About 100 Picket at Ithaca College Entrance on Monday Morning

Ithaca College’s Contingent Faculty Union and the Tompkins County Workers Center joined forces to set up a protest at the entrance to the Ithaca College campus this morning, and organizers say about 100 were on hand showing support for IC’s contingent faculty.

“It went fabulously at IC today,” Pete Meyers of TCWC told us this afternoon. “I was hoping/praying for 15-25 people based on late notice, but [there were] 100!”

“It’s very important that we ramp up pressure right now on Ithaca College to treat its contingent faculty fairly,” said Meyers in a statement over the weekend. College administrators and faculty representatives will meet for two federally mandated bargaining sessions this week. Last week, the contingent faculty union at Ithaca College voted to approve a strike if necessary.

Still at issue in the contract negotiations between SEIU Local 200 United and Ithaca College are job security for full-time lecturers and pay parity for part-time lecturers. A recent statement from Ithaca College says, “The Ithaca College bargaining team is disappointed that the contingent faculty unions have announced that they have voted to authorize a strike.” The statement adds, “There are bargaining sessions with a federal mediator set for February 21 and February 24. The college is eager to continue the negotiation process in these sessions to hopefully reach a final resolution. The bargaining team believes any strike activity prior to these sessions, or while meaningful progress is still being made, would be premature.”

Protest organizers say this week is “Accepted Students Week” at Ithaca College, and a strong showing on Monday morning would be a chance to make an impression on potential new students and their parents as they visit Ithaca and the campus.

Rachel Cera contributed to this report.

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