Author: Jennifer Proffitt

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

Dear colleagues,

Our thirteenth bargaining session of this bargaining season was held on Wednesday, July 24. Here’s a brief update on where we are in the process.

After presenting us with their proposals for three articles, the BOT team insisted that all three articles were a package and we could only continue to bargain on all of them at once. After caucusing for a short time, they decided we would need more time to counter on all three articles at once and left for the day. We will meet again next week for them to hear our counters.

Synopsis:

• The only change in the BOT salary offer from their last offer was to increase Performance raise by 0.5% and decrease Departmental Merit by 0.5%, hence no change in the total. Moreover, once more, the BOT team rejected our minimum salary offer of $44,000 per year. The BOT team has been telling us that the faculty making under $44,000 are paid at market rates and that there are no retention problems.
• The BOT did not respond to our Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) proposal to implement promotion salary increases while other issues remain unresolved.
• In response to our proposed MOA on post-tenure review (PTR), they completely rejected the MOA and added one single paragraph to Article 10 Performance Evaluations that  the parties will comply with the Board of Governors (BOG) regulation on PTR. We consider this a waiver: they are asking us to give up our rights to bargain over a mandatory subject of bargaining (evaluations). Their proposal would leave PTR completely to the discretion of administrators without criteria and without faculty input and could lead to the dismissal of tenured faculty without recourse. Please note that the header in the linked Article 10 above is wrong. This is the BOT’s proposal.
• Similar to the PTR MOA, the BOT team’s response to our proposal for mediation in lieu of arbitration was to reject it all. The BOT team proposal included the status quo language on arbitration plus adding a paragraph to Article 20 Grievance Procedure and Arbitration saying the parties will comply with Florida Statues that ban binding arbitration in personnel disputes.

Here’s the weekly salary chart.

Bargaining Salary History 2024	BOT  10(2 weeks ago)	UFF 10(last week)	BOT  11
Promotions	12/15%	12/15%	12/15%
Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for Specialized Faculty at the top rank (now every 5 years)	3.0%	3.0%	3.0%
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	$4,000 bonus	$5,000 bonus	$4,000 bonus
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations)	$6,000 bonus	$6,000 bonus	$6,000 bonus
PTR (Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	3.0% raise	4.0% raise	3.0% raise
PTR (Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations)	5.0% raise	5.0% raise	5.0% raise
Performance Increase (for all faculty who received higher than Official Concern on most recent annual evaluation)	2.0%	3.0%	2.5%
Departmental Merit (based on criteria developed by faculty)	0.8%	1.0%	0.3%
Deans’ Merit	0.20%	0.20%	0.20%
Market Equity	$500,000	$700,000	$500,000
Administrative Discretionary Increases	0.80%	0.80%	0.80%

Please join us at bargaining today Wednesday (July 31) from 3–5pm in the FSU Training Center and make your voice heard by joining your faculty union. Please note that the start time, 3pm, is one hour later than usual.

In solidarity,

Arash Fahim, Associate Professor of Mathematics, FSU College of Arts and Sciences

On behalf of your UFF-FSU Collective Bargaining Team

Dear colleagues,

Our twelfth bargaining session of this bargaining season was held on Wednesday, July 17. Here’s a brief update on where we are in the process.

Synopsis:

• We proffered our latest salary offer, but the BOT team did not respond, saying that they had offered as much money as they were authorized to spend. They said that they would need to talk to their higher-ups. We hope to hear something at our next session on Wednesday.
• We proposed a new Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on post-tenure review (PTR). We don’t want to put this in the contract for a variety of reasons, but particularly because a) we are appealing PERC’s terrible decision that curtails faculty bargaining rights; and b) PTR, as conceived by the BOG and BOT, violates provisions in other articles of our contract—articles that are not open for negotiation this year. Neither side should want language in the contract that is still being litigated and that creates internal inconsistencies in the contract.  
• We offered to sign a version of Article 10 (Evaluations) that included everything we had negotiated (wins for both sides), except PTR.
• We presented a counteroffer MOA with provisions for mediation in lieu of arbitration. The BOT previously offered mediation only if the union paid for all the costs and only if it was used in very limited circumstances. We see no reason to limit the types of grievances that can be mediated, and we certainly don’t believe that one party should bear all the costs. They seemed surprised that we wanted to use mediation broadly, even though we pointed out that grievances rarely progress past step 2 (to our knowledge, it has happened fewer than three times over the past nine years). We hope to hear a formal response to our proposal next week.

