This message is from the professor at UIS mentioned in the recent letter from Dr. Stukel denying domestic partner benefits to U of Illinois employees.
From: "Langley, Pat" <Langley.Pat@uis.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 14:34:39 -0500
This letter is a response to President Stukel's letter to the University Senates Conference in which he asserts that "absent action by the Illinois legislature, the University cannot provide group insurance benefits to domestic partners." In the letter, Stukel asserts that a recent arbitration concerning "the denial of health care benefits to a domestic partner of a UIS faculty member" confirms "this result." (Stukel letter of March 18, 1998).
I am the faculty member who was denied health care benefits for my family and decided to pursue the matter through arbitration. I teach in women's studies and legal studies and currently serve as vice-chair of the UIS Senate. I am a lawyer and have been active in the SSU/UIS faculty union for over a decade. In the dispute, I asserted the sexual orientation and marital status clauses of Article 4, "Nondiscrimination" of the 1993-997 Collective Bargaining Agreement required the Board of Regents and later the University of Illinois to provide me the same kind of health benefits for my family that it provides its married heterosexual employees. A few weeks ago the arbitrator ruled against me. In the Matter of Arbitration between University Professionals of Illinois AFT-IFT Local 4100 (UPI) and University of Illinois at Springfield (Formerly know as Sangamon State University), AAA No. 51-390-00082-92 (March 5, 1998). All quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are from that decision.
I approach any pronouncements from the University on the non-discrimination statement with weariness and suspicion. I have beenattempting to obtain health insurance benefits for my family since 1991, first with the Board of Regents and since the merger, with the University of Illinois. I naively thought that with because of its non-discrimination statement, the University might treat me differently than the retrograde Board of Regents. But once it took over, it has consistently opposed giving benefits at every step, including spending more in legal and arbitration fees than the cost of the disputed injury.
When I offered last spring to forego all damages and simply settle for a prospective change in policy,the University would not agree.
Meanwhile, the University faculty have made their wishes well known. Groups of faculty and staff from the three campuses have attempted to prod the University to interpret the non-discrimination statement to actually mean what it says--non-discrimination in employment means equal compensation for equal work including insurance benefits. The three senates passed resolutions on domestic partner benefits three years ago. But rather than taking the pending arbitration as an opportunity to implement the will of the faculty, the University not only refused to settle but used the hearing to make every negative argument possible to gut the substantive meaning of non-discrimination. And they succeeded. Now we are told the University is powerless to provide group health care benefits, at least partly because of the arbitrator's decision. A plea for mercy from a murdering orphan.
But aside from the administration's sophistry, the description of the legal meaning of the arbitration is inaccurate. Stukel and University counsel conclude that under the State Employees Group Insurance Act (SEGIA), health benefits can only be provided to employees' "dependents," which are
defined to include an employee "spouse." Illinois law interprets the term 'spouse' to mean only a partner by legally recognized marriage, not an unmarried partner of the same or opposite sex. Further, Illinois law expressly prohibits same-sex marriage. The University is bound to observe these statutes.
...The arbitrator concluded the University is bound to comply with the statutes cited above, and therefore, the failure to provide such benefits did not violate the non-discrimination clause of the collective bargaining agreement. That provision, like the University's Non-Discrimination Statement, forbade discrimination on the basis of marital status or sexual orientation. (Stukel letter)
But the arbitration only decided the meaning of negotiated (and expired)
contractual language. I never asserted and the arbitrator did not rule on
whether the only way to provide equal compensation was to provide SEGIA
benefits under the collective bargaining agreement.
THE ISSUE OF THE CASE:
The only issue before the arbitrator, stipulated to by both parties, was "whether the University violated Article 4, the non-discrimination provision of the contract, by denying the Grievant, Professor Patricia Langley's, [sic] life partner health insurance benefits coverage due to Professor Langley's marital status and/or sexual orientation?" (p. 23, emphasis added. ) No other issue was argued or decided .
THE RULING OF THE CASE:
"The University did not violate Article 4, the non-discrimination provision of the contract, by denying the Grievant, Professor Patricia Langley's same sex life partner health insurance benefits coverage due to Professor Langley's marital status and/or sexual orientation. " (p. 26, emphasis added.)
THE RATIONALE OF THE CASE:
The stated rationale was that the union failed its burden "to show clear intent for such coverage," and that "without any meetings of the minds as to the meaning of the language in Article 4 [of the Collective Bargaining Agreement], there is no contractual support for the coverage of health insurance benefits for domestic life partners." (p. 26, emphasis added.)
NON-ISSUES IN THE CASE:
1. The arbitrator DID NOT RULE on or mention the Non-Discrimination Statement of the University. The decision has no legal bearing on it.
