President's Column

With this issue, we open with the inaugural column of our new Chapter President, Roy Weatherford.

Meet Your New Employer

(You may think it will be President Genshaft, but it won't)

by Roy Weatherford

Your time as a state employee is almost over.

Governor Bush and the Florida Legislature seem determined to eliminate the Board of Regents (BOR) and to terminate our status as state employees.

Most lobbyists are still betting that this will take place July 1, 2001, although some few voices of caution and delay are being heard in the legislature. But even if the change is delayed, previous legislation and (according to the legislature’s dubious construal) the state constitution as amended require that the BOR be abolished.

Whenever the BOR goes away, we will cease to be employees of the State of Florida and become employees of the University of South Florida. USF will be defined in the statutes as a body corporate” within state government (similar, but not identical to, the legal status of “political subdivisions” of the state). As a body corporate, USF will have the authority to hire, fire, supervise, and discipline its own employees, subject only to the general laws and constitutional provisions concerning employment.

One main objective of the legislature is to implement the policy called“"employment at will."

Under this policy, employees may be terminated for any reason, or for no reason, so long as their constitutional rights are not violated (and there is no constitutional right to employment as such -- or to tenure, for that matter).

President Genshaft will be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of this new body corporate (the use of corporation-speak is intentional and significant), but the controlling legal authority will be a new Board of Trustees (BOT), every member of which will be appointed by Governor Bush and almost all of whom will almost certainly be Republican corporation executives.

Their goal is to put us in the same employment box as clerks at the 7-11. They have the power to eliminate our civil service protections and our status as state employees. They can take away all of our rights except the one constitutional right that protects the others -- the right to bargain.

Whether we bargain directly with the BOT, directly with the CEO, or indirectly with a presumably anti-union law firm, we -- members of the USF chapter -- will be responsible for negotiating our own contract.

We need help. We need involvement. We need more members. We need you to get active during this crucial time in our professional lives.

Together we can do it.

Election Returns

The stakes for the elections this Spring were unusually high because the SUS is being broken up and no one (not even the Governor's office) knows what is going to happen. So first of all, we ratified the BOR/UFF contract for 2001-2003. Thanks to all those who voted.

And now for the elections of union officers.

USF Chapter. Mail ballots were sent to all members, and were counted on Saturday, March 31. 31 % of the members submitted ballots.

This was the first contested presidential race in the history of our chapter. Roy Weatherford won with 53 % of the vote, with 46 % of the vote for Mitch Silverman, the rest not voting.

The races for Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer were not contested: Mark Klisch was confirmed as Vice President, Margaret Doherty as Secretary, and Fred Zerla as Treasurer.

I n addition to the Chapter President, the Chapter needs five more senators for the Florida Educational Association -- the affiliate of the NEA and AFL-CIO for educators in Florida -- and eight for the United Faculty of Florida. We had ten candidates for senator on the ballot, and members could vote for eight. The top five vote-winners will be senators for both the FEA and the UFF, and these were (in order of percentage of members who voted for them): Nancy Tyson (86 %), Surendra Singh (82 %), Mark Klisch (72 %), Robert Welker (69 %), and Art Shapiro (58 %). The next three will be senators of UFF only: Gerald Notaro (50 %), Harry Vanden (47 %), Greg McColm (45 %). The other two, Samir Banoob and Mac Miller, will be alternates for the UFF Senate. There was also one write-in vote.

UFF Statewide. The state union also held its elections: ballots were sent to members' home addresses. Here are the results of these elections.

Tom Auxter of the University of Florida was elected President of the UFF, and Dan Kimel of Florida State University was elected Vice President.

Several other offices were filled. For example, Roy Weatherford was elected UFF Representative on the Florida Education Association Governance Board, and he is also one of eight Elected Delegates to the National Educational Association Representative Assembly.

And now, about ... Bargaining

by Greg McColm

On the April 6 union meeting, one of the topics on the agenda was bargaining.

Starting ... soon ... bargaining will no longer be conducted in Tallahassee, with a single team for the UFF facing a single team from the BOR. Instead, each university will have a team representing the local chapter facing a team representing the local administration.

Starting soon, a single team from the USF/UFF Chapter will face a single team from the USF Administration.

This is not a technicality. The courts are increasingly skeptical of claims that academic freedom is guaranteed by law. That means the best protection of our academic freedom is Article V of the contract. As for tenure, even if we somehow remained state employees, civil service protections are evaporating. That means our best protection for tenure is Article XVI of the contract.

The contract is what protects the faculty from indifferent and capricious administration.

We have no idea what the USF Administration will do about bargaining. Bargaining a contract is a major enterprise. Will they undergo some special preparatory workshops? Will they hire a Vice Provost for Labor Affairs? Will they splurge the taxpayers' money on some pricey labor lawyers?

The USF/UFF Chapter has fewer options. Local bargaining will be done by a local bargaining team drawn from the ranks of union members within this chapter.

Among the 1800 faculty in our unit, there is a lot of expertise we could use. People good at logic, people good at numbers, people good at social dynamics. We need ... you need ... this expertise, because it is your contract that is at stake.

And there are rewards for assisting bargaining.

One is self-preservation: to protect one's own contract at a time when contractual rights are in danger.

Another is public service. The union is a line of flying buttresses, helping to hold the university up like a gothic cathedral: if some of the buttresses weaken and crack, the entire structure is in danger.

Finally, there is the fun of getting out of one's own department and doing something different. Come and join the movement.