Total Credits: 1.25 Illinois
This panel will review highlights of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board’s decisions from the previous year.
Nicholas Christen is the General Counsel and Director of Field and Organizing at the Illinois Federation of Teachers. He advises leaders and staff on issues affecting the 100,000+ members of the union, including collective bargaining, organizing, discipline, discrimination, organizing, healthcare, and retirement. Nicholas has successfully advocated before private and public sector labor boards, resolved difficult legislative and administrative roadblocks impacting workers’ rights, led negotiations for units large and small in high-stakes negotiations, and advocated for union members from the shop floor to the Court of Appeals. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Miami University and his J.D. from Salmon P. Chase College of Law.
Melissa Mlynski is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), a position she has held since December of 2016. In this role she oversees all aspects of Human Resources for UIS, including Labor and Employee Relations. She has served as the lead negotiator for the university during bargaining with the union that represents tenured/tenure track faculty as well as negotiating other union contracts on behalf of the university. For ten years, she served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UIS teaching graduate courses in labor and administrative law. Previously, Ms. Mlynski was the Executive Director of the Illinois Labor Relations Board from June of 2012 through December of 2016. She has extensive experience representing public employers in collective bargaining, labor arbitrations and cases before the Illinois Labor Relations Board, including more than 10 years as labor relations counsel for the Department of Central Management Services. Ms. Mlynski also worked in private practice representing public employers in labor and employment law matters. Ms. Mlynski received her B.A. in English from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and her J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law.
Ellen Maureen Strizak is the General Counsel of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. She began working for the Illinois Educational Labor Relations as a Board Writer in 2002. Ms. Strizak was Staff Counsel for the Illinois Labor Relations Board from 2006 until 2010. She returned to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in 2010 as Associate General Counsel and became General Counsel in 2019. Ms. Strizak received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Iowa and her J.D. from the John Marshall Law School. Prior to law school, Ms. Strizak organized tenants as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in Austin, Texas.