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The Association of Civil Service Employees and the University have agreed upon an arbitrator and will probably begin meeting in March to resolve a dispute over wage increases.
ACsE filed a grievance Sept. 12 because of 2-percent raises allotted to non-union SIU-Edwardsville employees in July. Ruth Pommier, ACsE president, said under the current contract, union employees are promised equal raises to those granted to non-instruction staff on campus. Pommier said that since the contract is with the Board of Trustees and not the University chancellor, it extends beyond the campus to the system as a whole.
The grievance was denied by the University in September, so the union proceeded to request arbitration just a few days shy of the deadline in late October.
Pommier said ACsE received the list of local arbitrators sooner than expected, which led to an earlier selection of an arbitrator. She said the arbitrator bases his business out of Indianapolis, though she did not want to release his name at this time.
In order to select an arbitrator, the University and the union each selected individuals from the list of 12 they felt would best settle the dispute. Having no matches, the two groups then picked the ones they had the least objection to until an agreement was reached.
"We were guided by their own personal background as they were presented to us in résumés and brief descriptions and proceeded to slash names of people we felt wouldn't be labor friendly," Pommier said. "Of the five names we returned, the University did not have a match with us on any of them, so then we begin to rank who we had the fewest objections to, and the University and ACsE agreed on this gentleman."
The union was given two tentative dates for a meeting: March 23 and March 30. However, if the groups are unable to meet on either date, the dispute could be pushed into the summer.
"We are very pleased that it is moving forward," Pommier said. "Obviously, we would hope accommodations could be made before March, but we are ready to move forward."
