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Dear FSU Colleagues,
Our latest bargaining session was held on Thursday, July 31. Your UFF-FSU faculty team and the Board of Trustees’ team discussed salaries (Article 23), parental and family leaves (Article 17), and inventions and works (Article 18).
The BOT team first presented their latest proposal for Article 18, Inventions and Works. The sticking point is how to define “scope of employment.” The reason the definition of “scope of employment” is important is that (we think) the university wants potentially to claim rights over inventions and patents that are within our “scope of employment,” which they would like to expand to include any thought you have had, no matter where and when. The BOT team proposed defining it as “the range of duties, responsibilities, and activities expected as part of a faculty member’s university affiliation.” VP Patterson noted that many ACC universities own the rights to all inventions (though upon further review, it’s not that simple) and that FSU should also own rights to inventions created within a faculty member’s research expertise. So, we asked, if an English professor finds the cure for cancer, is that part of the professor’s research expertise and thus owned by the university? VP Patterson said no, because the English professor was not hired to find the cure for cancer. The BOT’s proposal does not make this distinction clear with their use of the term “affiliation.” The UFF team countered, replacing “affiliation” with “appointment” and making it explicit that scope of employment “includes activities that fall within the faculty member’s FSU area of research expertise.” We also added language stating that research conducted by faculty with a research assignment of 5% or less would not be part of their scope of employment.
As for Article 17, Leaves, the BOT team rejected our proposal of two 16-week parental leaves (with a “family leave” option for one of them) and instead proposed up to a total of two parental (not family) leaves; each would be up to 10 weeks with a minimum duration of 24 months between the two leaves. Once again, their proposal is disappointing, especially considering the evidence presented by faculty at FSU who have studied the importance of both parental leave and family leave, and considering that this would be shorter total leave time than we have now.
For Article 23, Salaries, the BOT’s latest proposal went up by 0.25%:
| UFF offer July 28 | BOT offer July 31 | |
| Promotions | 12% / 15% | 12% / 15% |
| Sustained Performance Increase (SPI) for top ranked specialized faculty every 5 years | 3% | 3% |
| Post-Tenure Review: Professors | 3% Meets / 5% Exceeds | 3% Meets / 5% Exceeds |
| Post-Tenure Review: Associate Professors | $4,000 Bonus Meets / $6,000 Bonus Exceeds | $4,000 Bonus Meets / $6,000 Bonus Exceeds |
| Performance | 2.75% or $2,750 whichever is greater | 1.25% (up from 1.00%) |
| Department Merit | 1.75% | 0.25% (same as last proposal) |
| Dean’s Merit | 0.00% | 0.10% (same as last proposal) |
| Market Equity (to adjust for compression and inversion) | $1,000,000 | $0 (same as last proposal) |
| Administrative Discretionary Raise | 0.30% | 0.80% (same as last proposal) |
Bargaining will continue August 6 from 2:00-5:00pm at the FSU Training Center, just across Stadium Drive from the University Center (or join us on Zoom). Please plan to join us!
And if you haven’t joined UFF-FSU already, please do not wait; join today and protect our right to collectively bargain and enforce contracts that protect faculty rights.
In solidarity and on behalf of the UFF-FSU bargaining team,
Jennifer Proffitt
UFF-FSU Co-Chief Negotiator and Professor of Communication