Category: Bargaining News

Dear Colleagues,

We need to hear from you!

As you know, we have been in the process of bargaining with the administration over post-tenure review. The administration is implementing a policy that will end tenure as we know it at FSU. Though President McCullough told us in his “State of the University” address on 29 November that, “we’ve worked really hard… at trying to make sure that post-tenure review looks very similar to our 7-year reviews” and that very little will actually change, we see it differently. As the administration is insisting on including termination in the policy, post-tenure review will mean the end of tenure. In fact, the administration’s proposal is giving chairs, deans, and the provost arbitrary authority to decide over whether you can keep your tenure. We need you to respond and tell us what you think (if you’ve got a comment or suggestion, our emails can be found at the end of this message).

The most essential thing you can do is join us. The UFF is alone in defending tenure and the protections it brings with it — most importantly, academic freedom — in the face of enormous political attacks. While the UFF is involved in multiple litigations to protect your rights, the administration does not have your backs. If the union is decertified, tenure most likely will disappear with it.

We are currently within spitting distance of achieving the 60% membership that we need to stay certified. If you join today, you may be the hero who pushes us over the line.

Major disagreements still exist:

The BOT team refuses to accept language that promises any boost to base salary. This is alarming. They have agreed to a “monetary” award, but, under their proposal, that could be a small one-time bonus, and whether the award is a bonus or a boost to base salary could fluctuate from year to year. Though the president said that post-tenure review would be “a reward system for our faculty who are doing a great job,” if they get their way on this you might only get the raise you deserve if you happen to be reviewed in a year when the administration decides magnanimously to allot money for post-tenure raises, regardless of how successful you have been.

The BOT did not accept the language in our proposal that asserts:

·      The dean or Provost shall not assign the faculty member a rating that is inconsistent with the last five years of annual evaluations.

This surprised us. Throughout the process, the BOT team has been assuring us that there would be no surprises. But their resistance to this language suggests that the administration wants more flexibility in order to overturn past annual evaluations conducted by faculty evaluation committees and chairs and possibly terminate you.

The other disagreements that we’ve been having since the start persist: they insist that post-tenure review could lead to termination for not following “applicable regulations and laws” even though we know how confusing, vague, incoherent, and at times contradictory recent legislation on higher education has been, and most of us are not qualified to interpret these laws, particularly on-the-fly in the classroom.

They also insist that discipline should be folded into post-tenure review when investigatory findings have been substantiated, meaning that you could find yourself having to face further consequences for a disciplinary case that has been closed.

They are demanding that SPCI teaching evaluations be included, even though the contract language says that SPCIs alone are not sufficient to evaluate teaching. They tried to justify this by claiming that we have a one-page summary of accomplishments where we can justify anything that looks like a problem in the SPCIs. Those of you who have already prepared and submitted your post-tenure review: had you even considered that you were supposed to include explanations of your teaching evaluations in your list of accomplishments? We certainly hadn’t, and we don’t know of any departments that advised faculty to write about SPCI ratings in their one-page summary. 

Most mind-boggingly, the BOT team is insisting that the 5-year post-tenure review should encompass six years, some of them pre-tenure. On the one hand, they tell us they need to abide by what the BOG regulation tells them, but expanding the window of assessment willy-nilly goes far afield even of the BOG’s overreach.

We believe that post-tenure review is redundant: we are reviewed every year for our accomplishments, and the administration already has plenty of tools for disciplining wrongdoing. All that post-tenure review will do is to allow the administration a second chance to go after you in an evaluation procedure that might not have anything to do with the annual review process, its outcomes, or your accomplishments.

We believe that the materials and process should be as clear as possible to the faculty member and the outcome should not differ from the last five years of annual evaluations. The BOT team’s reason for not accepting our offer is that the Board of Governors regulations do not allow them to. We continue to maintain that the BOG is not party to this negotiation and cannot dictate contract provisions by fiat. That position is being tested in a current case before the Public Employees Relation Commission (PERC).

The next round of negotiations is not scheduled yet, but we are already preparing our next proposal. We would really like some advice from you about how to proceed. Please feel free to respond to this message, and we encourage you to attend bargaining sessions if you can.

