Eastern’s chapter president, will introduce the bargaining team before the group goes into closed session to discuss contract negotiations.

UPI’s contract was last negotiated in 2006. Since that time, Eastern has introduced a furlough policy to its Internal Governing Policies. The policy applies only to non-negotiated employees.

It is not clear whether the UPI will adopt furlough language into its contract.

“It’s likely it will be discussed because the administration has an interest in a furlough policy,” Allison said. “That interest doesn’t mean we have to accept it.”

Allison and the bargaining team will gather opinions from other members of the union before proceeding with any part of the agreement.

“I want to proceed very carefully by learning as much as I can from the chapter membership,” Allison said. “It’s a matter up for discussion at the bargaining table.”

UPI has two contracts with Eastern, the Unit A contract covers tenure and tenure-track faculty; the Unit B contract covers annually contract, or adjunct, faculty and academic support professionals.

The current contracts are in effect until the end of 2010.

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at

581-7942 or seruholl2@eiu.edu