Here’s the weekly salary chart. You can see that we really aren’t very far apart. If we can agree about putting PTR into an MOA for this year and if we can bring the performance (nearly across-the-board) increase closer to the cost-of-living increase and get more money for market equity, I think we can reach agreement on salaries quickly.

Bargaining Salary History 2024	BOT 9 (last week)	UFF 10
Promotions	12/15%	12/15%
Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for Specialized Faculty at the top rank (now every 5 years)	3.0%	3.0%
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	$4,000 bonus	$5,000 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	4.0% 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)	2.0%	3.0%
Departmental Merit (based on criteria developed by faculty)	0.8%	1.0%
Deans’ Merit	0.20%	0.20%
Market Equity	$500,000	$700,000
Administrative Discretionary Increases	0.80%	0.80%

Please join us at bargaining this coming Wednesday (July 24) from 2–5 in the Training Center across from the stadium and make your voice heard by joining your faculty union.

In solidarity,

Michael Buchler, Professor of Music Theory, FSU College of Music

On behalf of your UFF-FSU Collective Bargaining Team

Dear FSU Colleagues:

On Monday, July 1, the UFF team presented the BOT team with our latest salary proposal, and after a caucus, the BOT team proposed a salary counter proposal along with Article 10 (Performance Evaluations), which once again includes PTR, and a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that counters our Article 20 (Grievances and Arbitration) proposal from 6/27. They presented their proposals as a package deal, meaning they bundled the remaining outstanding proposals together. Details are below.

Regarding Article 10 (Performance Evaluations), the BOT team had agreed on Thursday, 6/27, to separate the Post-Tenure Review (PTR) process into an MOA, but by Monday, they changed their position due to a very unfortunate and problematic decision by the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC); the full commission completely reversed the PERC hearing officer’s recommendation that the FSU administration committed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) by implementing PTR without bargaining the regulation. As such, the BOT team reasoned that they have an obligation to move forward with the Board of Governors’ (BOG) draconian PTR proposal that essentially reduces tenure to five-year contracts by inserting it into the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) even though it violates several other articles, including the tenure and academic freedom articles. We are consulting with our legal team to determine the next step(s).  

For Article 20 (Grievances and Arbitration), the BOT team proposed an MOA that outlines a one-year pilot program that would allow for a Step 3 mediation ONLY for suspensions, demotions, and terminations that did not go through the process outlined in Article 16 (Discipline). While we certainly appreciate that the administration is willing to try mediation, most grievances — as we explained multiple times — are not about discipline, but rather in response to other violations of faculty rights spelled out in the CBA. Please see our last bargaining report for a list of examples, including disputes over assignments, starting salaries, or supervisor overreach, among others.

For Article 23 (Salaries), the chart with each team’s ninth salary proposal is below. Places where each team changed their previous offer are in bold.

Bargaining Salary History 2024	UFF 9	BOT 9
Promotions	12/15%	12/15%
Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for Specialized Faculty at the top rank (now every 5 years)	3.00%	3.00%
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	$5,000 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)	5.00%	3.00%
PTR (Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations)	5.00% + $4,000 bonus	5.00%
Performance Increase (for all faculty who received higher than Official Concern on most recent annual evaluation)	3.00%	2.00%
Departmental Merit (based on criteria developed by faculty)	1.20%	0.80%
Deans’ Merit	0.20%	0.20%
Market Equity	$700,000	$500,000
Administrative Discretionary Increases	0.80%	0.80%

A few notes regarding salaries:

·         Despite our reservations regarding differentiating between Meets and Exceeds because there were no clear PTR criteria, we proposed smaller salary differentials between Meets and Exceeds.

·         The UFF team proposed that all Professors who were eligible to receive SPI this year should receive it if they hadn’t gone through PTR. The BOT team is proposing that the Professors who were eligible for SPI this year can go to the front of the line for PTR this upcoming year.

·         The BOT team once again struck our proposal that no faculty member at a full FTE should be paid less than $44,000, yet again stating that faculty paid below $44,000 are being paid market rate. They refused to give us any references to where their research is coming from. Our own research suggests a different amount for market rate, and we believe that paying faculty below cost of living in Florida is unjust.

