Uncommon Sense

The Newsletter of the United Faculty of Florida, USF Chapter

(an FEA [AFT & NEA] affiliate)

Volume 10, Number 2 Fall, 2002

The Voice of the University Professional

What Do We Want

In Our Contract?

In early January, the current contract will lapse. This is the contract that protects salary and benefits, tenure and academic freedom, due process rights, as well as things like travel, sabbaticals, non-discrimination, etc., etc., etc. Before we bargain a new contract, we have to have some idea of what we want.

UFF is holding a Town Meeting on Oct. 18, from 11:30 am to 1 pm, in the CIS Auditorium, to talk about what we want (or don’t want) in the next contract, and (being realistic) what our priorities might be.

UFF invites all faculty in the bargaining unit, UFF members and non-members. There will be pizza.

And starting 3:30 pm, there will be a picnic at USF Riverfront Park to celebrate UFF winning the 2.5 % base salary raise.

Senate Report

Senate News. The Senate met on the Sept. 28 – 29 weekend, and the primary issue was certification (see the article on CBA cards). We expect most universities will refuse to recognize UFF as the designated bargaining agent for their faculty, and so UFF is conducting “certification” campaigns on all campuses. Right now, the contract runs out on Jan. 7 (UFF’s position) or Jan. 6 (FBOE’s position) (the reorganization is official on Jan. 7: it’s one of those legal things), and if cards have not been collected by then, the Boards of Trustees can impose very serious obstacles.

However, we expect (under Florida law) that at any university where the cards have been turned in, the Board of Trustees can’t abrogate the contract. The only way to prevent the BOT from replacing the current Collective Bargaining Agreement with a contract of their own design is to sign a card.

Political Junkie News. Some of the meeting was devoted to critical races. The three most important were:

The gubernatorial race. The Florida Educational Association (FEA) and UFF endorse and are campaigning for Bill McBride, who has made education his primary issue.

Amendment 11. UFF has endorsed Amendment 11, to write a Board of Governors into the state constitution, to insulate the universities from politics.

FEA has also endorsed Buddy Dyer for Attorney General, and there are a number of other important races as well.

What’s With These Cards?

If UFF is to negotiate and enforce the contract, it must have standing. A bunch of faculty cannot just announce that they are going to enforce and negotiate contracts. A union must be certified, and only then must the USF Administration deal with it.

UFF was certified as the designated bargaining agent in 1976, when faculty voted in a certification election to have UFF represent them.

So certification is the ground on which any union stands. And when an employer goes out to ``bust’’ a union, his goal is to get it decertified. Yet while Florida Board of Education (FBOE) chair Phil Handy said that the intent of reorganization wasn’t to bust the faculty union, he also said that maybe UFF would have to be re-certified.

Typically, an employer cannot get rid of a union simply by reorganizing: the union still represents the same employees. Still, this is Florida, and UFF decided to take precautions. There were three ways to make sure that UFF was still the designated bargaining agent for USF faculty:

1. The USF Administration could voluntarily recognize UFF’s standing.

2. The Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) could rule that UFF was the designated bargaining agent.

3. UFF could win a certification election.

As of now (Oct. 4), the USF Administration has not announced its intentions, but some other universities have announced that they will not recognize UFF.

UFF asked PERC to rule that UFF represented faculty at each of the universities. The universities opposed this motion, on various grounds. USF said that as the current contract is in force, the time was not yet “ripe” for a ruling. PERC bought USF’s reasoning.

But when the contract to runs out, UFF will not have any standing to use campus facilities (like campus mail or campus space for meetings), and no contract means no grievance process. UFF does not believe in waiting for rain before fixing the roof, and that means winning a certification election.

A certification election will be held if 30 % of the faculty request it. And then, in order to assure that UFF is the designated bargaining agent, UFF has to win that election.

So that’s what these Collective Bargaining Authorization cards are: official requests for a certification election. Only UFF and PERC will see the cards, and they carry no obligation. We would like to get all the cards we need by Thanksgiving.

And this being Florida (ahem!), we would prefer to collect signatures from 60 % of the faculty. Just in case.

So volunteers are going around with cards. As of now, 445 faculty have signed cards. If you want collective bargaining, sign a card.