The Powers that Be: December 2014
EAST PEORIA — In what turned out to be a pleasantly brief December meeting, the Illinois Central College Board of Trustees rapped up the calendar year by recapping recent enrollment research, pleasing the carpenters union and gaining a few hundred thousand dollars for debt reduction.
The meeting began with the board approving ICC’s new four-year contract with Carpenters’ Local #237, the local union that negotiates working contracts for more than 100 employees here at ICC. ICC President John Erwin moved this item to the top of the board’s agenda for the day to give the three union representatives who were in attendance an opportunity to speak.
Unlike many union contract negotiations that make the news, this contract was agreed upon without any prolonged union/employer conflicts. This is, according to union Field Representative Jacob Moody, due to the use of a process called interest or issue-based bargaining (also referred to as interspace bargaining).
Moody said that, compared to traditional bargaining, where each side starts with an extreme proposal and then hopes to find a way to “meet in the middle,” IBB is a more scientific approach that utilizes market data as evidence for what fair contract terms would be.
“This was just a great process. IBB is something that works. I have been a part of traditional bargaining in the past, and this was my first experience with IBB,” Moody said. “Moving forward, IBB will definitely be something that I will recommend in the future.”
ICC’s vice president of administration and finance, Bruce Budde, was equally happy with the process. Budde said that it helped the college to better understand the strengths and needs of its staff.
“We engaged in interspace bargaining throughout, and I think it resulted in a really positive outcome,” Buddy said.
This was the third contract that the union had made with ICC through IBB, and it will stand for four years. During that time, the union has the option each quarter to meet with ICC to review any questions or concerns that arise during the contract’s cycle so that the two parties can have minor periodic discussions to avoid disagreements from building over the life of the contract.
Later in the meeting, the board also viewed a presentation on the new data systems that the college is using to analyze its student demographics and success, which included using Internet-based Bing Maps to view a live map showing the distribution of where ICC students live by zipcode.