Bargaining update, Sept. 17, 2015 – United Faculty of Florida at UF

Your bargaining team continues to prepare for the November 18 impasse hearing before the Special Magistrate (to be held at 9 am in Emerson Alumni Hall, Warrington Room A). For your information, below is a summary of UFF’s last proposal (before impasse) to the administration, as well as of the administration’s last offer (before impasse) to UFF:

	UFF-UF	UF Administration
raises effective	August 15, 2015	January 1, 2016
merit increase pool	2.5% (For departments without approved merit criteria, this percentage is distributed across the board.)	2.5%
cost of living adjustment	2.75%	0
compression/ inversion adjustment	0.75%	0
administrative discretionary increases	0.5% (remove compression/ inversion from administrative disc. increases)	1% (no change)
promotion increases	15%	9% (no change)
grievability	remove language limiting grievability of issues in the salary article	keep language limiting grievability of issues in the salary article

In our update of June 30, we noted the administration’s opening position of 0.5% merit. While we were pleased they eventually raised this number, we were disappointed that they still insisted on January 1, 2016 as the effective date for all increases. From the beginning, we have argued that any increases should begin in the fall.

And, of course, we were even more disappointed at their refusal to bargain over any of the other salary issues—cost of living, compression and inversion, promotion increases—listed in Article 24 of your Collective Bargaining Agreement. This refusal played a major role in our decision to declare impasse.

The UFF-UF Bargaining Team:
Sumi Helal, Chair (Computer & Information Science and Engineering)
John Biro (Philosophy)
Agnes Leslie (African Studies)
Raúl Sánchez (English)
Candi Churchill, UFF Service Unit Director
bargaining@uff-uf.org