United Faculty of Florida-FGCU Chapter

Our Future as Faculty: Tentative Agreement Honors Our Commitment and Avoids Impasse

After 15 months of negotiation, the United Faculty of Florida – Florida Gulf Coast University Chapter (UFF) and University Administration have reached a tentative agreement on issues that led to impasse. As a result, impasse hearings have been cancelled.  We appreciate the efforts of all who scheduled to attend the hearings.

If approved, this settlement will extend the current 2007-2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement to 2010-2011.  The agreement includes key gains for faculty consistent with the values outlined in recent Hot Topics e-mails:

• The tentative agreement honors FGCU’s commitment to shared governance.  Protecting the legal rights of faculty to bargain the terms and conditions of employment was a very high priority for faculty in bargaining this year. UFF protected these rights in two ways. First, we now have authority in the contract to hold the administration accountable if faculty members are not regularly and meaningfully consulted throughout the coming year on issues related to terms and conditions of employment, including those not explicitly stated in the contract.  Second, the agreement strengthens faculty rights to bargain over the impact of any administrative regulation or policy that affects us. Faculty will assist the administration through UFF and in conjunction with the Faculty Senate to make new policies useful and effective.

• The tentative agreement honors our commitment to provide high quality education by compensating faculty with a $1,000 one-time, lump sum bonus effective October 1, 2010, and a 2% faculty raise effective January 1, 2011, both dependent upon the current state budget being signed by Governor Crist and a 15% tuition increase being approved by the state and the Board of Trustees (BOT).  Governor Crist signed the budget late last week (press release); the tuition increase awaits BOT action. The tentative agreement specifies that Administration and UFF will jointly hire an independent, outside consultant to complete a salary compression and inversion study. The study’s results will inform bargaining in the coming year, including not only issues of salary inequities but also problems surrounding uncompensated workload. Administration’s proposal to reduce summer pay by 28% was removed.

 You will be contacted soon to vote to ratify the extended contract.  We hope you will review the agreement we have crafted with Administration and conclude that it is worth ratifying.

What’s next?

This new agreement expires at the end of 2010-2011 academic year. In Fall 2010, UFF and Administration will begin negotiating the entire Collective Bargaining Agreement article-by-article, line-by-line in order to complete an agreement covering 2011-2014. There is hard work ahead in this process and UFF remains committed to ensuring that FGCU honors our commitment, particularly in the following areas.

• UFF is committed to negotiating the removal of salary inequities in our colleges and departments (inversion and compression) and to instituting mechanisms to stop this from becoming a large issue again.  The study will give us the tools we need to identify the problem and strategies to ameliorate that which has been allowed to develop.  Once these results are available, we can work with Administration to codify plans in the next contract.

• UFF is committed to addressing the need for domestic partner benefits. A proposal to address these benefits is another high priority for next year’s negotiations. The plan is to set up a task force to research the methods and costs associated with domestic partner benefits.

• UFF is committed to negotiating appropriate compensation and recognition for all work, such as advising, mentoring, and supervising undergraduate and graduate students in internships, senior research projects, overloads, directed and independent studies, and graduate studies.  UFF will host an open forum this fall to explore workload issues.  This forum may lead to the formation of a task force, similar to the one related to domestic partner benefits, to help research and develop solutions to workload issues.

This most recent agreement is a testament to the spirit of collaboration among faculty. We are especially grateful for the support of new members who helped us achieve majority membership at a critical moment and for all members who helped us write messages, attend bargaining sessions, raise issues with colleagues, and inform us about what is important to them so that we can represent all areas of faculty concern. 

The voice of the faculty union is strong and it is critical that it becomes stronger with a larger and larger majority. More voices and hands increase our chances of success. Please join, get active, and help realize our vision of a quality University that honors our commitment and a quality education for the people of Southwest Florida.