Draft agenda, February 19, noon, SOC 384:
1. Minutes
2. Membership
3. Meeting schedule for fall
4. Ballot preparation/compilation (may be delayed)
5. Reports
6. New business (nothing currently as a new business item)
7. For the good of the order
The following documents on domestic partner health insurance stipend benefits were downloaded this month from the main USF HR website:
In Monday morning’s student newspaper, the USF Oracle, there was an article about the university’s rejection of the neutral special magistrate’s recommendation in the current impasse in bargaining between the university Board of Trustees and the staff union, local 3342 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. The university sent an e-mail out to staff on Friday, and in response AFSMCE has distributed an e-mail from its president, Bill McClelland, available now on AFSCME 3342′s blog.
The special magistrate’s recommendations are non-binding, and the USF Board of Trustees is legally required to eliminate all contact with its bargaining team until a public hearing on impasse, so that it can legally remain neutral … but the BOT’s bargaining committee is likely to impose what management recommends. Florida’s law gives the advantage to management in impasse because in many cases, the governing board that supervises the bargaining team also has the authority to impose a settlement at the end of the impasse procedure. (My personal view is that this is a structural conflict of interest.) When management does not think it needs a waiver from the union on a mandatory term of bargaining, the primary power of the union is to organize against ratification of the impasse resolution, so that bargaining on non-salary issues has to start from square one at the beginning of the next fiscal year. For the gory details of impasse procedures, read beyond the jump. (more…)