Campus Faculty Association

To form a union, a majority of eligible tenure-track and tenured faculty sign authorization cards saying they want CFA to represent us for collective bargaining. The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act recognizes an employee organization chosen by a majority in an appropriate unit.

Winning recognition is not the end of the campaign; it opens the door to bargaining. The campaign itself is built through ordinary conversations: faculty talking with faculty, naming the problems we share, testing what we want to change, and deciding together whether we are ready to act with majority power.

After recognition, we would set bargaining priorities democratically, elect representatives, negotiate a first contract, and vote on whether to ratify it.

Collective bargaining is the legal process where faculty, through our union, negotiate with the university over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. In Illinois, the Workers’ Rights Amendment names wages, hours, working conditions, economic welfare, and safety as core bargaining concerns.

The difference is enforceability. Without a union, faculty can advocate and make recommendations; with a union, the university has a legal obligation to bargain with us over the conditions of our work. Instead of hoping that advisory processes will be honored, faculty would have a legally recognized way to negotiate standards and hold the administration to them.

Recognition does not automatically rewrite our jobs overnight. It gives us the legal standing to bargain. After recognition, CFA would gather priorities from faculty across the unit, choose bargaining representatives democratically, negotiate with the university, and bring a tentative agreement back to members for a ratification vote.

That sequence matters. The first contract is not written by staff, administrators, or a small inner circle. It is built from faculty participation: conversations, surveys, meetings, issue committees, research, elected representatives, and a ratification vote.

No. Recognition creates the obligation to bargain; it does not, by itself, impose a contract. Existing policies and practices generally remain in place while a first agreement is negotiated, unless changes are made through the bargaining process under Illinois labor law.

This is one reason faculty participation matters from the beginning. We should be clear about what we want to preserve, what we want to improve, and what we want to make enforceable.

We do! CFA is a democratically run faculty organizing committee. Members set priorities, elect leaders, serve on committees, choose bargaining representatives, and vote on contracts. Experienced organizers and legal counsel can advise us, but they do not substitute for faculty decision-making.

The best protection against a contract that misses your priorities is participation: sign a card, talk with colleagues, join meetings, answer bargaining surveys, help with issue committees, shape proposals, and vote.

First contracts take time. Some are resolved in months; others take longer, especially when the issues are complex or the administration resists meaningful movement. We should not promise an instant contract.

But bargaining is also organizing. The work we do now to build majority support, identify shared priorities, and bring colleagues into the process is what gives a bargaining team power later.

We are! This campaign is being organized by tenure-track faculty from across UIUC: faculty from different colleges, disciplines, ranks, and experiences who believe we need a stronger collective voice. We are supported by experienced organizers, but the campaign has been built, and led by faculty ourselves.

The Campus Faculty Association is a faculty organization at UIUC working to build collective strength by forming a legally recognized union. CFA has been active on campus for more than fifty years as an advocacy organization; now we are taking the next step so that faculty voice can become enforceable through collective bargaining.

Faculty should have a strong voice in shaping our institution and our working conditions. The senate is one important space for that voice, but senate recommendations are often advisory and still depend on administrative or Board approval. A union adds the legally recognized bargaining power created by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act.

A union does not replace shared governance. It gives faculty another democratic tool to restore it.

Faculty Senates & Faculty Unions Stronger Together Infographic 

AAUP has long defended academic freedom, tenure, due process, and shared governance. AAUP also treats collective bargaining as one way faculty defend those values. A recognized CFA union would add legal bargaining power under the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act: the ability to negotiate and enforce a binding contract over working conditions. CFA will be affiliated with AAUP through their joint organizing agreement with the AFT.

Faculty unions are common in public higher education, including at UIC, SIUC, Rutgers, Oregon, UMass Amherst, SUNY, Florida, and other systems. It is not strange for tenure-track faculty to unionize; what is strange is that UIUC tenure-track faculty do not yet have the same enforceable voice many peers already have. We are the last faculty without union representation at a public university in Illinois.

UICUF SIUCFA Rutgers AAUP-AFT UA Oregon UMass MSP UFF UUP

Campus Faculty Association is a democratic organization run by faculty. Members vote on major decisions, elect officers, shape committees, set priorities, and vote on contracts. The best way to make the union reflect your priorities is to participate now.

