Author: Irene Padavic

Bargaining Update – April 29, 2021

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Dear Colleagues,

The BOT and UFF teams met on Wednesday to exchange counter-proposals.  

The UFF opened the session by presenting a counter-proposal on Article 8 (Appointment).  While we are unwilling to reduce the 4-year contracts for Specialized Faculty in the top rank or make it easier to curtail their employment, we made a counter-proposal on limiting the summer-teaching compensation for highly-paid faculty.  In our counter, if a College imposes a cap, it must apply to all departments in the College and would not be below 125% of the average compensation rate for all faculty members with teaching responsibilities in each department.  This language is an improvement on the BOT’s original proposal by setting the cap at 125% rather than 100% and by not allowing deans to cherry-pick which departments must implement caps and which will be spared.  The vast majority of faculty would see no diminution in their summer pay.

The UFF then presented a counter-proposal on Article 19 (Conflict of Interest).  Whereas the BOT proposal prohibits all sexual or “romantic” relationships between faculty and students anywhere in the University, we proposed restricting sexual relationships when both parties are in the same department, even if the faculty member has no supervisory or evaluative role.  The logic is that the respect and trust accorded faculty members by students, as well as the power exercised by the faculty members in their department role, render consent suspect. Existing provisions restricting cross-department relationships in cases where a faculty member has supervisory or evaluative authority over a student would remain in place. We also said that we cannot agree to prohibiting romantic relationships in the absence of a definition, and we looked forward to hearing about examples from case precedent of such language, which the BOT team had said they would bring to this meeting.

For their part, the BOT had no such language to present, nor did they have responses to our proposals seeking better paid parental leave, a new paid family leave, and the instantiation of the Spousal and Dependent Scholarship Program into the contract.  Ditto on a counter-proposal on our “tapered employment” proposal.

The BOT team had, however, created a chart depicting their estimate of the cost of implementing the UFF’s proposed tapered employment program. The UFF questioned the assumptions underlying the chart and created an alternative one that depicted a far lower cost. We also presented data from UWF, where the University is picking up the health care costs of faculty who moved into phased retirement. The BOT team said they would duly consider the alternative chart and noted that, as of yet, the UWF program has gotten few takers.

The session concluded with the UFF team stating that the counter-proposals we offered are contingent on seeing some corresponding positive movement on the proposals we put forward.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wed., May 19, 2:00-5:00.

For as long as faculty have bargaining rights, we will continue to press for faculty interests.

Bargaining sessions are open to faculty, and negotiations in the past have benefited from faculty attendance. There is definitely strength in numbers, and we appreciate having you! If you would like to attend, please respond to this message and we will send you the Zoom link.

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

Bargaining Update – April 16, 2021

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Dear Colleagues,  

The BOT and UFF teams met on Wednesday to exchange proposals. The UFF team began with a preamble about how our proposals offer the Administration the chance to live up to its designation as an Age-Friendly University, and we proceeded to offer details. 

The first example is in Article 17 (Leaves), where we propose a new category—paid family leave—offering six months of paid leave to care for a sick family member. This addition would acknowledge the need that manyfaculty face to provide care throughout the life course rather than just at its beginning. We also proposed improvements to the existing paid parental leave program:  The first allows two faculty parents to take six months paid leave for the same birth or adoption event, and the second allows a 6-month paid parental leave to be broken into two segments, creating the possibility of coverage for two children over the course of employment.  

The UFF also pursued its age-friendly agenda in Article 24 (Benefits). We present the option of “tapered employment,” whereby faculty age 60 and above can move into part-time status while retaining health benefits.  We also proposed permanently including the Tuition Scholarship for Spouses and Dependents in the Contract rather than maintaining it as an annual Memorandum of Understanding.   

The BOT also presented proposals. In Article 8 (Appointments) the BOT proposed three changes. The first would allow a dean to limit pay for summer teaching to no more than the average compensation rate for all faculty members with teaching responsibilities in a department.  The next would reduce the 4-year contracts for Specialized Faculty in the top rank to 3 years, and a third would change the conditions for the curtailment of employment for Specialized Faculty.  

In Article 19 (Conflict of Interest), the BOT proposed striking most of the language governing sexual relationships with students (e.g., the requirement to end any situation involving supervision/evaluation and the requirement to disclose the relationship to a supervisor) and replacing it with a statement saying that “there shall be no sexual or romantic relationships between faculty members and students.”  We asked how they would define a romantic relationship, and what would happen in cases where the parties disagreed, and they said would bring clarifying language to our next meeting. The proposal includes a provision for pre-existing romantic or sexual relationships.  

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wed., April 28, 2:00-5:00.  

For as long as faculty have bargaining rights, we will continue to press for faculty interests. 

Bargaining sessions are open to faculty, and negotiations in the past have benefited from faculty attendance. There is definitely strength in numbers, and we appreciate having you! If you would like to attend, please respond to this message and we will send you the Zoom link. 

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 

Bargaining Update – April 5, 2021

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Bargaining season is upon us!  This year the BOT team and FSU team each open two articles, along with Article 23 (Salaries).

