UFF-USF

(To all in-unit faculty and professional employees: please provide input on the ratification voting process on the right: “Should the referendum on the 2010-13 collective bargaining agreement be conducted in person or through the online process we used for the last two Memoranda of Understanding?”)

I am voting for the 2010-2013 CBA tentative agreement as a reasonable agreement in very hard times. Bargaining for a successor to the 2008-09 collective bargaining agreement began in May 2009, and bargaining in the last 16 months has been difficult. This is the worst economy in the state for decades, and a number of unions in Florida have either declared impasse or had their employers declare impasse on bargaining. So the fact that the Board of Trustees declared impasse June 1, 2010, is in part a sign of the times.

There are several parts of the proposal that are imperfect from my perspective, most importantly the unequal promotion raises (6% for instructors, 9% plus flat additions for other ranked faculty) and the summer salary cap for the next three years. They are balanced by the gains: increased sabbaticals, retained layoff protection for senior instructors, small raises for this year and next, and making the domestic partner health insurance stipend a permanent part of the contract beyond the ratified MOU. This is not a great contract in comparison with other years for many unions. But it is a contract that retains important protections, makes some small advances, and provides sunset dates for two of the provisions that I think need sunset dates rather than permanent status (supplemental summer teaching pay caps and administrative discretion for pay increases).

When we prepared for the impasse process in June, July, and August, I made sure that going through impasse would be as painful as possible for management without stepping over legal or my personal ethical boundaries. That doesn’t mean that completing the impasse process would have been wise for UFF. The executive director of UFF and I were representing union interests in the second of three days of formal hearings in the impasse process when an opportunity for a settlement arose. It was clearly imperfect, but it was there, and it’s a sane individual who can prepare a solid campaign but step back from the brink of war. Thus, I am voting to ratify the tentative agreement because it is the best or close to the best agreement that was possible at this point in time.

(Note: The chapter’s descriptive entry on the 2010-13 CBA tentative agreement has a growing set of comments.)

(To all in-unit faculty and professional employees: please provide input on the ratification voting process on the right: “Should the referendum on the 2010-13 collective bargaining agreement be conducted in person or through the online process we used for the last two Memoranda of Understanding?”)

UFF and the USF Board of Trustees has tentatively agreed on the last components of a complete collective bargaining agreement. The ratification page will shortly be updated with information about a ratification vote for all in-unit faculty and professional employees, but here is the gist of the changes to the complete contract (from the 2008-2009 agreement):

• 2010-11: 1.5% merit raise pool for all employees who are not new hires as of 2010-11. Eligibility: immediate prior annual evaluations with at least 3 on a 1-5 scale. Distribution: formulaic, same as in 2008-09. To be distributed as soon as practical after ratification by both parties.
• 2011-12: 2.0% merit raise pool for all employees who are not new hires as of 2011-12. Eligibility: immediate prior annual evaluations with at least 3 on a 1-5 scale. Distribution: formulaic, same as in 2008-09. To be distributed August 7, 2011.
• Promotion raises for tenure-stream and library faculty: 9% (same as before), with raises of $3,000 for those rising to assistant librarian, $5,000 for those rising to associate professor/librarian, $7,000 for those rising to full professor/librarian (double prior flat bumps). All to base.
• Promotion raises for instructors: 6%. MOU language on instructor-promotion phase-in included by reference.
• Administration retains discretion in chair stipends and contract length, and stipends for additional duties and responsibilities.
• Administration has 1% salary discretion for 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13.
• Increase in ratio of full-pay, one-semester sabbaticals to eligible tenured faculty, from 1 in 30 to 1 in 25.
• Supplemental teaching summer pay remains proportional to academic-year salary by course, with $12,500 cap in 2011, 2012, and 2013 for a 3-hour course (proportionately scaled for courses with more or fewer hours).
• Clarifying language on rights in assignment in Article 9 (no substantive change).
• Addition to the job-abandonment clause in Article 16 to apply roughly equivalent standards for absences in the academic year to summer teaching.
• Domestic partner health insurance stipend program becomes a formal part of the whole-book contract.
• The administration’s discretion to offer an early retirement incentive program becomes a formal part of the whole-book contract.
• A reduction in release units for the chapter: 3 in each academic-year semester, 2 in summer, 2 for whole-book bargaining in 2012-13.

The rest of the contract remains the same, including provisions on layoffs, academic freedom, tenure and promotion, intellectual property, and so forth.

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