Uncommon Sense

The Newsletter of the United Faculty of Florida, USF Chapter

(an FEA [AFT & NEA] affiliate)

Volume 11, Number 1 Summer, 2003

The Voice of the University Professional

Last Year’s Successes

Last academic year was very busy, and the United Faculty of Florida is proud of its successes during that difficult and dangerous time.

We are still here, despite the Board of Education’s attempt to get rid of the union entirely. FSU and UF are fighting that fight to the bitter end, but the other universities have all recognized UFF as the faculty union. We are now working on getting them to recognize the 2001-2003 contract as the status quo ante for contract negotiations (see About Bargaining inside).

We’ve won some smaller battles. Last Fall, the Board of Education wanted to give no raises, only a few bonuses; UFF compelled the Board to produce the October raises. UFF also won grievances, i.e., legal actions arising from the Administration violating the contract. Most of these grievances arose from low-level rogue administrators (e.g., chairs) arbitrarily and capriciously disciplining faculty members for offences, real or imaginary, in violation of the contract’s procedures. Unfortunately, the Administration tends to stand behind its rogues, so some of the victories required a lot of work.

But we’re better off than FSU, which tried to prevent UFF from even meeting on campus. UFF won that fight, too.

UFF also supported the USF Faculty Senate in its endeavor to make faculty governance a reality. As one USF trustee observed, concentration of power is a mark of incompetent business practice. We hope that the rest of the board was listening.

Strength in Numbers

Life would be easier if we could trust administrators to make assignments, provide resources, manage the work environment, and set salaries and benefits rationally and responsibly. Administrators being human, we have to make sure that the Administration does act responsibly. But lone faculty members can-not do this: only a union of faculty has the collective resources to check and balance the Administration.

Like the flying buttresses of a gothic cathedral, force is applied on both sides to keep the roof from falling in. But considering the Administration’s resources, the union needs the involvement and support of all faculty. We need faculty involvement because the union can deal with only those problems faculty bring to its attention. And we need faculty support, because these are political struggles in which clout counts.

Soon the Chapter (i.e., volunteers from among your fellow faculty) will be bargaining a new contract. They need your input before bargaining, and your support during bargaining.

Announcing a Survey

So we are going into bargaining. What do we want?

You will soon be receiving a survey asking you which issues are most important to you. The survey will also ask you about yourself – what kind of posi-tion you hold, about where in the university you are, etc. This information will be used to develop the Bargaining Team’s strategy: as under the rules of poker, the results will be confidential. We ask everyone in the bargaining unit to return the survey.

About Bargaining

So the USF Board of Trustees has recognized UFF, and next comes bargaining. Well, not quite. We face the same disagreement that we’ve had for a year now: what is the status quo from which bargaining begins? By law, it is the previous contract, but the USF Board prefers to ignore the law. Last Spring, UFF asked the Public Employees Relations Commission to force the Board to obey the law, and the Board (consisting entirely of Bush appointees) is still thinking.

But some time bargaining will begin. Last Summer, the USF/UFF Biweekly (see below) ran a 5-part series (soon to be on-line at www.uffusf.org) on some major issues in bargaining. But first...

Bargaining is a tricky business. Ideally, the two sides would figure out resolutions that would maximally benefit them both. In practice, it is like poker, except that both sides know their own hands weeks or even months in advance. So bargaining is 90 % preparation, and rather adversarial. Indeed, bargaining can be extremely adversarial in a new situation.

There are many issues before us.

Faculty salaries are low enough to make retention a problem: the Board of Trustees’ 2002 – 2007 long-range plan calls for the mean (weighted) salary to rise 34 %. It is not clear where the Board will find the money to put where its mouth is. Further, while the state seems to be planning no changes in benefits, insurance rates are rising.

Meanwhile, tenure and academic freedom are still popular political targets, and while the Administra-tion endorses both in theory, it has difficulties with the practice. The contract is our primary protection of both tenure and academic freedom: the courts are not very supportive of either in the absence of a contract.

And what might the Administration want? Other Florida state universities have unlawfully stopped UFF dues payments via paycheck deductions, barred UFF from meeting on campus, and retaliated against union activists. Even USF’s Administration unlawfully refused to honor course releases the contract permitted UFF to assign, refused to meet in consultation to discuss serious issues, and shut down the grievance process – all as part of its unlawful refusal to abide by the terms and conditions of the contract. All this suggests an agenda that the Administration may bring to the table.

Stay tuned.

Layoffs

Late last Spring, UFF heard that a prominent research department was handing out “you may soon be laid off” notices to several untenured faculty, including tenure-track faculty with lots of grant money. Desiring more information, the May 24 Extra Biweekly called for information about layoffs anywhere on campus. The UFF Biweekly editor also submitted a Public Documents request to the General Counsel’s office requesting lists of laid off or to-be laid off or maybe-to-be laid off employees. And Chapter President Roy Weatherford wrote column for the May 28 Oracle on “How to Ruin a University,” about the folly of indiscriminate layoffs (especially of high-performing tenure-track faculty).

The General Counsel’s office informs us that they cannot comply with the Public Documents request because no such lists exist. According to the General Counsel’s office, the Administration does not keep track of such things, and (responding to another part of the request) the officers in the Provost’s Office responsible never send e-mail on the subject. As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.

The chastened Biweekly editor has submitted a new request (its all how you word it, it seems) and again asks that anyone who knows about layoffs, imminent or actual, is asked to contact either the Biweekly editor, Greg McColm, or the Grievance Chair, Mark Klisch.

Meanwhile, layoffs are hitting the staff. A lot of this is the push for privatization, which had previously hit the night janitors, and which has now hitting the bookstores. As we make do with fewer and lower-paid staff, USF will learn that one gets what one pays for.

The Biweekly

Every other week, on the Thursday before payday, the UFF USF Biweekly is broadcast to the members of the bargaining unit. This newsletter provides the latest news and propaganda, to keep everyone up to date.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to get entirely up to date with our e-mail mailing list, which means that many members of the unit are not receiving their Biweeklies. We hope to have the mailing problem fixed by the end of the semester, but in the meantime, any member of the unit can get their address added to the mailing list (within a few days) by sending an e-mail to the webmaster, Greg McColm, at <mccolm@chuma1.cas.usf.edu>.