A HUGE THANK YOU to all who attended via Zoom. We appreciate your support! And we’d love to see you in person, especially as we continue discussing salaries, PTR, and the all-important grievance procedure. We seriously consider all feedback on the bargaining process to obtain the best deal for all members of the bargaining unit. Please join us at our next bargaining session scheduled for Wednesday, July 17, from 2–5 in the Training Center across from the stadium and 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

Dear FSU Colleagues:

On June 27, the two teams met and made some positive progress, tentatively agreeing to one article and getting very close to agreeing to another. We also passed salary proposals back and forth across the table.

To begin, the UFF team suggested moving Post-Tenure Review (PTR) out of Article 10 (Performance Evaluations) to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that we can work on after finishing regular bargaining. We think it is problematic to put the article in the contract when it contradicts other articles that are not currently open for negotiations. The administration agreed with our suggestion to take PTR out of Article 10, so the two teams appear close to tentatively agreeing to the remaining changes, including replacing the current five-point annual evaluation scale to a four-point scale, and annual evaluations would now be submitted to the Vice President for Faculty Development and Advancement to serve as a check to be sure that all colleges and departments are following the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) (currently, the evaluations stay at the college level).

The teams did tentatively agree to changes to Article 22 (Sabbaticals and Professional Development Leave), which gives non-instructional specialized faculty more flexibility to split professional development leave (PDL) into smaller chunks of time and retains PDL eligibility to every three years.

For Article 20 (Grievances and Arbitration), the UFF team previously proposed two different potential processes to allow for a third party or neutral perspective at Step 3 of a grievance, which we believe is necessary because the legislature banned arbitration for personnel issues. The BOT team struck both of them (NIRD and Peer Panels). At this meeting, we proposed a third process: allowing for a mediator to help resolve grievances during Step 3, and if the two sides cannot come to an agreement, the mediator would prepare a report for the FSU President to consider before the President makes the final decision (the legislation deems university presidents to be the final arbiter of grievances). We are hopeful that the administration is seriously considering our new proposal.

The teams are still quite far apart when it comes to Article 23 (Salaries), but we are slowly moving in the right direction. 

Here’s the weekly chart. This chart includes our 8^th salary proposal and the BOT team’s counter proposal to it. Places where each team changed their previous offer are in bold.

Bargaining Salary History 2024	UFF 8	BOT 8
Promotions	12/15%	12/15%
Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for Specialized Faculty at the top rank (now every 5 years)	3.00%	3.00%
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	$5,000 bonus	$3,000 bonus
PTR (Associate Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations)	$5,000 bonus	$5,000 bonus
PTR (Professors who are assigned Meets Expectations)	5.00%	3.00%
PTR (Professors who are assigned Exceeds Expectations)	5.00%	5.00%
Performance Increase (for all faculty who received higher than Official Concern on most recent annual evaluation)	3.00%	2.00%
Departmental Merit (based on criteria developed by faculty)	1.25%	0.80%
Deans’ Merit	0.20%	0.20%
Market Equity	$750,000	$300,000
Administrative Discretionary Increases	0.80%	0.80%

A couple of notes regarding our latest salary proposal.

·         Knowing that some faculty have had to go through the PTR process this year and have received their letters, we have proposed numbers in this proposal. We argued that it is not fair to differentiate between Meets and Exceeds because there were no clear criteria, so faculty did not know what they would be evaluated on for this process, which is why there’s no distinction between Meets and Exceeds in our proposals.

·         We are also proposing that no faculty member at a full FTE should be paid less than $44,000, which would be consistent with the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rules regarding overtime exemption. The BOT team has struck our proposal each time we’ve proposed this, stating that faculty who make less than $44,000 are being paid market rate for their job position. Yet, they are not willing to share with us how they computed the market rate of these low-paid faculty positions.

·         We are glad to see that the administration agreed to adding some criteria for deans’ merit and that they proposed that faculty would be able to request a short explanation regarding the deans’ rationale for their deans’ merit increase.

A HUGE THANK YOU to all who attended via Zoom. We appreciate your support! And we’d love to see you in person, especially as we continue discussing salaries. We seriously consider all feedback on the bargaining process to obtain the best deal for all members of the bargaining unit.

Please join us at bargaining today, July 1, from 2–5 in the Training Center across from the stadium and 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