'Unprecedented' LIU Lockout Ends; Teachers Plan to Return to Class Thursday

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — The Long Island University Faculty Federation (LIUFF) announced late Wednesday night that an agreement with the school's administration had been reached, and that the school's "unprecedented" lockout of 400 faculty members would come to an end Thursday.

LIU administrators will be extending faculty members' previous contracts until May 2017, and will reimburse them for healthcare costs incurred during their 12 days of unemployment, the LIUFF said.

Four hundred full-time and part-time professors have been barred from stepping foot on the Fort Greene campus for nearly two weeks, since the start of the fall semester. Their pay and health insurance have been suspended during that time.

The LIU-Brooklyn faculty continues to seek pay parity with the satellite campus, LIU-Post, located in Brookdale, NY — where faculty pay is higher and the cost of living is lower than in Brooklyn.

A mediator will help negotiate a new contract between LIU faculty and school administrators, according to the LIUFF.

In an agreement nearly identical to the one previously denied by LIU's administration, the expired contract will once again take effect during the negotiations.

Below is a copy of the letter posted Wednesday evening on the LIUFF website.

Dear LIUFF Colleagues,

We have won a victory. The administration will end their unprecedented lockout effective 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, September 14. We will be reunited with our students and can resume our professional lives. Our collective bargaining agreement is extended until May 31, 2017, and the administration agreed to our condition that we engage a professional mediator to facilitate a fair contract. This timeframe gives us the opportunity to negotiate in good faith while preserving LIU Brooklyn.

The LIU administration will make the faculty whole for health care costs incurred during the lockout period. The union’s unfair labor practice complaints relating to the lockout and our arbitration on pay parity remain active and will be vigorously pursued.

You should plan to meet with your classes starting tomorrow. There may be some remaining issues relating to classes that were cancelled or combined during the lockout; we expect them to be resolved by department chairs and deans and in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement. It is important that you alert your chair and the LIUFF to any such issues so that they can be resolved right away.

We are holding a general membership meeting tomorrow at noon; room is to be announced. The negotiating team will be joined by our counsel, Louie Nikolaidis, AFT counsel, Mark Richard, and our NYSUT representative, Kevin Pollitt to answer questions about implications of the lockout and next steps to continue our struggle. Please make every effort to attend.

In Solidarity,

Jessica Rosenberg, President
Mohammed Ghriga, Treasurer
Ed Keane, Executive Committee Member
Michael Pelias, Executive Committee Member
Melissa Antinori, Grievance Chair

LIU students took to social media Wednesday night to express excitement over their professors' impending return to campus.

Lead photo by Aaron Simon