(Received From UFF President Tom Auxter on Monday, July 6th)
Dear FSU Colleagues:
Earlier this week the FSU Administration provided a list of “non-renewals” of 41 non-tenured faculty, including 14 Assistant Profesors, slated for terminal contracts. Since FSU’s public statements and most observers would refer to these as “layoffs,” and they may in fact be layoffs within the meaning of our Collective Bargaining Agreement’s (CBA) Article 13, I will simply refer to them as layoffs here. The distinction between layoffs and non-renewals (or non-reappointments) is potentially important in terms of contractual rights, but I will not digress on that here — see Articles 12 (Non-Reappointment) and 13 (Layoff and Recall) for details.
Together with previous information on layoffs of 21 tenured faculty, 62 FSU faculty members are now slated for layoff, and have already or will shortly receive notices. The FSU Administration noted that these actions “could change due to further assessment and discussions among administrators.” For now, however, we have to assume that these actions will be pursued by the Administration.
A question many faculty members are asking is “What will the UFF do about this?” That is not the right question, but it is a fair question. For those receiving notice, the question is particularly salient of course. This is an extremely stressful event for obvious reasons.
The short answer is that the UFF will protect faculty rights to the full extent possible. On one hand, this means making sure that the FSU Administration follows the rules of our CBA. Our UFF-FSU Chapter leaders are consulting with state UFF leaders and legal counsel on the best means to do this. Faculty layoffs are unprecedented at FSU in my 19 years here (and longer, but the institutional memory fades much further back), and there is limited experience elsewhere in the state. We are proceeding carefully to make sure we do the best we can to represent faculty members.
Faculty members who are affected and UFF members should contact our Grievance Chair if they believe their contractual rights have been violated. Professor Stepina has already met with several laid-off faculty members. Within our Chapter, he has primary responsibility for contract administration and enforcement. He is not a miracle worker. If the FSU Administration has followed the CBA’s rules, there is little or nothing to be gained in filing a grievance. While we understand that a layoff is an extremely stressful event, please keep in mind that our CBA does not provide a general guarantee of fairness and justice. Our faculty negotiating team works hard to move our CBA in that direction, but we are not there yet and probably never will be.
Also keep in mind that Professor Stepina and the rest of UFF-FSU leadership and activists are essentially volunteers with other responsibilities including teac hing, research, and non-UFF service obligations. We do what we can, but many individuals will have to volunteer their efforts to help us represent faculty. That gets into the “right question.”
The right question is “What can we accomplish through the UFF?” This question opens up additional possibilities. We are not limited to contract enforcement. We use faculty surveys, consultations with top administrators, and public exposure, among other means to advance faculty rights and interests. For example, our November poll showed that faculty members favored furloughs to layoffs (and pay cuts) by about a 2:1 margin. Our more recent April poll showed that margin at about 3:1. We have conveyed these and other faculty views to the Administration and BOT.
As long as many FSU faculty continue to subscribe to the philosophies of “free riding and pas sivity” our ability to effect change will be limited. We have achieved some real gains for faculty, but our influence is limited, and it is directly proportional to UFF membership and faculty activism at FSU. We encouraged faculty to make their views known at the BOT meeting last month. While the BOT maneuvered to minimize faculty input, the fact that less than a dozen faculty members attended the meeting was probably interpreted by the BOT to mean that most faculty members accepted and supported the Administration’s budget plan and the layoff implications that entailed.And here we are.
UFF membership and faculty activism are the only ways we will bring about real change. If you are not a member, join now. Get involved, and get active. As the UFF motto says, we can do together what you cannot do alone.
http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/memform.pdf
Best regards,
Jack Fiorito,
President