Dear Colleagues,
The BOT and the UFF met Wednesday this week and agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on the Covid situation, and we also exchanged proposals on Article 23 (Salaries) and Article 19 (Outside Activity and Conflict of Interest). We had a little over 40 faculty members in attendance.
The teams exchanged MOU proposals over email for a few days before bargaining. The first one since our last session wasfrom UFF, and it backed off most of our previous demands, as we realized that after weeks of back-and-forth we were getting nowhere on the key issues of remote work and mask mandates. We believe that there is nevertheless value in reaching an agreement. The BOT countered, the UFF responded, theBOT countered, and we arrived at a final agreement.
We then turned to regular bargaining. The BOT presented a revision of its earlier proposal on Article 19 (Outside Activity and Conflict of Interest) that added language defining financial interest. The UFF team countered by offering status quo, meaning that we preferred existing language to the proposed changes.
The BOT then presented its Salaries proposal, which now offers a $2,000 bonus. In the dialog that followed, it seemed to us that the BOT implied that raises for merit, market equity, and cost-of-living would not be possible this year, and that if we dropped those elements of our proposal, the BOT bonus offer might be more generous. So the UFF counterproposal eliminated raises (other than the already agreed-upon ones for promotions and Sustained Performance) and proposed a $10,000 bonus. Of course we reserve the right to return to demanding raises if the bonus tree doesn’t start bearing some tasty fruit.
Next week we will meet remotely on Wednesday, September 1 at 2:00. The topic will be salaries.
Bargaining Link (Wed, Sept 1, 2:00): https://fsu.zoom.us/j/99537506397
If you are a member of UFF, you are also welcome to our caucuses, which typically occur once or twice during bargaining and at its conclusion.
Caucus link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81858114630
We encourage you to show up. It makes a difference.
Regular updates can be found at our webpage: https://uff-fsu.org/
The key to a strong collective bargaining agreement is a strong membership base, so if you are not a member, please join! There has never been a more important time for us to stand together. https://uff-fsu.org/wp/join/
All best,
Irene Padavic and Scott Hannahs
Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU