An update from President Charles E. Young
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UF faculty will participate in two important decisions this fall that will substantially shape the university's future. One is the selection of the next president through a process that is unfolding now under the direction of the Presidential Search Committee. The other is the faculty's upcoming choice to embrace Shared Governance through a reinvigorated Faculty Senate or to employ a union to represent the faculty as labor. This choice will signal to presidential candidates the faculty's aspirations for shared governance on this campus and will play an important role in our ability to recruit the university's next leader.
I have explained in previous President's Updates why a strong system of shared governance cannot exist in the presence of a faculty union. I want you to think about the fact that only four AAU universities are unionized, and those that are, have very weak shared governance. Moreover, no faculty has chosen to unionize following their admission to the AAU. AAU institutions have faculty deeply committed to strong systems of shared governance. We may expect that presidential candidates recruited from among AAU institutions or institutions of equivalent caliber will hold that commitment to shared governance and will expect the same of faculty.
The Presidential-Faculty Senate Joint Task Force on Shared Governance has spent the summer re-envisioning our system of shared governance. A report will be issued this month that lays the foundation for a strong system of shared governance on this campus. It specifies the responsibilities and authorities delegated to the Faculty Senate, and it indicates those reserved to the president and to the Board of Trustees. Of equal importance, it makes clear that the Faculty Senate will have a fundamental role in all discussions and decisions affecting academic life on this campus. I am encouraged by the outcome of this task force, and I believe this document is the basis for success of shared governance at UF.
Faculty may be surprised to hear that a vote on union representation is likely to be scheduled for sometime this fall. There has been little mention of the union recently, and that is because the process is entirely under the control of the Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC), which is carefully and methodically deliberating many issues leading up to a vote by the faculty. One issue that has been before PERC for many months is the composition of the bargaining unit. Once PERC decides that issue, and we expect that to be soon, PERC will schedule a vote on union representation and decide how the vote will be conducted.
In the meantime, since the Collective Bargaining Agreement expired on Jan. 7, 2003, we have been in a legal limbo called the “status quo period.” During this period, UF has, as required, maintained the same terms and conditions of employment for faculty that they enjoyed before Jan. 7. An unsettled area of law is whether or not UF needs to continue providing the union officers with the perks they enjoyed before Jan. 7. We believe the law does not require this, and we have not maintained some of their added benefits, such as release time from teaching courses to pursue union activities or funding for summer employment. The union officers disagree with this interpretation and have filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) with PERC against UF.
The “status quo” requirement is the reason that news about individual faculty raises has not been readily available. Awarding salary increases for meritorious achievement might constitute a change to the terms and conditions of faculty employment. When we sought the union's agreement to faculty raises, their representatives indicated that they would not consider it unless we agreed to bargain a host of issues unrelated to the salary increase even though there has not yet been an election. We continue to work through this situation in an effort to bring the salary raises to the faculty by the date the Legislature specified - Dec. 1. We have also followed the past practice of funding the Salary Performance Plan for full professors and the promotions for faculty on Sept. 1. The union would have us delay these raises as well in an effort to circumvent the election process and bargain other issues, but we have refused to do so.
PERC should decide shortly who should be in the bargaining unit, and when that happens a vote about union representation may be announced in the next month or two by PERC with little advance warning. Faculty members need to begin thinking carefully about their choices and how they will affect UF's future. This is the most important issue of the 2003-2004 academic year, and in the next two months, I plan to schedule several opportunities to speak with you about it.