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“I think at this point we really feel like we all need to get back to work,” said union member Emily Kreitzer. “We don’t make enough money to save up for a strike like this.”
Kreitzer said she planned to vote against the offer, but said many of her colleagues would probably feel they had no other option financially but to take it.
Nearly 1,000 clerical and health care workers went on strike Sept. 5. They were to return to work beginning Saturday.
Union leaders said they were making no recommendation on how members should vote, but a statement on the end of the strike described the settlement as inadequate.
The union planned to get ballots to its members as soon as possible. They’ll vote either to accept the offer or reject it, which would restart the strike.
University President Robert Bruininks issued a statement saying the school looks forward to welcoming the strikers back. University spokesman Dan Wolter didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking further comment.
Money has been the biggest issue.
The union has said the university’s contract offer of a 2.25 percent annual raise for clerical and technical workers and a 2.5 percent raise for health care workers wasn’t enough.
The university counters that when combined with raises for experience, most AFSCME represented employees will receive raises of at least 8.5 percent for the contract’s two years.
AFSCME had been seeking salary increases of 3.25 and 3.5 percent, and complained that the university moved little during negotiations, only upping the offer of a yearly lump sum payment over the salary from $150 to $300.
Kreitzer said union members might choose to regroup and make an even more aggressive push for higher salary increases in the next round of contract negotiations in two years.
“Next time it’s going to be a bigger fight,” Kreitzer said. “All I can say right now is people are really angry, and they’re really insulted.”
For the most part, the strike didn’t appear to be a major disruption on campus during the first few weeks of the school’s fall term. A handful of professors did show solidarity with the strikers by holding their classes off campus, effecting an estimated 4,000 students out of more than 50,000 on campus.
Earlier this week, a group of 11 students began a hunger strike in support of the striking workers. They vowed to only drink water and juice, and not eat again until the university settled the contract dispute.
Strikers and their supporters also disrupted a Board of Regents meeting, which resulted in the meeting being cancelled and the arrest of five protesters.
