More than 1,000 faculty members at the University of Illinois at Chicago went on strike for the first time in the school's history Tuesday after recent negotiations failed to produce the school's first faculty labor contract, the Huffington Post reported.

After 18 months of trying to negotiate their first union contract, faculty at the university moved forward with a two-day strike, cancelling hundreds of classes at the Near West Side public institution, in an effort to engage the administration over an ongoing contract dispute "without creating a drawn-out disruption to the education of UIC's 27,500 students," the Huffington Post reported.

"The negotiations have been dragging on almost interminably," Joseph Persky, economics professor and president of the union, University of Illinois at Chicago's United Faculty Local 6456, told the Chicago Tribune. "I never thought we would get to the point where we had to strike to get a contract. It is time to deal with this."

Members of University of Illinois at Chicago's United Faculty Local 6456, a union which was created 18 months ago and has negotiated since then for separate contracts for tenured and non-tenured members, have not had a salary increase since the group formed, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Huffington Post reported that at the heart of this strike for a new contract is the minimum salary for non-tenured full-time faculty, some of whom are Ph.D. holders. About 70 employees in this category make less than $30,000 a year -  less than some fast food managers.

"We're looking to make them real active members of their departments, as opposed to being treated like academic gypsies," Persky told the Sun-Times.

Lon Kaufman, the university's provost, told Crain's Chicago Business that he doesn't think a strike is the best thing for the university.

"I would hope both sides going forward would bargain in good faith toward the completion of a contract," Kaufman said.

The s faculty union is asking for a 4.5 percent pay raise for 2014, while the university is offering 3.25 percent.

"We understand the state [of Illinois] has some financial difficulties, but the university is in fine financial shape, as testified by their Moody's bond ratings and by their auditor's reports," Persky said.