From the entry staircase of Altgeld Hall on Tuesday, a group of union workers seeking higher wages was told Northern Illinois University president Lisa Freeman was unavailable to speak with them.
While a campus tour group passed by below, two NIU officials, Bryan Perry and John Acardo, told Rave Meyer, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1890, at 10:20 a.m. Tuesday, that Freeman was in a private meeting and wasn’t available to personally accept their letter.
Amid ongoing contract bargaining negotiations, clerical, technical and administrative professionals at NIU who are represented by the union have been working on an expired contract since July 1. Workers with AFSCME Local 1890 wanted to give Freeman a letter inviting her to attend their next bargaining session at 11 a.m. in the Holmes Student Center on Thursday.
Minutes before their march to Freeman’s office was scheduled to begin, Meyer said she received an email from Acardo, which said that he had been instructed to accept their letter on Freeman’s behalf.
“It absolutely states that we do not matter; it means that they have absolutely no respect for us,” Meyer, an office manager in the environmental studies department, said. “Our workers are here because they love NIU.”
The union has been calling for higher wages since at least June, when members crowded into an NIU Board of Trustees meeting to make a public plea.
Northern Illinois University workers Sara Finnigan, Rave Meyer, Rick Surber, Ginna Garcia, Felicia Owens Virginia Naples, Jason Derrington, Lorri Marshall and others march through campus on Sept, 16, 2025, to push for higher wages. (Camden Lazenby)
Instead of handing off the letter to Acardo, who is NIU’s senior associate vice president and chief human resource officer, Meyer and others decided to wait until Freeman was out of the meeting.
After about a 40-minute stakeout, Freeman descended the stairs and briefly met with the remaining union workers. She said she didn’t have much flexibility in her schedule on Tuesday, necessitating their wait, but stressed that she takes their interests seriously.
“The university is and remains committed to achieving an agreement that is reasonable, responsible and equitable,” Freeman said before ascending the stairs.
In a university statement regarding the exchange provided by spokesperson Jami Kunzer, officials wrote that AFSCME Local 1890 has rejected multiple contract proposals from the university.
But Meyer said those proposals were effectively a pay cut for union workers, however.
“Additionally, the university has requested since July to meet more frequently and for greater lengths of time to help expedite progress,” NIU officials wrote. “The union has declined the requests, instead choosing to keep negotiation sessions to every three weeks and creating photo opportunities for the media.”
Although Freeman was invited to the next bargaining session, Kunzer said Freeman does not participate in bargaining sessions with unions.
Before the march and 40-minute wait, Meyer said she is seeking a 3 or 4% annual raise as part of a new employment bargaining agreement with NIU. She also said some union workers make as little as $16 an hour, close to what student workers are paid for wages.
Sara Finnigan, a program coordinator who has worked at NIU since she was a student employee in 2012, said their local union was created to ensure they could get a 3% annual wage increase.
“The union has been able to fight for more than 3% but at the same time, the university, in this particular bargaining session, they want to offer us 2% raises a year,” Finnigan said. “That’s just unacceptable because it doesn’t even keep up with inflation.”
In their chants across campus, union marchers yelled for fair wages and respect, and said they want it now. One of those participating was biological sciences professor Virginia Naples, the first president of the United Faculty Alliance at NIU. She said she couldn’t function in her job without the support of her clerical, technical and administrative colleagues.
She also criticized the way the university has been run.
“[Northern Illinois University] has been grossly mismanaged,” Naples said.
Events administrator Nicole Adams – who said she began NIU’s public administration master’s degree program after she was inspired by Freeman for being the first woman to become NIU president – said the university’s behavior reminds her of national politics.
“I’m Hispanic and out in our country right now, I already feel like a second-class citizen,” Adams said. “I come to my work to be safe and feel equal.”
Meyer said union workers have begun considering more drastic steps to advocate for themselves.
“There have been a few members who have bandied the word strike around,” Meyer said. “We are not there yet, only because we want to give NIU a few more chances to come to the table with adequate offers.”