The number of clerical workers at Western Illinois University has dropped drastically in less than a decade, and the number will soon drop more.
Clerical workers include office managers, library specialists and assistants, and retail supervisors.
“We have a lot of the front-facing people that you see when you come into any of the major areas on campus,” said Kels Ault, Senior Vice President for AFSCME Local 417 at WIU.
The union represents clerical workers at Western. It also represents building service workers, who clean buildings on campus.
Ault said the idea that there is shared sacrifice happening at Western rubs them the wrong way because so many highly-paid administrators remain.
“So, we’re going to have someone who’s making six-digit salaries sitting across the table from a single mother who is on food stamps trying to provide for her kids, and try to look her in the face and say this is a shared sacrifice,” Ault said.
“I do not see a shared sacrifice here. This is putting the brunt of poor decisions on the working-class people that support this university.”
AFSCME represented 193 clerical workers in 2016, when the first round of layoffs was announced. 31 clerical workers received layoff notices in May of that year, but most were brought back in August.
The number of employees was instead reduced through attrition and retirements.
In 2019, the bargaining unit represented 122 clerical workers. 35 received layoff notices. None were brought back.
Their numbers were further reduced through retirements and attrition. Nine more received layoff notices last week, which means 60 clerical workers will remain at WIU once the layoffs go into effect in three months.
Renee Nestler, Staff Representative for AFSCME Council 31, said the layoffs are sad, disappointing, and hard on everyone who received a notice.
“It also impacts the colleagues around them and the students and the community. It’s just a very sad time,” she said.
“We hope it’s the last (round of layoffs), but I don’t know that anyone can guarantee that at this point.”
No building service workers received layoff notices last week, but their numbers have also plummeted.
In 2016, AFSCME represented 134 such workers. That number was 87 before the second round of layoffs was announced in 2019, and it stands at 76 today.
“This bargaining unit has been drastically reduced over the years,” said Nestler.
Positions have been eliminated in some cases. In others, positions were combined or not filled through the years.
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