We met briefly last Thursday to inform each other which articles we’re opening.  UFF is opening Article 17 (Leaves) and Article 24 (Benefits), and the BOT is opening Article 8 (Appointments) and Article 19 (Conflict of Interest).

At our next meeting, the teams will exchange formal proposals and explain the changes they are seeking and why.  That meeting is scheduled for Wed., April 14, at 1:00.

For as long as faculty have bargaining rights, we will continue to press for faculty interests.

Bargaining sessions are open to faculty, and negotiations in the past have benefited from faculty attendance. There is definitely strength in numbers, and we appreciate having you! If you would like to attend, please respond to this message and we will send you the Zoom link.

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

Conclusion of Negotiations-Sept. 18, 2020

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The administration and UFF bargaining teams met this week and finalized contract provisions for 2020-2021, subject to approval by the bargaining unit in a secret ballot ratification vote.

Regarding Salaries, we arrived at a one-time bonus of $1,200.  Recall that faculty also received a $1,500 raise that was negotiated last year and went into effect in August. Promotion raises remain at 12% and 15% and Sustained Performance Increases remain at 3%.  Administrative Discretionary Increases, used for increased duties, extraordinary accomplishments, counteroffers, and certain other reasons specified in Sec. 23.9, are allowable up to 0.80% of the faculty salary base. 

A big win for faculty is a Memorandum of Understanding about the Tuition Scholarship for Dependents/Spousesthat extends the existing scholarship program for dependents to include spouses and graduate, not just undergraduate, credit hours.

We agreed on several changes in Article 13, Layoffs, that represent major improvements.  Whereas the original language offered wide latitude, for example by allowing a layoff unit to be any level of organization as the University deems appropriate, the new language is specific:  “A layoff unit is an organizational unit such as a division, college, or department. The unit is defined as the tenure home or, in the case of specialized or non-tenure-track faculty, the administrative home, that the faculty member was hired into or transferred into. In addition, a layoff unit may be defined as an establishedoperational area or a subdivision of a tenure or administrative home, when the area/subdivision is comparable in most regards to a department.”  We believe this specificity represents a major improvement.

As for layoff ordering, no faculty member without tenure who has more than 7 years of service may be laid off if there are faculty in the unit with 7 or fewer years, an increase from the former 5-year demarcation. In cases where faculty members are equally qualified, there is now a finite list of factors that can be considered.  And whereas previously no tenured faculty member could be laid off in order to create a vacancy to be filled by an administrator, now such a move cannot be made regardless of the tenure status of the faculty member.

By mutual agreement no changes were made to the other opened articles, namely, Leaves, Benefits, and Conflict of Interest/Outside Activity.

Finally, we arrived at a Memorandum of Understanding on the COVID-19 Health Emergency that addresses workplace issues; teaching, research, and service assignments; and tenure and promotion.

Faculty need to vote to ratify these agreements, and we’ll send details soon. Ratification voting matters, and we hope you cast your secret ballot.

We also invite members to come to an online Bargaining Forum happy hour this evening at 5:00.  Members have received an invitation and zoom link from UFF President Matthew Lata, but reply to this email if you want it resent.

Our ability to bargain a strong contract depends on YOU! The more members we can point to, the greater our strength at the bargaining table.  Raises and the preservation of faculty rights are not gifts from the administration but are the result of good-faith and persistent bargaining.  Join here: https://uff-fsu.org/wp/join/

All best,

Irene Padavic and Scott Hannahs, Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU

Bargaining Update-September 4

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The BOT and UFF bargaining teams met for regular bargaining on Wednesday to consider several proposals. The meeting was lively with several proposals and counterproposals discussed. 

We began with the UFF proposal on Salaries, which specified a $1,500 bonus with the possibility of its becoming permanent and a 0.5% cap on Administrative Discretionary Increases (ADI) raises. We also proposed that Market Equity distributions (which can occur under ADI) rely on comparative data more recent than 2014 and 2016.

The BOT responded during the meeting with a Salaries counter proposal that offers an $850 bonus with no possibility of becoming permanent, a 0.8% cap on ADI raises, and old Market Equity data source references.

As for Layoffs, the teams had already made substantial progress on the issue of defining a layoff unit, and the UFF was satisfied with new language in the BOT proposal. We also were pleased that the BOT no longer lists having been disciplined as a condition that can be considered and that they accepted wording saying that layoffs should be considered only after other options have been explored. The teams had a back-and forth on the ordering of layoffs, with the BOT proposal having completely removed a stipulation that people with five years of continuous service cannot be laid off if there are faculty in the layoff unit have more and the UFF countering with a proposal specifying six years.


The UFF presented its counterproposal on Conflict of Interest/Outside Activity, and the BOT suggested that the teams revert to status quo on this article (opened by the BOT) and the Leaves article (opened by the UFF).

We have bargaining scheduled for Wednesday, September 9 at 2:00, where we will be returning to these same articles.

Bargaining sessions are open to faculty, and negotiations have benefited from the many faculty who have been coming to sessions. There is definitely strength in numbers, and we appreciate having you! If you would like to attend, please respond to this message and we will send you the link. 

We also invite members to come to an online Bargaining Forum happy hour this evening at 5:00.  Members have received an invitation and zoom link from UFF President Matthew Lata, but reply to this email if you want it resent.

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