November 9, 2010. Arbitrator’s finding points to how Florida State administrators acted in “arbitrary and unreasonable” ways showing “blatant manipulation of the layoff units.”
Twenty professors at FSU won back their jobs after an arbitrator rescinded layoffs of tenured faculty in a ruling issued on November 5, 2010. The ruling by Stanley H. Sergent, an attorney from Sarasota, comes in response to legal actions filed by United Faculty of Florida (UFF) claiming the layoffs violate the union contract and should be reversed.
The arbitrator’s remedy for violating faculty rights is unambiguous: “The University is directed to rescind the layoffs of all tenured faculty grievants and permit them to continue in their positions as if no layoff occurred…. Should any grievant … accept alternative employment in contemplation of the layoff becoming effective …, that grievant will have the choice of resuming employment at FSU at the next appropriate time, such as the next term or academic year.”
The FSU administration argued these layoff actions were necessary as responses to budget cuts. But the arbitrator found that the administration exceeded its authority to make changes when it eliminated and recombined programs in “arbitrary and unreasonable” ways that show “blatant manipulation of the layoff units.” The process “appears to have been a subterfuge to avoid having to comply with Article 13.2(a), which requires that tenured faculty be laid off last.” The arbitrator also pointed out several cases in which the evidence refutes claims made by administrators about how they decided which faculty to eliminate.
The faculty union, represented by UFF attorney Tom Brooks, successfully argued that “the University misapplied the layoff article by targeting individual faculty in purely academic programs rather than taking a more traditional objective approach that respected the importance of tenure. In short, the University abused the relatively broad discretion it had under the layoff article to such an extent that the arbitrator felt compelled to intervene.”
Jack Fiorito, the faculty union president at FSU, commented on what is at stake for faculty: “Because tenure is so important for protecting academic freedom and shared governance, this is a win for all faculty. If faculty members feel like even the tenured people dare not speak up, then the non-tenured faculty members certainly are not going to speak up.”
Tom Auxter, statewide UFF president, stated that “in this economy, with budget cuts looming and without laws effectively protecting tenure and academic freedom, the contract is all we have left to defend faculty against abuses of power and violations of rights. The eyes of the nation have been on this case, and faculty across the nation can now see how important collective bargaining is for the survival of the profession.”
Ed Mitchell, UFF Executive Director, stated “this case is about respect, respect for the faculty and respect for the contract. UFF is pleased that FSU President Barron is moving quickly to comply with the arbitration award and rescind the layoffs.”
The United Faculty of Florida represents faculty at Florida’s eleven public universities, ten public colleges, one private college and the graduate assistants at four public universities.
Read the arbitrator’s award at
http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/ArbitrationAwardHighRes.pdf
Chronicle of Higher Education article
http://www.uff-fsu.org/art/che20101105.pdf
Inside Higher Ed article