As AFSCME Local 11-10 is going in to their third week of strike, people like State Senator Dave Koehler and State Rep. Sharon Chung came from Springfield to support. “This is putting pressure on us as legislators as well because we’re trying to fight for the university and our colleagues are all asking us what’s going with the strike at ISU,” said Sen. Dave Koehler. “So I said this is putting a lot of heat on us, we would like to do our job of just trying to get more money for the university.”
Union members waited outside of ISU President Tarhule’s office to deliver the petition with many more members waiting outside the building. The petition asks President Tarhule and the board of trustees to try to negotiate and settle a fair contract with fair pay for all of the AFSCME workers at ISU. “We came out here today to deliver our petition, that we’ve had over 6,000 signatures on, to show the support of the community,” said Drew Durbin, ISU culinary assistant. “All of the students…the faculty…random community members, the local businesses, and everybody has been absolutely amazing. They’ve been just a massive outpouring of support for all of us.” President Tarhule has so far only agreed to meet with the legislators.