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BHC Employees Reject Contract Offer

After about a year of negotiations, a strike is possible at Black Hawk College. This week, members of the faculty, and professional and technical staff authorized their bargaining team to issue an intent to strike notice.

Spokesman Acie Earl says there are 160 members of Local 18-36 of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. And they overwhelmingly rejected Black Hawk's latest contract offer. So the union gave the college its ten-day notice.

"The intent to strike is a legal step that we have to abide by. We are hoping not to strike, but should things continue to break down, this provides us the mechanism to, in fact, have a strike."

The two sides began working on a new contract last March, and their three year contract officially expired in August.

Professor Earl says salaries are the main problem - union negotiators and the college have agreed on most other issues, including requiring employees to pay more for their health insurance. 

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.