Where's my raise???

Dear Colleague,

Where's your raise? That's a fair question. Your UFF bargaining team has been negotiating with the BOT bargaining team for almost a year, but we have not completed work on the 2007-2010 collective bargaining agreement, which would include salary negotiations for 2007-2008.

I hope that you know that UFF is committed to bargaining a good contract, but a good contract is not always a quick contract.

Here's a summary of where bargaining is now. Although we have reached tentative agreement on 80% of the contract, we are still working through five major issues: salary, discipline, summer assignments, and overload assignments/pay, and annual evaluation standards and procedures. Details are found below.

SALARY. We are far apart on salary issues (Article 23) because the BOT has offered NO raises: no cost of living raises and no merit raises. You and I know that this is unacceptable; we're doing more work every year and our bills keep going up! It's not as thought they have no money. The legislature just approved a 5% tuition increase for spring AND gave UCF a lump sum payment equal to a 5% tuition increase for fall. What you may not have known is that even before the tuition increase, UCF was getting more money from the legislature than last year!! That's right, even under the "budget crisis," the budget grew and now it has grown some more. After the special session, the state universities ended up with 6.7% MORE money for 2007-2008 than they got in 2006-2007.

UFF has proposed a reasonable 2.69% cost of living increase and a merit pool equal to 1%. The BOT is willing to provide money for TIPs, RIAs, SoTLs, Excellence awards, and Trustee Chairs. UFF supports these programs, but not in lieu of a real salary increase. The BOT has also asked to be able to give discretionary raises totaling up to $860,000. UFF may support discretionary raises for counter offers, etc., but not when the BOT has provided nothing, not one single dollar, in raises for the people working overtime to support more students, teach larger classes, do more research, and "make do" with fewer and fewer resources.

The legislature did authorize a one-time bonus of $1,000 for most employees that was effective today (November 1, 2007).

DISCIPLINE. We are working to come to agreement on the disciplinary process (Article 16). UFF and the BOT are making significant changes to this article to better define the procedures. UFF is committed to ensuring that employees who are accused of wrongdoing are treated fairly and with due process.

SUMMER TEACHING. We are still apart on issues involving summer assignments (Article 8). UFF's position is that full-time in-unit faculty must be offered summer teaching opportunities first; before adjuncts and before graduate students. The University cannot try to "balance its budget" by hiring cheaper, under-qualified instructors. UFF's position also requires strict summer teaching rotations that provide everyone a fair opportunity. In fact, UFF will bring the issue of summer rotation to an independent arbitrator later this month. The case involves a department that, last summer, offered no summer teaching to its faculty members and instead staffed its summer courses entirely with graduate students.

OVERLOAD TEACHING. You may also be aware that some units have begun to offer "premium tuition" graduate programs and that faculty members are paid to teach in these degree programs on an overload basis. UFF's position is that the rate of pay for these programs should be the same as it is for summer teaching and that these teaching opportunities should be considered a part of the summer rotation. Overload contracts are governed by Article 8.

ANNUAL EVALUATION. During the summer of 2006, UFF and the BOT agreed to language in Article 10 that set certain bottom-line requirements for fair annual evaluation procedures and standards. After that language was ratified, the BOT refused to follow it. UFF filed a grievance, took that grievance to binding arbitration, and won a complete victory. Now the BOT wants to delete the new language from the contract and to, once again, try to establish vague or unfair annual evaluation standards. UFF believes that the new language is appropriate and important and that it should remain as agreed to a year ago.

I cannot tell you how long it will take to bargain these remaining issues. UFF hopes that work will finish soon, so that you can get a reasonable raise that reflects all of the extra work that you're doing to teach our growing student body, conduct your research, and serve the University and broader communities. However, as I wrote above, UFF's goal is to get a GOOD contract, however long that takes. Our proposals are not radical and they do take into account the budget situation that really exists.

As always, I encourage you to join UFF and get involved in making this campus a better place to work. Membership information can be found at http://www.uffucf.org/chapter/membership/index.php

Sincerely,

Jim Gilkeson, chief negotiator
United Faculty of Florida-UCF Chapter

P.S. You can view UFF and BOT contract proposals here:
http://www.uffucf.org/bargaining/proposals/index.php