Our Chapter’s Bargaining Team is currently negotiating with the Board of Trustees Bargaining Team over Article 24 (Salaries) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). We are working hard to get the salary increases that faculty deserve. Our next bargaining session is at 3:00 pm this Friday, 7/30.

This concerns your 2021 raise!! We need your Zoom presence to demonstrate to the BOT that we care deeply about compensation issues.  Our strength is in numbers; please make a statement through your attendance!

Bargaining Events

• The BOT proposed a 0 % raise for the academic year 2020-2021. For 2021-2022, they proposed a 3 % merit raise and 0 % across-the-board raise.
• UFF countered by proposing 3 % merit and 3 % across the board for 2021-2022.
• The BOT made a small concession by proposing 2% merit and 1 % across the board for 2021-2022.
• UFF then proposed proposed 2.5% merit and 2% across the board, which the BOT  rejected.
• UFF continues to fight for fair salaries for the bargaining unit and will make its next proposal at this Friday’s bargaining session. Please attend if you can. 

Why we asked for a 2.5% merit and 2% across-the-board raise for 2021-2022

We deserve the extra 1 % across the board and 0.5% merit increase over the current  BOT offer for several reasons.

First, due to the pandemic, many faculty members did not have a fair opportunity to compete for  merit raises. Particularly affected were faculty who could not travel to their international research locations, those whose laboratories were affected by COVID restrictions, and  those who had family care responsibilities. The adverse effects of the pandemic on women and minority faculty’s work has been widely documented.

These adverse effects have been recognized by the university.  In fact, on 02/08/2021 UFF and the BOT signed a Memorandum of Understanding  that includes the specific wording:

“Chairs and directors shall include the following statement in faculty members’ letters of evaluation: “The COVID-19 health emergency had unforeseen negative impacts on teaching and research during the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semester. While the impacts on individual faculty are not uniform, they include, but are not limited to, disruptions to foreign and domestic travel, institutional closures, limitations on human subject research, supply shortages and delays, personal illness, concerns about illness, or illness among colleagues and research assistants.”

Furthermore, Article 11.1 of the CBA  recognizes the BOT’s responsibility to ensure that faculty of affected groups have a fair opportunity to receive salary adjustments.

Second, we have a poor history of salary increases.  Although an overall 3 % was secured in 2018, and a one-time bonus in 2019, these raises pale in contrast to the cost-of-living increases in Gainesville then and now. The lag relative in a  fair cost of living adjustment  has now been increased by the BOT’s current offer of 0 % raises for 2020-2021 under the argument that funds are not available.  Moreover, due to significant changes in size and composition of the bargaining unit, the salary (per FTE) of bargaining unit faculty excluding those ranks with the word chair in their title has decreased (-0.11%) during the period 2018-2021. 

Third, in contrast,  an average 8.2 % salary increase (per FTE)  given by the BOT to administrators in the period 2018-2021. The increase was received by out-of-unit administrators bearing the titles that include the words “president,””provost,” “dean,” “manager,” or “supervisor.” During the same period, “chair” ranks received a 3.38 % increase. This makes our proposal of 2.5 % merit / 2% across the board a very reasonable request relative to the extremely generous increases to out-of-unit administrators. 

The annual University Term Professorship program was announced by the Provost in 2015 in lieu of that year’s merit raise and promised to be continued in perpetuity.  Its annual pot  amounts to up to  2% of the bargaining unit’s salary. UF unilaterally announced that it was discontinuing the program in 2020, and subsequently reinstated it for a final round in 2021-22. This discontinuation should have been bargained with the unit.

In summary, UFF maintains that the only fair way of addressing the issues listed above is  a merit raise of  2.5% and the across-the-board raise augmented to 2 %.  As mentioned, this proposal was rejected by the BOT, whose latest proposal stands at 2% merit and 1% across-the-board.

Why we have filed a grievance

Since the BOT has rejected our arguments, we have filed a grievance calling for the reinstatement of the University Term Professorship program, or the distribution of its annual funds–originally allocated to be in perpetuity–as an across-the-board raise for the bargaining unit.