Just what academia needs. More unions.

The Daily Chronicle reports.

Northern Illinois University workers forming union

A group of 645 Northern Illinois University workers have signed petitions to unionize.

The move follows what many in the group of clerical, paraprofessional, technical and administrative employees lament as years of working without pay increases.

The workers are organizing the new union under AFSCME, which represents 450 other NIU employees and as many as 5,000 state university workers. The petitions were filed Wednesday with the state labor board, which will certify them.

If NIU officials don’t object to the petitions, the new union could be set to start choosing its leadership and establishing its bargaining committee in the coming weeks.

Workers such as Jennifer Jeffries say they have not gotten pay increases in years. Jeffries started at NIU in 2011 making $10.78 an hour – just more than $21,000 a year – as an office support staffer. Three months ago, she moved into a new position where she now gets $15.68 an hour – $30,576 annually. Along the way, Jeffries said, she was denied merit raises and says she’s only at her current rate because she changed positions. Merit pay offers bumps in pay for doing a good job in your position.

“Forming ourselves as a union is at least an option to get us better pay,” Jeffries said. She also credits the unions for preserving her state pension. In May, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 pension overhaul calling the changes unconstitutional.