August 2, 2010. Bargaining Team appreciative of 2010-11 three percent salary increase offer, Asks for modest 2009-10 half-percent increase to achieve greater parity with salary growth of administrators and other out-of-unit employees.
After the announcement of raises for out-of-unit employees by the administration, I know that many of you have been anxiously awaiting resolution of the bargaining contract for unionized employees. I would like to share with you where we are in the process.
We have reached agreement on most of the articles in the contract. The two contentious issues that remain are Salaries and Reserved Management Rights. You can read the proposed Article 4 here. We are concerned that a significant expansion of management rights has been proposed and we strongly object to the insertion of their interpretation of case law into the agreement.
On salaries, the latest administration proposal for in-unit employees includes a 3% increase in base salaries. The proposed increases would be effective at the start of the 2010-2011 academic year. The increase would be distributed as follows: a 1% retention increase for all faculty with satisfactory evaluations, a 1% increase for meritorious performance, and a 1% increase for performance based market equity. These are the three categories that we have traditionally tried to secure increases in. We are satisfied with these increases for 2010-2011, but we remain concerned with how to adequately compensate faculty for 2009-10. The administration has proposed no increases for 2009-10.
The popular perception is that the University was dealing with a dire budget situation in 2009-10 which prompted tenured faculty layoffs without adequate notice and numerous special meetings to discuss the budget. We have just learned, however, that during the same period, many administrators and other out of unit employees received special pay increases whose total exceeded $500,000. These special raises were in addition to pay increases for promotions and job reassignments. We believe that in-unit employees deserve similar compensation and have offered to settle for an additional 0.5% increase, for a total increase of 3.5%.
In the next couple of weeks we hope to share the data on pay raises in 2009-10 for out-of-unit and in-unit employees with the faculty community and solicit your input on salaries through an online survey. Based on those findings, we hope to conclude negotiations soon after the start of the Fall semester.
In Solidarity,
Sharmila Vishwasrao
For UFF-FAU