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Dear Colleagues,
Our latest collective bargaining session had some significant developments. We started with presentations by the BOT team, since the UFF-FSU team had responded to all open articles at the last session.
The BOT team presented two new articles, Article 18, Inventions and Works, and Article 19, Conflict of Interest along with a response to Article 9, Assignment of Responsibilities. The text of all three proposed articles has been posted on the UFF website uff-fsu.org. To help the BOT present these articles, the session was attended by Stacey Patterson, Vice President for Research, and Valerie McDevitt, Associate VP for Research. The proposed changes significantly affect faculty rights, restrict faculty activity that is currently not strictly controlled by the University, and roll back rights bargained for in 2022.
This is a clear sign of what professional life would be like at FSU without the UFF to bargain for these rights and to continue to defend them. The university is trying to pull back control of CBA-conferred faculty intellectual property rights. If you value your rights as a faculty member, know that they will not be protected by the administration or by waiting for your colleagues to step up instead. There’s no more sitting on the sidelines and hoping that other people will join. If you don’t join now, this time next year there may not be a union, and the university will be able to grab at the benefits that you now receive for your creative and intellectual innovation. Not only that, but we are close, at 59% membership as of today. This means that YOU may be the reason that all the faculty lose their union. Please join.
The changes for the Article 18, Inventions and Works centered on the University asserting ownership interest in any Invention or Work that was in a faculty member’s “field or discipline,” even if it was an independent effort, off hours, and did NOT use Appreciable University resources. Further, the University will only use “reasonable efforts” instead of best efforts to help faculty obtain rights to an invention. The definition of a faculty member’s “field or discipline” is vague and undefined in many cases, especially when it comes to faculty who do interdisciplinary research.
Second, faculty will not be allowed to release Open Source Software without authorization by the University. The reasoning offered for this change is that faculty are unaware and uneducated about Open Source Licensing and often regret their actions.
Lastly, faculty course materials shall be available to the University to be transferred to new faculty or faculty newly assigned to similar courses. The university would have rights to the instructional material even if the faculty member leaves the university.
The UFF brought up several cases where applications of these changes clearly would negatively affect faculty.
Article 19 Conflict of Interest was next for discussion. The BOT team added new language allowing the university to deny any proposed Outside Activity that is inconsistent with any other University contracts or jeopardizes other sponsorships with outside entities. It is not clear to us if the faculty member has the rights, under this provision, to engage in activities that go against the will of the state, as when the UF faculty “expert witnesses” testified in federal court against an interest held by the current state Administration. The language the BOT team is proposing can be construed to be a very broad prohibition of faculty members’ Outside Activity. For example, should the federal government decide that something is taboo, funding from another source could be rejected as risking Federal sponsorship.
On a more constructive note, we came to agreement on Article 9 Assignment of Responsibility discussing how last-minute assignments would be handled. The BOT added language requiring written justification for the assignment and ways for the faculty member to negotiate an assignment of a course where the textbooks have already been selected. Our UFF team also added language clarifying the appeals process.
In addition, the parties signed off on an MOA for a holiday that the University refused to name but that happens to occur on June 19th (Juneteenth).
Comments (or praise) on bargaining issues are always welcome. Please also join us at the next collective bargaining session: Wednesday, May 28th from 2:00–5:00 at the FSU Training Center, just across Stadium Drive from the University Center (or join us on Zoom). We will present our response to Article 18 (Inventions and Works), and Article 19 (Conflict of Interest/Outside Activity) and hope to hear responses to our proposals to the BOT team on Faculty Rights (classroom safety), Family Leave, and of course, Salaries.
In solidarity and on behalf of your faculty bargaining team,
Scott Hannahs, Research Faculty
United Faculty of Florida – FSU Chapter Co-Chief Negotiator
https://uff-fsu.org
National High Magnetic Field Lab, Florida State University
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