September 2022 Faculty Association Statement from UFF-UNF

Elizabeth Brown, President, UFF-UNF

Good afternoon everyone. I hope everyone had a great summer and has an excellent first few weeks of the semester. First, thank you, John White, for your service these past two years as Faculty Association President. I also wanted to welcome Mike Binder as he assumes the role of Faculty Association President. Finally, I would like to welcome President Limayem.

I look forward to working with all of you this upcoming year.

UFF-UNF received the following anonymous question: “When the administration has offered a 5% raise why do you refuse to agree and let faculty vote to ratify? Each day you delay with your endless negotiations costs every single faculty member much-needed finances in a time of unprecedented inflation. The majority of faculty members are not UFF members, why can’t you put an all-faculty vote out and see how many faculty support accepting the 5% raise immediately?”

Thank you for your question. My update today will answer most of it. First, it is crucial to keep in mind that the majority of faculty members at UNF are members of UFF-UNF. We hit majority membership several years ago, and it remains true. I’d like to go ahead and address how bargaining works because, based on this question, there appears to be some confusion. Keep in mind that bonuses typically go through a process involving a Memorandum of Understanding, but raises do not; they go through a different process, which is much more involved and takes a substantially longer time. The right to bargain collectively is in the state constitution. What this right looks like annually is that UFF and the BOT are typically either negotiating a limited number of articles during a reopener year or negotiating the entire contract, which is called full book bargaining. We are in full book negotiations now to resolve a 3-year contract between the faculty and the university administration. No side can agree to one article, like the wage article, during full book negotiations and then have that agreement implemented. Instead, the full book negotiation process means that all 38 articles and 15 appendices are subject to negotiation. In other words, the faculty (UFF-UNF) and the trustees (the BOT team) must negotiate and ratify those articles before the conditions negotiated—including wages—can be implemented. Thus, these negotiations are not unilateral exercises. The UFF and the administration enter into this process, and it is not wholly owned or wholly dictated by one side of the negotiating table. It is not unusual for full book bargaining to take anywhere from 12-18 months, but UFF-UNF’s expressed goal has been to do this quicker than usual because of the unprecedented inflation. Full book negotiations began in earnest in mid-February, so we are officially 6 ½ months into negotiations, but as of the last session, UFF is in a position on 100% of the contract, which means that UFF has made its proposals and has a stance on each portion of the contract. However, having a stance does not translate into closing the book because we have to go through the negotiation process, which means we have to wait for responses and go through the agreement process on the remaining articles and appendices. A lot can be learned about bargaining by attending a session; sessions are currently accessible via Zoom. We also record all of our sessions; they are available to watch on demand on our website. If the question writer would like additional information about how collective bargaining works or where to find the right to bargain collectively in the state constitution, please reach out via email.  

I include a more in-depth bargaining update in the following Faculty Association statement. It should address the question writer’s questions and give everyone a sense of what’s been happening during the full book bargaining process. As you know, the UFF-UNF bargaining team made a big push this summer, hoping to finish full book negotiations in record time. As such, several former team members rejoined our UFF-UNF bargaining team. We wanted to thank Kally Malcom (co-chief negotiator), James Beasley, Claudia Sealey-Potts, Jennie Ziegler, Maria Atilano, and Cami Acceus (our UFF representative) for their hard work this summer. Because of their efforts, we moved over half of the contract from May-July, which is no small feat; typically, it would take double or triple the time to accomplish all that we did this summer. While Kally Malcom, Jennie Ziegler, and Maria Atilano have returned to their regularly scheduled service activities, their service to faculty this summer was invaluable. Thank you for your dedication to faculty rights. This fall, our bargaining team will consist of James Beasley (co-chief negotiator), Claudia Sealey-Potts (co-chief negotiator), Angela Mann, and Cami Acceus (our UFF representative). Please contact me if you are a UFF member interested in learning more about the bargaining team. We are always looking for more members to get involved with UFF-UNF. Though the work is incomplete, we believe the faculty will be pleased with the outcome of those articles both sides have tentatively agreed upon. UFF-UNF appreciates and welcomes continued forward progress with our BOT counterparts. That said, some troubling proposals have been introduced by the BOT thus far. We will first go over the status of the salary article before discussing our concerns about several recent articles proposed by the BOT team.

Of great interest and importance to the faculty, the UFF-UNF team last made a wage proposal on July 29th, and we are still waiting to hear back from the UNF-BOT team about that proposal. As you might recall from all faculty emails, our team proposed the following:

Each eligible faculty member shall receive an increase to their base rate of pay equivalent to five percent (5%) of their August 8, 2022 base rate of pay plus a flat rate of $1500 applied to their base rate of pay.  The increase will be effective as of August 8, 2022, and distributed in the first full paycheck after the date of ratification. If ratification occurs after August 8, 2022, the raise will be paid retroactively.

We hope that we receive a response soon. We are especially concerned because previous UNF-BOT counter proposals have not included retroactivity, although the university budgeted for 5% increases from the start of the academic year. UFF-UNF will continue to seek retroactivity and hope that our new university leadership will recognize the need to apply raises from the beginning of the academic year, similar to the raises already in effect for all other units at the university, like police, staff, and administration. UFF desires a quick turnaround and resolution to full book negotiation for faculty because we know you have been waiting for this raise; we also know there is a significant need for wage increases among faculty. 

Additionally, UFF-UNF has been especially concerned about several articles that the BOT has recently proposed that limit the rights and benefits of faculty members. For instance, the Conflict of Interest policy contains similar language to that of the Conflict of Interest policy at UF that a federal judge has ruled unconstitutional. The language opens up faculty to scrutiny not just over legitimate potential conflicts of interest but to interference and surveillance over how faculty spend their free time. As proposed, the language is broad enough to include mandatory reporting of your crocheting hobby, golf outing, and weekly errand schedules. It sounds a little silly, but it’s pretty serious. Such broad language brings either an unnecessary and invasive presence of UNF Human Resources or Administration into your lives or creates the ability for faculty to be terminated without proper cause. We are concerned that the current language establishes a system of ownership of faculty time outside of the workday and contract period and violates constitutional rights, consistent with the federal judge’s ruling. There is significant concern that accepting the proposed language would create similar legal issues and bad PR that UF has experienced. We do not want our university saddled with such self-inflicted trouble. We have heard from many faculty members who are concerned about this proposal. UFF-UNF is also concerned with communications from administration to faculty about COI because they ask faculty to follow a policy not outlined in the CBA. We must emphasize, and we cannot state this enough, faculty need to follow the law and report outside activity that could be perceived as a potential Conflict of Interest. Again, while we agree that faculty must follow the law by reporting their Conflicts of Interest until an agreement is reached on the full book negotiations and the new contract has been ratified, faculty have the option of following the Conflicts of Interest policy outlined in the CBA. UFF believes the current mutually agreed upon contract still complies with the current law. If you have questions about properly reporting your outside activity, please contact UFF-UNF.