Report on University Welfare

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Report on University Welfare
for Faculty Senate, September 21st, 2011

By Professor Jack Fiorito, UFF-FSU President

Collective Bargaining

The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for 2010-13 was
finally printed and distributed.  If you do not have your copy please let me know.

Bargaining on re-openers for 2011-12 commenced in May, with salaries (Art. 23) automatically re-opened and each side allowed to select two more articles.  The Administration/BOT team chose Performance Evaluation (Art. 10) and Tenure (Art. 15), while the UFF faculty team chose Academic Freedom and Responsibility (Art. 5) and Benefits (Art. 24).  By mutual agreement, the teams will also re-negotiate the Salary Plan for Professors (Art. 25), and long-gestating Non-Tenure Track Faculty issues that cut across several articles.

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Bargaining Team Signs Off on Winter Break Memorandum of Agreement

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The UFF-FSU bargaining team, and its counterpart representing the Board of Trustees, have signed off on a memorandum of agreement concerning Winter Break.  Ratification of this and other MOAs and article reopeners (e.g. the previously announced MOA on merit pay and the renegotiated version of Article 23 [Salaries]) will be held later this semester.

Texas, Don't Mess With Florida

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UFF-FSU is examining several proposals for major reform of higher education in Florida.  For now, we refer you to the following resource pages:

The Seven Breakthrough Solutions proposed for higher education in Texas are inspiring Governor Scott to consider similar reforms in Florida.  For a humorous analysis of the Texas proposal, see these two 8-minute animated videos, produced by faculty at Texas A&M.  For more formal responses, see Maintaining Excellence and Efficiency at UT-Austin: A Response to the “Seven Breakthroughs Solutions” and Other Proposals and Analysis of Efficiency and Graduation Rates at UT-Austin and Other Public Research Universities in the U.S., both published by the University of Texas – Austin.

We also suggest that you read Breakthrough Solutions for Higher Education: Florida Can Do Better than Texas, the document that President Barron presented to the FSU Board of Trustees at their September 2011 meeting, as well as the associated Tallahassee Democrat article.