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Dear FSU Colleagues, At our June 4 bargaining session, we continued to discuss intellectual property rights for faculty.  The Board of Trustees team responded to our counter of Article 18, Inventions and Works, and as explained below, in a win for faculty, they offered to trade status quo language in Article 19, Conflict of Interest, for status quo language in Article 1, Recognition. More on bargaining details below, but first … If you value your rights as a faculty member that are guaranteed in our Collective Bargaining Agreement, we need you as a union member. Your union must reach 60% membership or else it will be decertified. We are close; we need

Dear Colleagues, This past bargaining session featured a lot of discussion on intellectual property rights for faculty. The outcome of these issues will seriously affect how faculty can treat their creative work, including databases, software, and their instructional materials. The UFF-FSU team responded to the Board of Trustees team’s proposals for articles — 18, Inventions and Works, and 19, Conflict of Interest. A detailed and earnest discussion followed on faculty rights to control their own class materials, their creation of works outside of the university, and their ability to act during one’s free time. We also briefly discussed Article 21 with reference to classroom safety. The University is facing financial

Dear Colleagues, Our latest collective bargaining session had some significant developments.  We started with presentations by the BOT team, since the UFF-FSU team had responded to all open articles at the last session. The BOT team presented two new articles, Article 18, Inventions and Works, and Article 19, Conflict of Interest along with a response to Article 9, Assignment of Responsibilities. The text of all three proposed articles has been posted on the UFF website uff-fsu.org. To help the BOT present these articles, the session was attended by Stacey Patterson, Vice President for Research, and Valerie McDevitt, Associate VP for Research.  The proposed changes significantly affect faculty rights, restrict faculty activity that

On Monday after an olympic style, five-hour marathon bargaining session, our 16th, the UFF and Board of Trustees came to an agreement on changes to the collective bargaining agreement. Here are the five signed tentative agreement documents. Opened at the behest of the Board of Trustees bargaining team, “Article 10 Performance Evaluations” with modifications for Post Tenure Review and “Article 21 Other Faculty Rights” with modifications for building air quality maintenance. Opened by request of the UFF-FSU chapter Negotiating Team, “Article 20 Grievances and Arbitration” with modifications for new Florida Statute prohibiting arbitration in most cases and “Article 22 Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave” to allow non-teaching specialized faculty to

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

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: Here’s the weekly salary chart. Bargaining Salary History 2024 BOT  10(2

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: 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

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

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

Dear colleagues, Our tenth bargaining session of this bargaining season was held on Friday, June 21. Here’s an update on where we are in the process. Synopsis: If you want to help us advocate for better and fairer salaries, for the protection of tenure, and for faculty governance, there’s no better way to do so than joining your union. And if you’re already a member, WE THANK YOU for your support! We would also welcome your greater involvement. As a music theorist, I certainly had no special skills when I became involved. But as academics, I imagine we’re all pretty good at learning on the job. Okay, on to the