February 24, 2010. FAU admin & trustees’ refusal to arbitrate to be challenged through Motion to Compel Arbitration in circuit court.

Imagine that you are walking to your car after work. It’s late at night and your ride is the last one in a poorly-lit parking garage. Suddenly, a knife-wielding figure jumps out of the darkness, knocks you down and violently stabs you in the abdomen. The person then dashes off into the night. You’re thoroughly traumatized, even though you’d received threats and were already on guard. From your hospital bed you find that your assailant has been apprehended by the police. Although he acknowledges the attack, he maintains that he should not appear before a judge because, after all, he was nice enough to pull the knife out of your person before absconding and plans to pick up your hospital bill and send you some flowers as you recover.

The analogy is not perfect. To be so it would have to provide for how your attacker was also your employer, and thus had control over where you park your car and what time you leave work. Yet this is essentially what took place on May 29, 2009 when the Frank Brogan and John Pritchett-led administration assailed the faculty body and the institution of tenure at FAU. The administration has since asserted that even though a bludgeoning of the faculty body may have taken place, all is now better and there is really no need for a silly arbitration.

It is true that the administration has partially withdrawn the knife from the faculty body (two of the five layoffs have now been officially rescinded and all faculty members have been provided with alternative positions), yet the body is still wounded while the culprit stubbornly refuses to abide by the arbitration process provided for in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Further, the assurance and peace of mind the faculty body once may have had for its safety is now gone, probably for good. This is not merely a refusal to arbitrate. More importantly, it is a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the faculty’s legal representative–United Faculty of Florida.

This is the essence of the argument presented in UFF-FAU’s Unfair Labor Practice charge filed with PERC earlier this month concerning the union’s Chapter Grievance: the entire faculty body is harmed when the administration/BOT is allowed to violate the CBA–in this instance by setting up “functional units” to bypass the CBA and target tenured faculty. FEA attorneys now intend to file a Motion to Compel Arbitration in circuit court on the grounds that the FAU administration and trustees are in no position to unilaterally determine whether a grievance is arbitrable. Only a trained arbitrator has the capacity to do this.

ULPs and lawsuits both take time to receive hearings. UFF-FAU will keep you apprised of further developments as we become aware of them. This time around, FAU trustees and administrators may have to learn the hard way that they cannot arrogantly claim, “I am the state!” as they did in dismissing the PERC Special Magistrate’s ruling on faculty salaries in April 2009. This is an especially good thing given their particularly one-sided sense of justice.