Since 1984, the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act has protected organizing and collective bargaining rights for public university employees. Illinois’ Workers’ Rights Amendment makes those rights state constitutional rights, and they do not depend on rank.

For immigration-related concerns, federal worker-rights guidance also says employers may not retaliate against immigrant workers for trying to form or join a union.

IFT’s legal council has prepared this letter outlining the protections for international faculty as they organize. 

Junior faculty often have the most to lose when process is weak, which is why collective protection matters. A union cannot guarantee a tenure outcome, but it can bargain for transparent criteria, fair timelines, academic freedom protections, clear review procedures, and ways to challenge violations of agreed process.

Joining or supporting a union does not itself change your visa status. Regardless of immigration status, faculty have protected rights to join together, talk about working conditions, and take action to improve them. DOL organizing rights

We should not ask international faculty to navigate these concerns alone. The strongest protection is collective support, clear legal rights, and access to experienced help. Reach out to a CFA organizer if you have specific questions and we can either answer or connect you with union legal representatives who can.

Rutgers AAUP-AFT’s international resources show one model for union support around visa and immigration concerns. Rutgers international resources Rutgers visa Q&A

The amendment says employees have the fundamental right to organize and bargain collectively over wages, hours, working conditions, economic welfare, and safety. For us, the point is simple: faculty are allowed to organize a union by law. Recognition still runs through the IELRA and IELRB.

All tenured and tenure-track faculty members with an academic appointment of more than half time are the core group for this campaign. The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act excludes supervisory, managerial, and confidential employees, and it treats medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, law, and veterinary medicine as separate units.

Because administrative roles can be complicated, do not guess. If you are a department head, hold another administrative title, or are unsure about your appointment, ask an organizer before deciding you are in or out.

The card asks faculty to make two related but distinct decisions: whether to join the union as a member, and whether to authorize dues deduction if dues later become payable. The two-signature format makes both decisions clear, informed, and voluntary. Janus v. AFSCME

Signing a card during the campaign does not start dues deductions. Dues would begin only later, after recognition, member decisions, and the required authorization process.

IFT Dues Explainer 

Dues are how members pay for the work faculty expect from a union: staff support, contract negotiations, grievance and arbitration work, legal services, organizing, communications, training, office costs, and member-approved programs.

No one in a public-sector union can be forced to pay dues as a condition of employment. But if CFA wins recognition, the contract we negotiate would apply to everyone in the bargaining unit. That is why membership matters: dues-paying members sustain the union and make its democratic decisions.

Janus v. AFSCME

Our answer is not to build a union where people stand outside and watch. Our answer is to build one where faculty join, argue, vote, serve, and hold each other accountable.

Local unions usually decide their own dues democratically. The most common faculty-union structure is a percentage of gross salary; we currently estimate that our dues will be between 1.0-1.5% of gross salary. 

For a faculty member earning $100,000 annually, that range would mean about $1,000-$1,500 per year, deducted gradually through payroll only after dues become payable.

That range is consistent with other peer faculty unions. California Faculty Association lists 1.35% of gross CSU salary; Rutgers publishes unit-specific dues charts; UHPA describes a 1% base plus an AFT-affiliation deduction.

No. Dues are not being collected from card-signed faculty during the campaign. Cards build the majority we need to win recognition; they do not start payroll deduction yet. Dues would begin only after CFA wins recognition, faculty negotiate a first contract, and members vote to ratify it.

No. Regular dues are not candidate-contribution money. Federal law (52 U.S.C. 30118) restricts labor organizations from using treasury funds for candidate contributions; electoral political funds are separate and voluntary.

Faculty across higher education are facing political attacks on universities, increasing administrative control, rising workloads, and declining shared governance. Many of us feel that major campus decisions are being made without meaningful faculty input.

A union gives faculty a legally protected collective voice. Unionization is about ensuring that the people who teach, research, advise, mentor, and serve at this university have a meaningful role in shaping its future. Our working conditions are also our students’ learning conditions: when faculty have time, support, stability, and voice, the university is stronger.

Faculty members decide democratically what bargaining priorities matter most. Common issues faculty unions bargain over include raises and compensation, workload, promotion and tenure procedures, research and travel support, equity and transparency, benefits and leave, grievance procedures, due process, and academic freedom. UICUF and SUNY are two strong example contracts that show what these protections can look like.

