Clerical workers unable to draw up contract with the university

BRUCE DARNELL managing editor

In a highly demanding workplace, clerical workers on campus are in a slow back and forth between administration to try and figure out a new contract.

The tasks of clerical workers are numerous, some of these are scheduling students’ classes, ensuring that textbook requests reach Textbook Services and budgeting and paying for items within the departments.

These tasks are also added on top of other regular office duties, such as making copies and printing papers, assisting people within the department, receiving and making calls and scheduling appointments.

The clerical workers, represented by AFSCME Local 2887, have been in negotiations since June 2022. Like other unions on campus, they have struggled to reach any conclusions with the university.

The clerical staff is also pre- dominantly women, with around 92 percent of the staff identifying as such.

Amy Bodenstab, an office manager in the Department of Teaching and Learning as well as vice-president of AFSCME Local 2887, is one of the 200 clerical workers on campus dealing with the slow negotiations.

“One of the things that is important to us is the fact that we don’t get the respect we deserve for the work that we do,” Bodenstab said. “For the most part, our benefits are half — sometimes less than half — than other people on campus.”

Bereavement is one of the benefits that workers get on campus. However, clerical workers are only allotted four days of bereavement, while others get 10 with the option to ask more.

This affected Bodenstab personally when her son died in an out-of-state traffic accident a little over a year ago.

“It took us over a week to get him back,” Bodenstab said.

“I have four days of bereavement leave in my contract, but if I were faculty I would have had 10. I had a good boss, and all the people in the union were on it, so I didn’t suffer too much, because I had vacation leave and sick days, but it shouldn’t have been a concern I had to deal with in the first place.”

When Bodenstab brought this up to the negotiation table, the answer wasn’t what she had hoped.

“While they gave it a moment to be respectful, the answer was still no,” Bodenstab said.

The death of Bodenstab’s son eventually led to her taking on a third job to make ends meet. With the added expenses of his death, she also no longer had someone to help fix her car instead of taking it to a mechanic or buy food for his multiple dogs.

“Not only am I dealing with the trauma and grief that comes along with it, I’m also dealing with the concept that my job doesn’t think that me as a person is as worthy of the same care that a faculty member is,”

Bodenstab said.

Bodenstab said that if she were to quit at SIUE, she could find a job that paid double for all the work responsibilities she and most of the other clerical staff on campus have to do each day.

Jim Gillentine, a financial aid advisor and member of AFSCME 2887, is also working two jobs to afford necessities.

While Gillentine’s position in the financial aid office isn’t as rough as others, due to them being properly staffed while in the downtime of the summer semester, the pay still isn’t enough to live on.

“I’ve been working two jobs for a couple of reasons,” Gillentine said. “One is my salary level [at SIUE], but my wife is in school also, so I’ve had to work two jobs for the last five years to make ends meet and pay the bills.”

Gillentine wishes that the university was more forthcoming. A particular example he gave was how SIU Carbondale’s workers were able to get a two per- cent raise each year for the past couple of years.

“We’re a part of the same system,” Gillentine said. “It’s unfair that we at SIUE are treated so poorly. If we’re all in the same school system, why can’t we all be treated equally?”

According to Bodenstab, the university has been represented by just two people in the negotiations. The two act as liaisons between the clerical staff and administration.

While finding another job may seem logical, for many it isn’t the right choice. The reason Bodenstab has stayed at the university is because she can’t stand leaving while others are still being treated poorly.

“This is an agreement I made with the members — that I would help fight for what is going on here,” Bodenstab said. “I assumed that coming here, I would receive an appropriate pay, which isn’t the case. But I look around and see that it’s not the case for anyone in clerical, and that’s not OK.”