In the meantime, if you are not already a UFF member in good standing (paying dues via eDues or by check), we hope you’ll join or rejoin our faculty union and help protect the very existence of our contract. If we don’t reach 60% membership density by January 26, we simply won’t have a contract to defend. Please join now. It only takes a minute. Here’s the link: https://uff-fsu.org/get-involved/join/  

Robin Goodman ([email protected]), UFF-FSU Bargaining Team Member, on behalf of 

Scott Hannahs, Specialized Faculty ([email protected]), and Jennifer Proffitt, Professor ([email protected]), Bargaining Team Co-Chairs 

The Board of Trustees (BOT) and UFF faculty (UFF) bargaining teams met Wednesday (12/6) to continue their negotiations on Post-Tenure Review (PTR). 

Major differences still exist around some issues, including, most importantly: 1) the UFF believes that discipline should be implemented at the time of the offense and be done, so a faculty member should only be punished for that offense once; the BOT thinks past discipline should be reconsidered along with faculty members’ five-year performance review, perhaps leading to different results; 2) the UFF believes that the rating of “Unsatisfactory” should not be included because it leads to termination and therefore upends tenure at FSU; 3) the UFF believes that faculty members should not be surprised by the outcomes of these reviews, while the BOT team wants to let the chair arbitrarily decide (perhaps differentially for different faculty members) what evidentiary materials should be considered.

Though this is a tough road, we believe that if we weren’t working to defend your rights as faculty, nobody else would. The administration has advised us to stay the course and that nobody will be fired for what they teach. Nevertheless, the administration has not said it would defend individual faculty members in the face of complaints, mob protests, or political attacks – only the union has.

The session started with a new proposal from UFF designed to make the PTR more faculty friendly. A summary of our new offer is presented here: 

1. We included “calendar” year in the definition of Review Period — 5 calendar years. We believe that faculty deserve to have no ambiguity about the Review Period.
2. We excluded the department chairs from the definition of Administrative Role to let chairs be eligible for a PTR-based monetary raise. If a chair does not want to go up for review, they can apply for a postponement.
3. We reinserted that the evidence of performance must include the past 5 years of annual review along with Assignments of Responsibilities, which the BOT team had taken out at our prior meeting. We wanted to ensure that faculty would not be surprised at their ratings, whereas the BOT team had erased any guardrails to what would be considered, making the selection of materials arbitrary.
4. For the evidence of “unsatisfactory” rating, which in the BOT’s version results in firing faculty, we added “evidence of gross incompetence” and referred to the Discipline Article (Article 16), which specifies procedures for progressive discipline.
5. Past disciplinary offenses and actions would not be considered (no double jeopardy). This remains one of the subjects of disagreement between the two teams.
6. We added that the Provost’s notification to faculty of the rating, justification, and outcomes of their review shall be in writing.
7. We added back the language on the consistency of the PTR ratings with the past five years’ annual evaluations.
8. Ratings of Exceeds Expectations or Meets Expectations would result in a 12% raise. We believe that the faculty deserve to know what monetary reward is awaiting them.
9. In the outcome for “Does not meet expectations”, we included a reference to the CBA, which lays out a process for implementing a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).
10. We included the same appeal process as in our previous offer, which includes an outside arbitrator for represented faculty if permitted by law.

After a caucus, the BOT team offered a counter-proposal including the following: 

• They struck down the calendar year from the definition of PTR period. However, they added start and end dates for the PTR material, e.g., SPCI reports from Fall 2018 to Summer 2023.
• Chairs would be exempt from the PTR process and any associated monetary reward. However, they added language that chairs shall be reviewed annually per BOG regulations in a still unspecified process.
• Monetary rewards would be left unspecified. However, they added language
• saying that the amounts shall be negotiated in the next regular bargaining reopener as well as whether the reward will be a bonus or an increase to base.
• They accepted the addition of a new section, “Criteria for determining performance rating scale”. However, they replaced “Evidence” with “Examples of evidence” and “shall” with “may”, e.g., “Examples of evidence to support the rating may include…” replaced our “Evidence to support the rating shall include…” This leaves the chair’s decision of what to include and exclude for consideration in their review utterly arbitrary.
• The BOT team stuck down the “gross incompetence” in the “unsatisfactory” rating and added back their language, which includes “disregard or failure to follow previous advice”.
• Chairs and equivalent would consider annual evaluations and past disciplinary offenses in their letters assessing performance.
• The reference to the CBA on Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is removed because this reference is for specialized faculty and PTR is for tenured faculty.
• A rating of “Unsatisfactory” would result in a Provost recommendation of termination. We believe this changes tenure and conflicts with the contract’s definition of tenure as permanent employment except when it comes to resignation, retirement, layoff, or dismissal for just cause.

