Dear FSU Colleagues,
On July 31, the two teams met for the fourteenth time. Thanks to all those who attended and gave input!
Please note that we will meet once again today, 2-5pm, to hear the BOT’s response to the proposals we presented.
We presented proposals for the following articles:
· Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would assure that faculty who were promoted would receive their promotion raises on time. The BOT team has had this MOA since our July 17 meeting. They have not signed it and did not sign it Wednesday.
· Article 10 (Performance Evaluations): We deleted the language the BOT team added, which had merely said that the Post-Tenure Review (PTR) process would follow the law. Because evaluations are a term and condition of employment, we have the right to bargain the process.
· Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) regarding PTR: For our latest proposal, we went back to the BOT team’s last offer from March when the two teams were only bargaining PTR and made some changes that are highlighted in yellow. The primary changes in our proposal are:
o A rating of Unsatisfactory would include disregarding or failing to meet previous formal written advice or incompetence or misconduct as defined in the CBA (Article 16).
o The FEAS report would include not just SPCI reports but also grade distributions and other evidence of effective teaching.
o Substantiated findings of any investigation that would be included in PTR would need to be serious and repeated noncompliance with university policies or applicable laws or regulations within the scope of university employment that resulted in disciplinary action due to misconduct or incompetence.
o The Dean’s report would need to include input from a college faculty committee.
o The Provost’s report would need to include input from a university faculty committee.
o (The chair’s letter had already included participation from a department faculty committee in the last proposal, and that had been agreed to)
Please note that we still believe that PTR as defined by the Board of Governors and adopted by the FSU Board of Trustees is highly problematic as it turns tenure into five-year contracts. We have filed an appeal to the PERC decision that we mentioned in a previous update and will continue to fight to protect our rights as faculty.
· Article 20 (Grievances and Arbitration): For this proposal, Step 3 of the grievance process would still be arbitration, but because the legislature passed a law that prohibits neutral binding arbitration for personnel issues, the arbitration decision for personnel issues would be non-binding, serving as advice to the President, who according to the law is now the final decision-maker.
· Article 23 (Salary): Our salary offer can be found below. The highlighted numbers are changes from the previous offer. This offer demonstrates our interest in reaching agreement.
| Bargaining Salary History 2024 | BOT 11 (last week) | UFF 12 |
| Promotions | 12/15% | 12/15% |
| Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for Specialized Faculty at the top rank (now every 5 years) | 3% | 3% |
| PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations) | $4,000 bonus | $4,000 bonus |
| PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations) | $6,000 bonus | $6,000 bonus |
| PTR (Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations) | 3.0% raise | 3.0% raise |
| PTR (Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations) | 5.0% raise | 5.0% raise |
| Performance Increase (for all faculty who received higher than Official Concern on most recent annual evaluation) | 2.5% | 2.75% |
| Departmental Merit (based on criteria developed by faculty) | 0.3% | 0.80% |
| Deans’ Merit | 0.2% | 0.10% |
| Market Equity | $500,000 | $600,000 |
| Administrative Discretionary Increases | 0.80 | 0.80% |
We added the minimum salary of $44,000 back into the salary article after the BOT deleted it once again.
Please join us at bargaining today, August 2, from 2–5pm in the FSU Training Center or by Zoom. Please use the regular Zoom link at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88528923845?pwd=YnRNajhhb01HMVBlQTJDRmRqQlVqdz09#success
And please make your voice heard by joining your faculty union.
All the best,
Scott Hannahs, Research Faculty III, National High Magnetic Field Lab
Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Communication
Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU
On behalf of your UFF-FSU Bargaining Team