Category Archives: Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

Bargaining Update and Ratification Voting

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UFF faculty and Administration/BOT teams concluded negotiations for fiscal 2012-13 in late Ocotober, including an agreement on Specialized (NTT) Faculty Reclassifications. Ratification voting for faculty is tentatively scheduled for December 4-5th. Revisions to the current contract are fairly extensive, and we encourage faculty members to begin their review of the tentatively agreed changes as soon as possible. A summary of the changes is available at the following link:

http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/BargainingUpdateNov2012.pdf

The summary includes links to the tentatively agreed revisions. More information on ratification dates, time, and places, and on voting procedures will be forthcoming soon.

Faculty Senate Report on University Welfare

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Report on University Welfare for Faculty Senate, September 19th, 2012

By Professor Jack Fiorito, Senator and UFF-FSU President

Good afternoon!  In view of the late hour and that we have already had a report on collective bargaining from President Barron, I will try to be brief.

Collective Bargaining

As President Barron suggested, budget cuts and the political environment have made for a difficult bargaining environment.  Since last spring we have held consultations with President Barron and Provost Stokes twice and held weekly meetings with the Administration/Board of Trustees bargaining team.  Continue reading →

UFF/FSU Presidents Consultation

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DRAFT minutes from July 10th’s consultation with President Barron, Provost
Stokes, and other administration representatives are now posted at the UFF-FSU web site (www.uff-fsu.org). The URL is:

http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/Mins2012July10Consult-UFFdraft.pdf

Charts from the UFF May faculty poll comparing Specialized Faculty (NTTF) and Continue reading →

Report on University Welfare for Faculty Senate, February 22nd, 2012

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Ratification voting is underway.  If you are in the faculty bargaining unit and did not vote already, please do so on your way out today.

Aside from ratification, I would like to talk about reading assignments today.  I will try to be brief and give you more time for your reading.

One document I urge you to read is the summary of what we are voting about.  This summarizes everything we were able to resolve during roughly the past year of bargaining.  There were many other things that we discussed, some very important to the Senate.  Our bargaining co-chairs, Dr. Scott Hannahs of the Mag Lab and Dr. Irene Padavic of Sociology, prepared an excellent summary of the past year’s negotiations, including many of the issues that we are continuing to negotiate.  It is only two pages, and it is excellent reading on some critical issues.  Both documents are available at our web site and will pop up if you search there for “ratification.”

One key issue is the reclassification of specialized (non-tenure track) faculty.  As recognized in the 2006 Faculty Senate report on specialized faculty, this issue necessarily ties into FSU’s commitment to tenure.  Sec. 8.3 of our contract states “Commitment to developing and maintaining a tenured faculty.  The Board agrees that it is in the best interests of the University, the faculty, and the students to maximize the ratio of tenured and tenure-accruing E&G appointments to the number of non-tenure-accruing E&G appointments among those appointments including significant teaching responsibilities.  As Drs. Padavic and Hannahs report, however, “The chief … sticking point is the BOT team’s disinterest in any contract language that would follow through on the commitment of the FSU Constitution, the Faculty Senate, and the Collective Bargaining Agreement to preserve a tenured faculty.”

Continue reading →

UFF-FSU Update, January 20th, 2012

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UFF President Tom Auxter provides an update on legislative developments affecting Florida higher education in a document available at:

http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/WhatWeFaceNow18January2012.pdf

Collective bargaining continues today at 2pm at the FSU Training Center.

This week’s “University Welfare” report to the FSU Faculty Senate, focused on Senate-related NTTF issues, is available at:

http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/fs20120118.pdf

Email Migration Alert!

FSU IT folks have alerted us that as a result of the upcoming Jan. 25th final stage of the email migration process, certain FSU email addresses, possibly including the address by which you are subscribed to UFF-FSU lists, will no longer work.  If in the next few weeks you begin to sense that you have not heard from the UFF-FSU Chapter lately, please email to me with the current address you would like to use for your subscription.

Best regards,

Jack Fiorito (jtfiorito@comcast.net), President

UFF-FSU Chapter

January Update

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Happy New Year! Hope you had a refreshing break. Volunteers and UFF staff have continued to work for FSU faculty these past few weeks, as indicated in part in the balance of this update.

1. At the “Ledge.” President Barron has noted that the initial state budget discussions have NOT included plans for large cuts to higher education, and that is an improvement over the last several years. Yes, that is arguably a sad statement about the sorry climate for higher education in Florida, given the underfunding reflected in continuing “brain drain” losses of our colleagues to better-funded institutions, and in many other ways such as growing class sizes. With the Speaker of the House opening this session blasting what he perceives as mediocrity (could that have something to do with funding?), hundreds of bills filed, and our current political leaders’ track records on ideas for improving higher education, it is difficult to be optimistic. Stay tuned.

2. Collective Bargaining: Faculty and Administration/BOT teams met for their first 2012 session on Tuesday and agreed to take up Non-Tenure Track Faculty reclassification project issues and revisions to the Salary Plan for Professors as their first agenda items in upcoming sessions. Other agenda items carried over from 2011 bargaining include faculty performance evaluations, promotion, tenure, and benefits. The teams are scheduled to meet most Fridays for the remainder of the semester. Salary issues will of course be on the agenda once again as well.

3. We’re pleased to announce success in two grievances filed on behalf of Salary Plan for Professor (SPP) applicants who were initially denied SPP raises (9%). Both grievants were represented by the UFF (at no cost — membership has its benefits!) and our Grievance Chair (Dr. Lee Stepina) was able to persuade the Administration that SPP awards were merited in both cases.

4. We are still trying to obtain adequate information on December’s merit bonuses. The initial report from the FSU Administration (see http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/FacultyMeritBonusesDecember2011.xlsx) is problematic in several regards. We are also multiple faculty members’ complaints.

5. DRAFT consultation minutes are available from our Dec. 15th meeting with President Barron, Provost Stokes, and other Administration representatives. The draft minutes appear to have garbled the discussion in a few places, so please keep that in mind if you review those DRAFT minutes (http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/PresidentConsultation12-15-11MinutesDRAFT.pdf).

6. In case you missed it, an interesting editorial referencing FSU faculty salaries appeared in yesterday’s Tallahassee Democrat. See http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/tdedit20120112.pdf.

Best regards,

Jack Fiorito, President

UFF-FSU Chapter

P.S. Support the team that works for you! If you are a UFF member, thank you. If not, join today and help build a stronger voice for FSU faculty. See www.uff-fsu.org for more information.

 

Report on University Welfare for Faculty Senate, December 7th, 2011

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Collective Bargaining

We’ve had just one bargaining session since the last Senate meeting.  In contrast to most of our weekly sessions since May, which have focused on the Administration/BOT’s desire to revise performance evaluation procedures, we addressed academic freedom (Article 5), domestic partner benefits, and revisions to the Salary Plan for Professors (Article 25).  At UFF urging, we have a session scheduled for tomorrow at 2pm in UCA 6200 to review issues in the Non-Tenure Track Faculty reclassification project.  All faculty members are welcome to attend that session.

The merit bonus determination process is moving forward.  We are unfortunately hearing of some implementation procedures that appear to be at odds with our Memorandum of Agreement, and we are investigating.

Consultation

UFF representatives will meet with President Barron and Provost Stokes on December 15th.  The merit bonus implementation will probably be on our agenda.

At the Ledge

Recent encouraging words from Governor Scott about education funding may present a case of a silver lining preceding a dark cloud.  We certainly welcome the Governor’s belated realization that education investments are critical to Florida’s future.  How the budget is funded is of course a concern.  I can note, however, that the UFF is paying attention to both sides of the aisle in the Florida Legislature.

Upcoming Events

  • Tomorrow, Thursday, December 8th, 2pm in the “HR Suite” at UCA 6200, faculty and administration bargaining teams will review issues in the draft agreement on Non-Tenure Track Faculty (NTTF) reclassification.
  • Thursday, December 15th, 12:30 pm.  Lunch with Jeff Wright and Pat Dix, FEA, in the Askew Student Life Center (SLC) Rooms 101A-D.  Tentative topic:  “It Could Be Worse (And How Faculty Can Make It Better).”  Lunch is free to UFF members and guests, $12 for others.  RSVP to me (jtfiorito@comcast.net)

Questions?   Thank you for your time, and Happy Holidays to all!

March 2011 Bargaining News Report: NTTF Reclassification

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The UFF and the BOT, via a joint BOT-UFF committee, have been working for several months on a plan to reclassify Non-Tenure Track Faculty (NTTF) positions. The initial impetus for this plan came from a Faculty Senate Report and from UFF-FSU survey results consistently revealing employment security as a top concern for NTTF. The plan provides a framework to address these issues. Essentially, the Joint Committee has worked out how the Collective Bargaining Agreement can be changed to accommodate the reclassification plan.

Several key elements are still under discussion at the joint BOT-UFF committee. In the report (see link below) these elements are highlighted. The remainder of the plan can be considered tentatively agreed upon. Please note that the the joint committee will recommend its final report to BOT and UFF negotiators as a basis for further negotiations. Assuming those negotiations produce an agreement, that agreement must then be ratified by the BOT and the faculty. Further, some aspects of the report will require approval by the Public Employees Relations Commission.

Some important parts of this plan include:

  • Continuing Multi-Year Agreements (a/k/a “rolling contracts”) for some NTTF (after promotion)
  • Honorific “professor” titles on a case-by-case basis, subject to appropriate tenured faculty approval
  • Mission-specific (teaching, research, research support, service) classifications, with more descriptive working titles
  • Provision for possible conversion of NTTF positions to tenure track positions

The NTTF Working Draft is available at this link:

Negotiations are expected to reopen in May. We will be soliciting input later in the spring, but faculty members are welcome to send comments to Scott Hannahs, Co-Chair of the faculty bargaining team <shannahs@fsu.edu>.