The next round of negotiations is not scheduled yet and is expected to happen in January. 

In the meantime, if you are not already a UFF member in good standing (paying dues via eDues or a check), we hope you’ll join or rejoin our faculty union and help protect the very existence of our contract. If we don’t reach 60% membership density, we simply won’t have a contract to defend and we won’t be able to bargain with the administration over post-tenure review, raises, or anything else. Please join now. It only takes a minute. Here’s the link: https://uff-fsu.org/get-involved/join/  

Arash Fahim, UFF-FSU Bargaining Team Member, on behalf of 

Scott Hannahs, Specialized Faculty, and Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Bargaining Team Co-Chairs 

The bargaining team regularly writes you with bargaining updates.  This email is different.

Unless more faculty members join, our union could be decertified early in the new year.

We have years of experience negotiating the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and we know what is in store for faculty if the union is decertified and the CBA is dead.  We know because the FSU Board of Trustees fights for the same wish list year after year:  They seek to shorten the length of contracts for Specialized Faculty, and every year we put the kibosh on it. They seek to shuffle a high proportion of salary increase dollars into a pot solely administered by deans, and every year we redirect much of it to all faculty or to faculty whose peers evaluated their merit.  

Those almost-guaranteed changes are the tip of the iceberg. 

The CBA comprises 31 articles and 11 appendices that the UFF and the Board of Trustees (BOT) have agreed to, and all of them will disappear.  In their place, the Governor-appointed BOT will unilaterally determine promotion criteria, the rank order of faculty in a layoff, grievance rights, the content allowable in performance evaluation folders, the extent of academic freedom, and a couple dozen other policies, procedures, and rights.   

We are your bargaining team, holding decades of experience in negotiations, and we know what the future without a faculty voice would look like.  Don’t let it happen. We need 80 more faculty members to join and the 95 former members who missed the eDues deadline to re-join our union.

Join now.  Here’s the link to join or re-join: Tomorrow is too late. 

All the best,

Your UFF-FSU Bargaining Team

Brian Arsenault

Michael Buchler

Arash Fahim

Jack Fiorito

Robin Goodman

Scott Hannahs

Matthew Lata

Jennifer Proffitt

Dear FSU Colleagues:

The Board of Trustees (BOT) and UFF faculty (UFF) bargaining teams met Wednesday (11/8) to continue their negotiations on Post-Tenure Review (PTR).  The session started with a new proposal from UFF designed to make the PTR more faculty friendly, including the following:

1. The Collective Bargaining Agreement’s (CBA) definition of tenure (CBA Article 15.1) as “permanent… guaranteed employment” except for cases of retirement, resignation, or termination for just cause was cited early in the proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)
2. Department chairs would be reviewed and eligible for a PTR-based raise, or could request PTR postponement
3. Three ratings would be possible: “Exceeds Expectations,” “Meets Expectations,” “Does Not Meet Expectations,” with each referencing criteria including annual evaluations, department/unit bylaws, and assignments of responsibility. A “Does Not Meet Expectations” rating would trigger a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).
4. Past disciplinary offenses and actions would not be considered (no double jeopardy)
5. Faculty committee input would be required in Chairs’ letters assessing performance
6. Ratings of Exceeds Expectations or Meets Expectations would result in a 12% raise
7. PTR ratings could not be inconsistent with the past five years’ annual evaluations
8. The Provost would provide written justification for his/her ratings
9. Rating outcomes and processes could be appealed, with resort to arbitration possible for represented faculty if permitted by law.
10. Field of study and exercise of academic freedom were added to the list of activities protected in the PTR process

After a caucus, the BOT team offered a counter-proposal including the following:

• Chairs would be exempt from the PTR process and any associated monetary reward
• Monetary rewards would be left unspecified
• Four ratings would be possible, including those above, plus “Unsatisfactory,” with the criteria for each undefined
• Chairs and equivalent would consider annual evaluations and past disciplinary offenses in their letters assessing performance
• A rating of “Unsatisfactory” would result in a Provost recommendation of termination
• UFF proposals #5, #8, #9, and #10 above were accepted in part or entirely

In sum, there was some progress, but there is more work needed.  Negotiations are scheduled to resume in early December.

In the meantime, if you are not already a UFF member in good standing (paying dues via eDues), we hope you’ll join or rejoin our faculty union and help protect the very existence of our contract. If we don’t reach 60% membership density, we simply won’t have a contract to defend.  Please join now. It only takes a minute. Here’s the link: https://uff-fsu.org/get-involved/join/  

Jack Fiorito, UFF-FSU Vice President and Bargaining Team Member, on behalf of

Scott Hannahs, Specialized Faculty, and Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Bargaining Team Co-Chairs

Dear FSU Colleagues,

The UFF and BOT teams met Wednesday, October 25^th, to discuss the latest BOT counter-offer on the memorandum of agreement (MOA) about the Post-Tenure Review (PTR) process. The UFF-FSU team started the meeting by clarifying that both teams agree on the importance of tenure for academic freedom and for the reputation of the university. The UFF-FSU bargaining team then asked questions to clarify some parts of the counter-offer, especially the changes proposed by the UFF-FSU bargaining team which were struck by the BOT team.  Discussion involved the following questions and concerns.

• Why did the BOT team exclude the in-unit tenured chairs from the PTR process, given that they can request for postponement as long as they are chairs and even thereafter? The main reason they provided was that the Board of Governors’ (BOG) regulation considered chairs and unit directors as administration and excluded them from the process.
• Why did the BOT team strike “calendar year” in defining the review period? Our team included calendar year in our last counter-offer because annual evaluations are performed on calendar years. The BOT team stated that the academic year is more consistent with BOG regulations. We note that if PTR is done on Spring 2024, neither calendar year nor academic year will consider the last five years of faculty who were granted tenure in the Fall of 2019. The calendar year includes Spring 2019, which is before they started their tenure and the academic year falls short one semester. The BOT team answered that they could not add “calendar” year because of the BOG regulation and said that they would be using some material from the academic year and some from the calendar year without prior specification.
• We asked the BOT team to define the “average performance of faculty member within the unit and discipline.” We pointed out that this is not a well-defined concept and might lead to arbitrary decisions. Also, being below average can mean many faculty members (say, half) do not meet expectations. The BOT team argued that this is the language of the BOG regulations and they have no authority to change it. They added that the term “average” in the BOG regulation is a holistic concept and does not need to be defined rigorously as the UFF-FSU team requests.
• The UFF-FSU faculty team raised concern about double jeopardy in the PTR process regarding disciplinary actions. We argue that if a faculty member is disciplined for an action in the past, the faculty member is not supposed to be disciplined again for the same action during the PTR, especially if the PTR leads to termination of the faculty member and weakens tenure. The BOT asserted that any disciplinary action must be a part of evaluation and that it is a widespread practice. However, they didn’t provide any reference to an institution in which this practice happens or any research that would show that such practices are widespread. They also promised that a faculty member who is disciplined but not terminated will never be terminated on the basis of past discipline, but they would not agree to include that language in the MOA. Part of the BOT’s reason for insisting on using past discipline to give faculty members an “Unsatisfactory” rating that could lead to termination was that the BOG regulation said so. We are in disagreement about whether or not the BOG has the authority to dictate these terms and conditions of employment when the BOG is not a party to the contract.
• The BOT team rejected this language that we proposed: “The dean or Provost shall not grant the faculty member a rating that contradicts the last five years of annual evaluations to the point that a reasonable person would be surprised by the outcome.” Their main argument is that anybody can claim to be reasonable but may judge “surprise” differently. Our belief is that our proposed language provides guardrails so that there are no surprises in the PTR and the outcomes are consistent with the last five evaluations of the faculty member. Using a “reasonable person” standard is common practice in the law, though they claimed that a court wouldn’t know what to do with such a standard.
• Why did the BOT team strike the requirement for “written justification” for the Provost’s PTR rating? The BOT team did not answer directly, but stated that justification would be in a letter to the faculty member as it is required by BOG regulations. They also argued that because the number of faculty included in PTR is high, this practice is impractical. However, they agree that there should be feedback to some faculty members, but not all.
• While arbitration is banned by Florida Statute Sec. 1001.741(2) on decisions relating to PTR, we included language stating that if this law is invalidated—it is being challenged, an arbitrator should be allowed to set aside an adverse PTR decision if s/he feels the decision is unfair, despite CBA language giving considerable deference to administrator judgment. We argued that this is not an ordinary evaluation, with loss of tenure a possibility.   

All the best,

Arash Fahim, Bargaining Team Member, on behalf of

Scott Hannahs, Specialized Faculty, Magnet Lab, and Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Communication

Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU