University of Chicago Faculty Forward Updates

Read our We Are Faculty statement.

FAIR PAY FOR FAIR WORK: Over the last few years, steep inflation rates driven by corporate profiteering have taken their toll on our members, as they have on workers in other sectors. Members across the Union have lost 9% in purchasing power since we negotiated our last contract in 2021, demonstrating the inadequacy of modest annual raises. While our members struggle to make ends meet, the University’s top 25 executives make more than all of Faculty Forward (more than 500 workers) combined. We are demanding a 20-percent across-the-Union pay increase for the 2024-2027 contract to make sure our members – who do the actual teaching work at the center of this university’s educational mission – are fairly compensated for their labor.

VISAS: Every academic term, members who are international workers face additional precarity because of Management’s refusal to sponsor the appropriate visa for the work they do. Tenure-line faculty are offered H-1B visas, which are intended for long-term non-citizen workers and also provide a pathway to permanent-resident status. To save a few thousands dollars, Management insists our international members apply for J-1 visas, which are for temporary exchange programs and do not offer a pathway to permanent residence. We are demanding that Management sponsor H-1B visas for all international Faculty Forward members as the default.

FIGHTING FOR OUR NEWEST MEMBERS: In 2023, Faculty Forward successfully organized approximately 50 writing instructors and writing and research advisors in the Humanities Writing Program, the Social Sciences Writing Program, the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program. The current CBA does not include provisions for these workers’  positions. We are committed to negotiating fair terms for these new members including job stability, better pay, benefits, and workload protections, and clear paths to promotion. We also demand that Social Sciences writing advisors be converted to benefits-eligible classification immediately.

CHILD-CARE AND EDUCATION: Members with dependent children have felt the effects of inflation and inadequate compensation particularly acutely. Unlike many of our peer institutions, the University of Chicago does not offer its parent workers additional pay to offset the rising cost of child-care and education. We are demanding a new child-care program modeled on those of our peer institutions that would tie funding to base compensation levels. We are also fighting to support members who are parents of diverse learners by demanding the same  portable diverse-learners benefit that tenure-line faculty have access to for their children. And we are demanding the same college tuition benefits that tenure-line faculty are offered.

ANTI-HARASSMENT: The Union seeks to significantly increase the contractual protections for our members to be free from discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and caste. We also demand real protections for members facing targeted harassment, threats of violence, and intimidation (online or off) related to their work as faculty.

ACCESSIBILITY: Faculty Forward is committed to winning stronger protections for our members who are disabled or may become disabled so that they can access the resources they need to perform their jobs under fair and adequate working conditions. In too many cases, our members have been left to provide their own resources, been offered accommodations that simply are not practicable, or have not been offered appropriate accommodations at all. The union is demanding fair and transparent processes to ensure our members have access to all accommodations they require to do their jobs.

LEAVE FOR PPAs: Professors of Practice in the Arts (PPAs) are contractually mandated to maintain a rate of regular and ambitious artistic production within their creative fields. As such, they require the kinds of leave time available to tenure-line faculty in order to produce, publish, and undertake additional professional activities in support of this work. Currently, Management denies them this. We demand that the University provide PPAs with the leave time necessary to fulfill their contractual duties.

WORKLOAD: The Union is keenly aware of the significant workload borne by its members and how, in many instances, that load substantially exceeds the limits of a full-time position. We demand that fair workload protections be put in place, including, but not limited to, a maximum student cap on certain courses, fair courseload expectations that adequately reflect the labor our members perform, and a clear, timely course reduction application process to be available to members in certain circumstances.

FAIR WORK STRUCTURE IN M.A. PROGRAMS: Every year, M.A. programs teach hundreds of students who rely on the advising, teaching, and support of instructional faculty. Growing cohort sizes are placing great pressure on union members who work in these programs to meet the needs of their students. For example, currently, instructional professors and teaching fellows in the M.A. Program in the Social Sciences are considered 9-over-12 workers but are required to do the bulk of their thesis advising during the summer months, which effectively means they are teaching 12-over-12. The Union demands reasonable advising and teaching loads in these programs, including recognition that thesis advising constitutes a course equivalent.