A Special Letter from the President

By Roy Weatherford

I understand that a great deal of uncertainty exists, both in the USF community and in the situation in Tallahassee. I would like somewhat to reduce that uncertainty and to eliminate as much anxiety as possible, by writing this letter setting forth my understanding of the future state of collective bargaining and the contract between the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) and the Florida Board of Regents (BOR).

First, by law the BOR will not exist after July 1, 2001. Its assets, employees, and contractual obligations will pass by a Type Two Transfer to the new Florida Department of Education. All employees currently covered by a collective bargaining agreement will continue under that agreement until it expires or until a successor agreement is negotiated, whichever comes first. In particular, USF faculty and professional employees in the general faculty bargaining unit will continue to be covered by the existing UFF-BOR agreement until January, 2003, or until a successor agreement is negotiated.

Second, it is my expectation that the next round of bargaining will occur sometime within the next year and will cover only salary and benefits and a small number of other items, rather than a “full book” renegotiation of the entire contract. It is clear that UFF, as a statewide local of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), has the legal authority to negotiate this and any other successor agreement on behalf of the current members of the general faculty bargaining unit unless and until these employees (or some legally established subset thereof) vote otherwise in a properly scheduled collective bargaining election. At the present time there seem to be three different possible arrangements for these negotiations:

(a) UFF might continue to negotiate a statewide agreement, with the Florida Department of Education (FDE) representing management, since FDE will be assuming the statewide management responsibilities of the BOR (this would continue the present bargaining model for one more year)

(b) UFF chapters might negotiate individual successor agreements with each university (this is what UFF currently does in eight community colleges)

(c) Representatives of each university might meet collectively with representatives of UFF to negotiate a general pattern of agreement that would then become legally separate documents for each university (this is how our Graduate Assistants United contracts were negotiated several times over the last decade or so).

It is fair to say that, at present, no one knows which of these procedures might be used this year, or if there might be a mixture of (a) and (b), with some local contracts superseding the renegotiated master contract. In future years, however, it is clear that UFF will negotiate directly with USF for a localized contract. Since our ability to negotiate a strong contract iscorrelated with our membership, we can no longer count on the stronger membership across the state to balance out our lower membership at USF – you get what you negotiate for, and negotiation should come from strength.

It is my understanding that faculty and professional employees at New College will be moved to a separate collective bargaining unit, with UFF holding the bargaining rights for the employees and the New College University acting as the employer. All other USF faculty and professional employees on all campuses will become one collective bargaining unit, with UFF holding the bargaining rights and USF, as either a state agency or a body corporate, acting as employer.

All USF employees will continue to be public employees. Whether or not we will be state employees in the long run is yet to be determined. The original intent of the sponsors of reorganization was to declare each university a body corporate, so that we would, like community college faculty, be public employees but not state employees. However, that arrangement raises issues of sovereign immunity, especially the question of making medical schools liable to lawsuits. Therefore, for the next year at least, we remain state employees.

If Senator Graham's proposed constitutional amendment is passed, the statewide bargaining unit will be restored, with the constitutionally established BOR as the public employer having budgeting authority over a fixed appropriation lump sum. UFF supports this constitutional amendment, and believes that it would help to insulate us from micro-management by the state legislature (such as this year's attempt to eliminate our free tuition, preserved, for us, by our collective bargaining agreement, but lost by state employees generally). Nevertheless, it would not be prudent to rely on this possibility and fail to develop our capacity to bargain at the local level. Our future, more than ever, is in our own hands.

Since we will continue as public employees under all scenarios, we will continue to be eligible to participate in the Florida Retirement System. Even if we cease to be state employees and acquire the right to negotiate alternative retirement systems, UFF is committed to the principle that no employee should be involuntarily forced out of an existing retirement plan if that can be avoided. Certainly all vested employees have a contractual right to all accrued benefits no matter what anyone does. It is our intention to protect all existing retirement benefits and, through the bargaining process, to strive to improve retirement benefits if we can.

All employees will continue to be covered by the state health insurance system for at least the next year. If we cease to be state employees, the health plan will obviously become a main topic for bargaining. It is our intention to negotiate the best health plan that USF can afford. But here the devils - and the angels - are in the details and in the question of relative affordability. We will be interested in hearing your views as to what benefits are essential, desirable, or dispensable. Anyone with particular interest/expertise in this area would be a very useful addition to our bargaining team.

These are challenging times - times of crisis and opportunity. UFF is our democratically selected instrument to represent our collective interests in the political and economic realignment that is coming. But UFF is no collection of outside agitators. It is a collection of USF faculty and professional employees who believe that we will be better off and the university will be a better place if we work together for our common good. Our salaries, tenure, sabbaticals, and other benefits exist only in the contract heretofore negotiated by UFF statewide. Now they depend on us. All of us. It is time to come together.

Collegially, Roy Weatherford

President

UFF-USF