Dear FSU Colleagues,
This is the first bargaining update for the year, and a lot happened during the first meeting, so this update may be a bit longer than usual. We thank all of you who have come out to support us during bargaining sessions, whether in person or on Zoom. Your presence puts pressure on the administration and helps our cause. The union’s strength is partly in its numbers, and we appreciate your support!
On April 3, the UFF-FSU and FSU-BOT teams met, and we began by discussing ground rules for bargaining this year and identifying the two articles each side would open in addition to Article 23 (Salaries). The BOT team opened Article 10 (Performance Evaluations), and Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights). The UFF team opened Article 20 (Grievance Procedure and Arbitration) and Article 22 (Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave). Let’s begin with the BOT’s proposals.
For Article 10 (Performance Evaluations), the BOT added the Post-Tenure Review (PTR) process that had been approved by the BOT in June 2023. If you recall, President Lata’s 3/23/24 email explained that UFF filed an unfair labor practice charge against the BOT for implementing a PTR process without bargaining it first. The hearing in front of the Public Employees Relations Commission was held in December, and the hearing officer’s recommendation was released 3/14/24 stating that the University did in fact commit an unfair labor practice with its implementation of a PTR regulation that had not been bargained and said FSU should cease and desist the PTR process until it is bargained. Each side had until today, April 5, to file exceptions, and the next step is a decision by the full commission.
Assuming PERC follows the hearing officer’s recommendation, the BOT’s PTR regulation must be bargained before it—or any version of it—can be integrated into our contract. The BOT proposal, as currently written, violates several other articles in the CBA, including Article 15 (Tenure) and Article 5 (Academic Freedom and Responsibility) that have not been re-opened this year. Thus, we struck all the PTR language the BOT team added to the Performance Evaluation article in our counter proposal.
Strangely, the BOT’s PTR proposal also reverted to their June 2023 language, which is largely based on the regulation adopted by the Board of Governors (BOG) despite the fact that the BOG is not party to our negotiations and cannot dictate terms in our CBA. By regressing to the BOT’s/BOG’s original regulations, the BOT team negated all of the beneficial changes both teams had already negotiated in the last seven months. Some of these reversions to earlier language were quite egregious in our eyes, like comparing faculty performance to an “average,” which we thought both sides had agreed was an impossible designation that would lead to arbitrary rankings.
Further, and perhaps most importantly, we added our own PTR proposal to Article 23 (Salaries) that would follow the same procedures as the Sustained Performance Increases (SPI), but the increases would be every 5 years instead of 7 years and would include the top two ranks for both general faculty (PTR) and specialized faculty (SPI). The SPI process includes annual evaluations based on AORs to determine whether the faculty member has been productive. We had been told by numerous administrators that the PTR process wouldn’t be different from what we are already doing—our proposal codifies this sentiment and retains all of the components of PTR that the legislature had passed in SB 266. In short, our proposal follows the letter of the law; the BOT are apparently seeking a PTR that is far more elaborate and consequential, including what we think of as a reduction of the rights of tenure to make it revokable and adding a “double jeopardy” provision that could reopen an already completed disciplinary procedure.
The BOT’s Article 10 proposal also clarifies and makes consistent procedures for Performance Improvement Plans (PIP) for both general and specialized faculty who receive annual evaluation ratings of “Does Not Meet FSU’s High Expectations.”
The BOT’s proposal for Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights) makes changes to 21.3 (Safe Conditions), which refers to the safety of campus buildings. We are working on a counter proposal that will ensure that testing will be conducted as recommended by the EPA and other experts.
The UFF team, as noted previously, made the first offer regarding salaries. We have proposed the following:
1. Promotion increases have been left at the level they have been for the last 10 years or so. Promotion to Associate Professor, or second rank at 12%, and promotion to Professor or top rank at 15%.
2. Sustained performance increases have been changed from a 7-year cycle to a 5-year cycle to accommodate changes requested by the legislature for post-tenure review. The first cycle shall include those who are in their 6th and 7th year of the cycle to accommodate this change and includes all general and specialized faculty members in the top two ranks.
3. Merit increases retain the same eligibility requirements that are in the current contract:
a. Performance Increases are tied to the Consumer Price index increase from February 2023 to February 2024, which is currently estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as 3.2%. This increase shall be effective on the start of the fiscal year for 12-month faculty and at the start of the semester for 9-month faculty.
b. Departmental merit for the next fiscal year is set at 4% with the same eligibility and criteria as in the current contract to reward FSU’s excellent faculty.
c. Deans’ merit is removed because the criteria for most deans are unstated, unclear, and arbitrary. Our spring 2024 poll shows that faculty prefer Department merit—which has clear criteria determined by faculty by departments/units—6 to 1 over Deans’ merit.
4. Market Equity amount is a total of $2.5 million divided as $2 million for tenure track faculty and $500,000 for specialized faculty in the 4:1 ratio that we have used in the past. The total market equity deficit is approximately $18 million, so even this amount is way too small to eliminate our issues with compression and inversion in a reasonable time. A slight increase from last year may help us get closer to having our faculty pay scale match the national average.
5. The cap on Administrative Discretionary Increases is set to 1%, which is considerably more than they have expended so far this year. ADIs and Deans’ merit are both discretionary, so the 1% cap seems more than adequate.
6. We also proposed that no full-time faculty member be paid less than $40,000. This category includes faculty members on a twelve-month contract, and we think it preposterous that some faculty members are currently paid less than this floor.
In our Article 22 (Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave) proposal, we added a provision for Professional Development Leave that allows non-instructional faculty to take their leave in smaller increments over the course of two years, since many librarians and research faculty find it difficult to take a full semester away from their duties and thus don’t apply. We also clarified policies for Professional Development Leave that would be consistent with Sabbaticals in terms of postponement of leave, and notes that faculty awarded less than full-time Sabbatical or Professional Development Leave are permitted to receive additional salary from the University or other sources to make up the residual portion. We are also asking for a report each year that includes the number of sabbatical and professional development leave applications, the number of leaves granted, and the number of leaves postponed.
We are awaiting responses to our proposals.
The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, April 10 from 2-5 in the Training Center (across from the stadium, accessible from southbound Stadium Dr. and from Jackson Bluff). The BOT team notices when faculty attend sessions, so if you can, please plan to attend in person, or you can attend online. We will send the Zoom link before the April 10 meeting.
The key to a strong Collective Bargaining Agreement is you! If you are not a member, please join. If you have questions about membership, please contact [email protected]
All the best,
Scott Hannahs, Research Faculty III, National High Magnetic Field Lab
Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Communication
Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU