UFF-FSU

Dear colleagues,

First, we hope that you all made it through Friday’s storms in good shape! Our parent union, the Florida Education Association, has a page of resources for people who need help during natural disasters. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for assistance.

On to the update, which I’m afraid will sound a lot like recent weeks’ updates. We still haven’t heard anything about salaries, despite the fact that we were told (three weeks ago) to expect a response two weeks ago. We are, as always, especially eager to bargain salaries long before our fall contracts begin. All raises—including those for promotions and post-tenure review—hang in the balance.

And speaking of post-tenure review (PTR), your UFF-FSU team proposed a simple and very clear algorithm for PTR in Article 10 (Evaluations). Here is the version that we proposed (look at the new material on p. 10), and here is the version that the BOT offered in response (look at pp. 10–12). Our proposal adheres to the law passed last year by the Florida legislature but removes all the draconian measures that we believe have been unconstitutionally imposed by the Florida Board of Governors. See last week’s update for the litany of terrible things that the BOG wants to inflict (e.g., removal of due process, double jeopardy for disciplinary action, and the effective end of tenure and its important protections).

If you’d like some legal context, here is what the legislature passed, mandating PTR (search for “tenure” and read part (6)(b) on pp. 5–6 of the pdf, which lists four criteria for evaluating PTR). Compare that to the BOG’s regulation on PTR, which, like poison ivy in Tallahassee, perennially regrows, no matter how many times—and in how many ways—you remove it. In particular, you might note that the legislature specified that the BOG’s plan must include “recognition and compensation considerations, as well as improvement plans and consequences for underperformance.” Well, the BOG simply decreed that there will be compensation (A raise? A bonus? A $1.79 Wal-Mart gift card? Who knows?! We won’t have any idea what FSU intends until they pass a salary offer—Article 23—across the table) and their idea of an improvement plan is simply that you’ll be fired if you’ve been declared “unsatisfactory.” I know that none of the BOG appointees ever meanders anywhere near an actual classroom, which is just as well: can you imagine if they had to make a syllabus and articulate grading policies?

In other news, we agreed with the administration’s proposal that we adopt a four-point evaluation scale (instead of our current five-point scale), but we steadfastly pushed back on their attempt to double the amount of time specialized faculty must wait between Professional Development Leaves (see Article 22, Sabbaticals and Professional Development Leaves). We also came closer to agreement on both environmental and violence protection measures for faculty and staff (see Article 21, Other Faculty Rights). We are, however, further from agreement on Article 20 (Grievance Procedure and Arbitration). We want an in-house procedure (that Neutral Internal Resolution of Disputes Procedure [yes, NIRD], detailed two weeks ago) to resolve disputes; they think it would be better if faculty skipped the whole grievance process and went directly to court over personnel disputes. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that lawyers would advocate for more lawsuits, but since one of their lawyers helped write the original NIRD language during FIU’s collective bargaining, we naïvely imagined that that they would approve of their own language. We assumed that they would also rather avoid litigation, but perhaps their lawyers give them a bulk discount.

That’s the pith of it. Let us know your thoughts, join your union to help make us stronger, and come again to bargaining this week in person or online. Same Bat Time (2:00 on Wednesday); same Bat Zoom Link.

In solidarity,

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

On behalf of your UFF-FSU Collective Bargaining Team

Dear colleagues,

On Wednesday, May 1, the UFF-FSU and BOT teams met for our fourth collective bargaining session devoted to our 2024–25 contract. Thanks to all those who attended and offered input and comments!

If you’re looking for salary updates, you’ll be disappointed to hear that we still haven’t received a response from the administration to the proposal we submitted four weeks ago. Further, the BOT has still refused to back down over a draconian post-tenure review (PTR) policy that PERC’s Hearing Officer has said that they are implementing illegally in his Recommended Order. The full PERC has not yet ruled on the recommended order.  This week’s topics were performance evaluations (including post-tenure review) and faculty safety—with a bonus foray into improving faculty parking on campus. Read on for summaries and click the links to see the actual articles with the proposed changes.

Details

Article 10 (Performance Evaluations): The administration team kicked things off by handing us a revised version of Article 10, which included a number of interesting morsels and one regurgitated serving of post-tenure review:

• The administration suggests reducing the number of annual evaluation rating categories from five to four, eliminating “substantially exceeds” and also eliminating the lofty sounding “FSU’s high expectations” from every category. The proposed new ratings would be:
  • Exceeds expectations;
  • Meets expectations;
  • Official concern; and
  • Does not meet expectations.
• For faculty eligible for promotion and/or tenure, the administration proposes that annual appraisals of progress may be combined with the narratives that accompany our annual evaluations.
• For faculty who wish to appeal their annual evaluations, the administration proposes a two-step appeal process rather than the current three-step process. Currently, faculty may appeal their evaluations to (1) the “appropriate higher-level reviewer (dean or equivalent),” then (2) to the Vice President for Faculty Development and Advancement (presently Dr. Janet Kistner), and then we may (3) have that decision reviewed by the Provost (presently Dr. Jim Clark). The BOT proposes that we skip step (2) and appeal college-level decisions directly to the Provost or their designee.
• And, finally, the BOT reinserted all the BOG-constructed language on Post-Tenure Review into the contract, despite the PERC Hearing Officer’s Recommended Order finding “the FSU-BOT committed an unfair labor practice by making unilateral changes to a mandatory subject of bargaining.” That unilateral change has reared its head again. The University maintains that they must follow whatever the BOG says, despite the fact that the BOG is not a party to our contract. Most egregiously, this language includes both double jeopardy for any faculty who have been subject to discipline (it can re-emerge during post-tenure review and lead to dismissal) and it allows faculty to be fired without due process. It does not allow for faculty input on the evaluation, leaving your fate mostly to your chair and your dean on their own, though the provost weighs in at the end, and it does not mention criteria for review or tie reviews to any prior evaluations, so the process is arbitrary. Your union is challenging this issue all over the state and will continue to fight this clear threat to tenure, both in the bargaining room and in the courts. Maintaining tenure matters to the entire university—its reputation, its ability to recruit good students and faculty, its research agenda, its ability to get grants, and its ability to maintain a climate conducive to academic freedom for all faculty.

Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights): Your faculty union bargaining team proposed the following improvements to our contract:

• We specified that buildings where radon mitigation systems have been installed should be periodically inspected by a “Radon Mitigation Specialist certified by the Florida Department of Health.”
• We proposed a joint labor-management committee to study “tangible and practicable measures for protecting faculty, staff, and students in classrooms, labs, libraries, and offices from armed aggressors…” and we specified that the University shall implement the plan no later than June 1, 2025. We acknowledge the need to study the issue before acting, but studies can be endless and we want to enforce a reasonable deadline for making improvements.
• We tried to alleviate what appears to be an increasingly difficult parking situation by specifying that our faculty and staff parking permits will allow us “parking privileges to any unreserved parking space on campus, whether designated as faculty/staff or student.”

We will meet again to bargain on Wednesday, May 8 from 2:00–5:00 at the Training Center across from the stadium. Will we see the administration’s long-awaited response on salaries? Will we create a post-tenure review system that is less burdensome and perilous to faculty? Will we have more places to park our vehicles? Tune in via Zoom or come join us in person! (There’s actually plenty of parking there!) We’d love to hear your ideas about your contract. And we greatly appreciate your membership. If you haven’t yet joined, please do. Your membership helps us bargain a better contract and it helps us protect members by enforcing that contract vigorously.

In solidarity,

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

On behalf of your UFF-FSU Collective Bargaining Team

Dear colleagues,

The UFF-FSU and BOT teams met on Wednesday, April 24 for collective bargaining. I know many of you are primarily interested in salary; unfortunately, we haven’t yet heard a response from the administration on the salary proposal that we submitted three weeks ago at the outset of bargaining. The topics of the day were sabbaticals and professional leaves, faculty safety (addressing environmental concerns and violence), and our effort to defend due process in contract enforcement by creating a system that would act in lieu of arbitration, which has been limited by recent legislation.

I’ll summarize the negotiating positions below; if you’re interested in greater detail, please click on the links and read the marked-up contract articles. We’re always glad to receive your thoughts and questions, and we’re especially grateful for your membership, which makes bargaining possible. Please click here to join and support your union if you’re not yet a member. Our bargaining position is strengthened by increased membership density.

Details

Article 20 (Grievance Procedure and Dispute Resolution): This article is currently called “Grievance Procedure and Arbitration,” but the Powers-That-Be in our legislature don’t think that faculty should be able to arbitrate contract disputes, leaving the ultimate decisions to our benevolent bosses and to our politically appointed Trustees (meaning that one party in the dispute ultimately gets to decide the outcome, a position we believe is unconstitutional). Our union siblings at Florida International University have already successfully negotiated a creative alternative called the “Neutral Internal Resolution of Disputes Procedure” (NIRD), and we’re hoping to bring that same NIRDiness to our contract. The administration’s hired lawyer who negotiates for the BOT was also party to the FIU agreement, so we hope that he’ll be amenable to this very fair way to make sure everyone abides by the contract we collectively bargain.

Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights): both sides are trying to clarify language that will mandate regular follow-up inspections of buildings where radon was found. Your UFF-FSU team also asked the administration to enact straightforward measures to protect faculty and students from violent attacks in classrooms, offices, laboratories, and in other shared spaces. The BOT rejected this request, saying that they already follow “best practices.” I don’t know what “best practices” means in this regard (do you?). We’ve been requesting greater security measures for many years now, and we hope to get some concrete measures in place. The administration points out that adding infrastructure such as panic buttons and automatically locking doors is pricey, and it surely is. But none of us wants to imagine the price of inaction. The administration does seem willing to convene a joint committee to make recommendations. Perhaps that will help us move from best practices to praxis. On a related note, the very next day one trigger-happy Florida Representative signaled that he will introduce legislation to allow students to carry guns on campus and get paid for it.

Article 22 (Sabbaticals and Professional Development Leaves): when we opened this article, we wanted greater flexibility in the way specialized faculty could take professional development leaves, breaking them up into smaller segments. The administration agreed, but they did so while moving the length of time between leaves from three to six years, supposedly to be consistent with tenured faculty members’ ability to take sabbaticals. We responded by suggesting five years between sabbaticals and professional development leaves. This week the BOT helpfully assured us that six years is “the industry standard,” and they restated their view that specialized faculty could have more flexible leave only if they had markedly less leave. We heard from a number of you who were very upset that professional development leaves might become scarcer. We take your concerns seriously and have used and will continue to use your excellent arguments (always anonymously!) in the bargaining room. Your comments and, again, your membership really do help us do our jobs better.

And if you’d to see bargaining in action, our next session is this Wednesday (May 1) from 3:00–5:00 at the Training Center across from the Stadium. We’d love to have you join us; participating in collective bargaining is a far better way to spend May Day than dancing ‘round a Maypole.

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 April 10, the UFF-FSU and FSU-BOT teams met and exchanged counter-offers on Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights) and Article 22 (Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave). We have appreciated your attendance at our bargaining sessions as well as your participation in our poll and responses to our bargaining updates. Such participation, we believe, gives us not only more bargaining power, but also a better sense of what you want!

In sum, the teams are working to update the language on building environmental safety, but while Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights) was open, the UFF-FSU team also proposed new standards to protect faculty, students, and staff in the event of a live shooter. In the case of Article 22 (Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave), the UFF-FSU team wanted an allowance for non-instructional faculty to split up their leave rather than take it all at once. The BOT team agreed to that, but added more years between the leaves to make PDL consistent with sabbaticals, and the UFF team then proposed lessening the number of years between sabbaticals as well as Professional Development Leaves. We have not yet received a response to our “Salaries” proposal from last week, and we are still working on our proposal to the “Grievances and Arbitration” article.

For more specifics, let’s begin with the UFF’s proposal on Article 21 (Other Faculty Rights).

UFF proposed additional language to clarify the BOT’s changes to 21.3 (Safe Conditions), which refers to the safety of campus buildings. These changes include:

1. Replace “remediation taken if reading falls above the EPA Action Levels” with “action taken if levels are above EPA Radon Action Levels.”
2. A new follow-up process for the building where the radon mitigation system has installed.
3. Actions if issues with mold are found after inspection.

We also proposed that the university take specific safety measures and precautions against an armed aggressor, including safety buttons to inform police, devices to lock the office or classroom door, and emergency training.

The BOT team responded to our Article 22 proposal (Sabbatical and Professional Development Leave):

1. The BOT team accepted our provision for Professional Development Leave (PDL) that allows non-instructional faculty to take the 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.
2. The BOT team changed the minimum years of service to be eligible for PDL from three (3) to six (6). The BOT rationale was to make it consistent with sabbatical eligibility.
3. The BOT team also accepted deferral of the PDL to the next year or other time, mutually agreed by both the faculty member and university, if staffing consideration prevents the faculty from leaving the campus.

However, the BOT team didn’t agree to the proposal by the UFF that would allow faculty who receive full year, half pay leave to earn salaries from the university or other sources during sabbatical or PDL.

In response to the BOT team’s counter-offer on Article 22, the UFF team crafted a response.

1. The UFF team changed the minimum years of service to be eligible for PDL from the BOT proposed six (6) to five (5). To keep it consistent with the sabbatical eligibility years, the UFF also changed the sabbatical eligibility to be five (5) years.
2. The UFF accepted the deferral language set forth by the BOT team.
3. The UFF team rewrote the clause about earning salaries from the university or other sources during sabbatical or PDL. More specifically, the new proposal restricts this proposal to “when a faculty member’s duties include functions that are necessary to the operation of the University”.

We are awaiting responses to our proposals.

The next bargaining session will be on Wednesday, April 24, from 3:30-5:00 pm at Westcott Room 201.

We greatly appreciate those of you who attended bargaining via Zoom. 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 next bargaining session.

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,

Arash Fahim, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics

On behalf of

Scott Hannahs, Research Faculty III, National High Magnetic Field Lab

Jennifer Proffitt, Professor, Communication

Co-Chief Negotiators, UFF-FSU

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