A faculty union gives tenure-track faculty the legal ability to negotiate collectively over workplace issues that directly affect teaching, research, and service. Instead of relying only on advisory recommendations or individual appeals, we could use Illinois labor law to bargain for enforceable language around workload, raises and evaluations, academic freedom, research support, grievance procedures, and protections against arbitrary administrative decisions. UIC United Faculty offers one nearby example of faculty bargaining in practice.

That includes a real grievance process: a clear path for raising workplace concerns, with enforceable steps and, when necessary, review by a neutral third party. That matters when informal processes depend too much on goodwill, rank, department, or administrator.

Yes, if faculty bargain for that. A contract can establish clearer expectations around workload, salary processes, review timelines, grievance procedures, and access to information.

For us, the point is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is making rules knowable, fair, and enforceable instead of dependent on who happens to be in the room. A good contract can cut through red tape by creating clear processes and a direct bargaining relationship with the administration.

Tenure is important, but it does not guarantee faculty voice over salaries, workload, benefits, governance, research support, academic freedom, or restructuring. A union provides collective power and legally enforceable protections that strengthen faculty voice and help defend the future of higher education.

A union cannot make tenure invulnerable. It can bargain for concrete protections around due process, academic freedom, notice, review procedures, retrenchment, and grievance rights when agreed procedures are violated. Around the country, tenure is increasingly contested; we should not wait until tenure is under direct attack here to build enforceable protections.

Yes, program elimination and consolidation are real threats in higher education. A union cannot promise that no department or program will ever change. It can bargain for notice, information, consultation, impact bargaining, placement or recall rights, severance, and fair procedures before irreversible decisions are made. Even when layoffs, closures, or reorganizations remain possible, faculty should have enforceable rights before and during major changes instead of absorbing decisions made without us. Contracts at Kent State and Delaware show how faculty unions have put retrenchment and program-change protections into enforceable form.

Absolutely not. Faculty unions bargain for higher annual pay increases, relief from salary compression, more transparent merit processes, promotion raises, market adjustments, and salaries that remain competitive by discipline. A faculty union does not require a flat wage for everyone. UIC United Faculty and Rutgers AAUP-AFT both provide public examples of faculty unions bargaining over salary standards and equity.

No. A contract can preserve and improve merit, equity, promotion, and retention processes. The real question is what faculty choose to bargain for. Our goal is not to flatten academic careers; it is to make compensation more transparent, more equitable, and less arbitrary.

Administrations often frame “flexibility” as something faculty lose through unionization. But one person’s flexibility can be another person’s opacity. A strong faculty contract can protect room for merit and retention while also giving faculty clearer rules and enforceable rights. Faculty contracts usually set floors, not ceilings; they can still allow individual faculty to negotiate better terms when they have leverage, such as an outside offer.

No. We decide what to bargain. We can standardize what should be fair and consistent, preserve what works well in departments and units, and codify good practices so they cannot be changed unilaterally without faculty input. Flexibility should mean faculty have a meaningful say, not that rules are invisible or changeable at any moment.

No. Faculty unions exist at major research universities and systems, including Rutgers, Oregon, UIC, UMass, SUNY, Florida, and others. Stronger standards can help recruitment by making salaries, benefits, workload, academic freedom protections, and due process more reliable. Unionized universities have plenty of great talent; higher standards can help recruit and retain faculty.

If unions did not benefit people, employers would not spend so much energy trying to stop them. Unions are one of the most powerful tools working people have to act together, assert rights, and improve their work. Our union will be what faculty make it: democratic, transparent, and accountable to members.

Yes. Faculty unions are common in public higher education and at major research universities and systems. UIC, SIUC, Rutgers, Oregon, UMass Amherst, Florida, SUNY, and many others show that faculty unionism is very much a faculty thing.

UICUF, SIUCFA, Rutgers AAUP-AFT, UA Oregon, UMass MSP, UFF, and UUP are all examples of unionized faculties at top U.S. universities.

Retaliation for union activity is illegal under the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act. The law matters, and so does solidarity: the strongest protection is that faculty are not acting alone. A visible, majority campaign makes it harder for anyone to isolate junior, international, or otherwise vulnerable colleagues.

No. Signing a card or supporting the union is not a strike vote. Faculty strikes are rare and are a last resort. Any strike would require a separate democratic decision, serious organizing, and compliance with the IELRA’s bargaining and impasse procedures. Faculty would take that step only if members decided it was necessary to win meaningful change for students, research, and working conditions.