(Query: Had I prevailed, would the University view the decision as binding precedent on the meaning of the non-discrimination statement and various state statutes?)
2. The arbitrator DID NOT RULE on whether the University of Illinois is bound to restrict group insurance benefits to dependents to those defined under SEGIA and offered by CMS.
Nothing in the decision supports Stukel's assertion that ''the arbitrator concluded the University is bound to comply with the statutes cited above." (Stukel letter). The arbitrator did cite a B.O.R. regulation on benefits which made reference to SEGIA and concluded that when "read in light of" another provision of the Collective Bargaining Agreement requiring that all B.O.R. policies "continue in full force and effect for the life of this Agreement," this B.O.R. regulation "suggests that the University is bound to maintain the status quo." (p. 28). The meaning here is unambiguous: what binds the University is the B.O.R. regulation and Collective Bargaining Agreement--not Illinois law. And both the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the B.O.R. have expired.
The arbitrator also cited SEGIA when it discussed the University's argument that the definition of dependent as spouse or child required the denial of benefits. Likewise, in responding to the University's argument that it cannot grant benefits to employees who are in relationships expressly excluded from recognition by public policy such as same sex marriages, the arbitrator noted that "neither federal nor Illinois state law recognize same sex marriages...as being legally recognized marriages." (p. 29). But the arbitrator DID NOT RULE on these matters or their implications for the University's non-discrimination policy.
The assertion that the "arbitrator concluded the University is bound to comply with the statutes...cited above" is not credible. Senate's Conference should demand that the University not quote out of context and cite specific language from the decision which supports its conclusion.
3. The arbitrator DID NOT RULE on whether the University of Illinois can find alternative methods (such as offering supplemental insurance or cash stipends (like the University of Minnesota) or becoming self-insured) to compensate its employees for health costs which are not reimbursed under SEGIA.
A CASE NOT MENTIONED:
Stukel does not mention a prior arbitration decision more to the point: whether SEGIA forbids supplemental benefits to those provided by the act. In a separate 1993 arbitration between the SSU union and the Board of Regents, SSU/BOR administration explicitly argued that because of the state insurance law, they had no power to offer benefits, including supplemental, to the domestic partner of a faculty employee. The arbitrator concluded that " ...[n]othing in the Insurance Act or the Regencies Universities Act ... prohibits the University [SSU] from supplementing the State of Illinois Dependent Health Insurance Program or from compensating an employee for additional expenses in insuring dependents outside of that program. " The University is well aware of this decision as the it entered it into the record of the most recent arbitration as Joint Exhibit No. 3. (p.13, emphasis added).
The administration asserts that non-discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status means that it may--no, actually must--offer faculty in same and opposite-sex domestic partners relationships less total compensation than they provide to married heterosexual faculty who insure their dependents. This reading is over broad and without merit: nothing in the arbitration decision requires this. The meaning of Stukel's letter is clear: the University's non-discrimination statement has no substance. Can you imagine the University making the same argument on the basis of race, gender, age or disability, even if state and federal law didn't outlaw such discrimination?
The effects of this discrimination are not insubstantial. For a dependent with chronic or serious medical problems, insurance is nearly impossible to obtain, let alone afford, in the private market. For a relatively healthy adult dependent, a conservative estimate of the cost to replicate our health benefits runs between $3000 to $6000 a year. Over a decade, assuming stable costs, the University provides me and others like me with $30, 000 to $60,000 less in benefits for my work than they provide my married heterosexual colleague.
Perhaps I'm too weary from trying to understand the University's arguments: that this is not really discrimination; that even if it were, the non-discrimination statement doesn't cover it; and that even if the statement covers it, the University is powerless to enforce it without legislative action. Could someone please help this apparently feeble-minded faculty understand how this is non-discrimination in employment?
The Human Rights Campaign lists over 75 colleges and universities .in the United States that have managed to provide domestic partner benefits, including the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Harvard, Yale, SUNY, Duke, Princeton, Stanford and the entire University of California system. Surely the administration of the University of Illinois can find a way to make it happen if it so desires.
Pat Langley, J.D.
Professor, Women's Studies and Legal Studies
University of Illinois at Springfield
217-786-7423
langley@uis.edu
Some Helpful Web Sites
http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplac/dp/dplist.html
(national; updated 3-31-98)
http://www.execpc.com/~dross/pol/
(colleges/universities in midwest)
http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/pages/issues/
http://www.glweb.com/RainbowQuery/Categories/Domestic_Partnership.html
(a comprehensive list of other sites)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/dtw/www/companies.html
http://www.daily.umn.edu/~online/daily/1996/10/23/news/benefi/index.html
(Re University of Minnesota plan which provides stipend for insurance)