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UFF Biweekly
United Faculty of Florida -- USF System Chapter
20 March 2014
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Chapter Meeting Tomorrow CANCELLED

The Chapter will not meet tomorrow. Instead, the UFF USF Bargaining Team (representing UFF USF employees) and the USF Administration Bargaining Team (representing the USF Board of Trustees) will meet at 2 pm. The location will be posted at the UFF USF Website once we know where it is. The bargaining session is open to the press and the public.

Here is the spring schedule for upcoming Chapter meetings.

  • On April 4 in USF Tampa and on April 18 in USF Sarasota / Manatee.
  • On May 2 in USF Tampa.
There will be sandwiches, soda, and chips. All UFF USF employees - UFF members and non-members alike - are invited.

Don't Forget to Vote!

The UFF USF Chapter is a democracy, and elections are now underway. All dues-paying UFF members (as of Feb. 28) - and only dues-paying UFF members - may vote in this election. By Saturday, March 22, all eligible voters should receive a first class letter from UFF with instructions on how to vote. For voting information, including information about the candidates, go to our Election 2014 page.

AFSCME's Impasse Hearing on Monday

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which represents USF staff, is at impasse in bargaining with the USF Administration, which represents the USF Board of Trustees. The Impasse Hearing will be on Monday, March 24, at 9 am, in SVC 2070. For more information, see the AFSCME web-page.

$ 500 Travel Grants for New UFF Members - and for UFF Members Who Recruit New Members

The USF Chapter of the UFF will award four $ 500 Travel Scholarships for next summer and spring.

  • UFF USF employees who join UFF this fall (i.e., joined after January 9 and who join no later than May 1) are eligible for one of two scholarships to be randomly selected at the May 2 UFF USF Chapter Meeting. For information on how new members (or non-members who would like to join UFF) may apply, see the flyer for new and prospective members. Non-members wishing to be eligible must have their membership forms in our hands by May 1. In addition, proposals must also be in our hands by May 1. Two proposals from new members will be randomly selected for funding.
  • Current UFF members who recruit at least one new UFF member are eligible for one of two scholarships to be randomly selected at the May 2 UFF USF Chapter Meeting. For information on how UFF members may apply, see the flyer for UFF members who would like to recruit new members. Notice that recruiters should put their name on the membership form for the new member. If a new member is recruited, the new member is eligible for one of the scholarships for new members and the recruiter is eligible for one of the scholarships for current members. Again, membership forms and proposals must be in our hands by May 1, and two proposals by recruiters will be randomly selected for funding.
This initiative is part of our membership campaign. If you would like to become active in the UFF USF Membership Drive, contact the Chapter Secretary.

Join UFF Today!

Download, fill in, and mail the membership form. Benefits of membership include the right to run and vote in UFF chapter and statewide elections; representation in grievances (UFF cannot represent a non-member in a grievance or litigation); special deals in insurance, travel, legal advice, and other packages provided by our affiliates; free insurance coverage for job-related liability; and the knowledge you are supporting education in Florida. AND YOU CAN JOIN NOW AND AS A DUES PAYING MEMBER, YOU WILL RECEIVE A $ 100 REBATE NEXT FALL. Come and join the movement.

Grievances

If you have been the victim of a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, you have thirty days from the time you knew or should have known of the violation to file a grievance. If you are, and at the time of the violation were, a dues-paying member of the United Faculty of Florida, you have the right to union representation. To contact the UFF USF Grievance Committee, go to the online contact form. For more information, see our web-page on grievances.

IN THIS ISSUE

So How Much Did We Get in Raises Under the 2010 - 2013 Contract?

In the previous Biweekly, we described the different kinds of raises there are. During the current 2010 - 2013 contract, there were merit raises and discretionary raises among the regular raises (there were also promotional raises, but that's another story). In this issue, we look at what the effect of those raises was: what did we actually get?

  • What Actually Happened? The last contract provided, on average, 6.63 % for (performance-based) merit raises and for discretionary raises. How did that turn out? For a snapshot, see below or click here.

What Actually Happened?

So how are raises actually distributed? This is a complex question because many employees change their assignments, shift from line to line, get promoted, and even come and go. Readers may remember from the 29 November 2012 Biweekly that one way of getting a raise was by changing positions or getting promoted. But for many of us, that doesn't happen very often. So for us that stay put, how are our raises distributed?

And for those of us who do hop around, what was the effect of the merit and discretionary raises, considered in isolation?

Let's look over the last three years and compare salaries as of summer, 2010, to salaries as of summer, 2013. According to Article 23 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, UFF USF faculty and professionals were to receive an average 1.5 % merit pay increase in 2011 and an average 2 % merit raise in 2012. The USF Administration had the authority to distribute up to 1 % of the payroll in discretionary raises annually. Thus the mean raise during that time would be (if all discretionary money was disbursed) was 6.63 % (raises compound like interest).

(All this is prior to last October's state mandated $ 1,000 raise to each regular state or public employee earning at least $ 40,400 annually, which we are omitting from our computations as all raises from the 2010 – 2013 contract occurred prior to last fall.)

We looked at employees listed on a unit list provided in late August, 2010 and a unit list provided by the USF Administration in January, 2014. We focused on employees who were occupying the same positions at the same rank at August, 2010 and at August, 2013, and whose "compensation frequency" (e.g., 9-month, all-year, etc.) and whose FTE on the job didn't change. That allows us to exclude salary changes due to promotions, job changes, etc. That still left some noise (one employee's salary was somehow halved and another's somehow more than doubled), but we left that remaining noise in on the theory that it could not be reliably excluded. That leaves 719 employees out of the 1,658 that UFF represents, which only shows how much people were jumping around during that time. But these 719 employees should give us the clearest picture of the effect of the regular contractual raises, which were supposed to average out at 6.63 %; that's merit raises (distributed according to a formula based on annual evaluations) and discretionary raises (distributed at the discretion of the university).

(Actually, we compared the 2010 "annual base salary" to the 2013 "annual base benefits salary", as that is what we had data for. In 2010, all but twelve employees had nearly the same annual base and base benefits salaries within a dollar, and those twelve discrepancies looked like bad data. Nevertheless, we did take the data we used, all from GEMS, for granted. Moral: check your paystubs!)

First, a reality check: according to the U. S. Government's Consumer Price Index calculator, prices rose 6.83 % from 2010 to 2013, so the mean regular contractual raises did not pace inflation.

Looking at the 719 employees as a whole, we see that the mean salary increase over those three years was $ 4,783. If we compute the percentage increase of each employee, the mean percentage increase was 6.31 %. But to find out how employees did in general, it would be more appropriate to look at percentiles: what the employee at the 10th percentile (72nd from the bottom in the list of raises) got, what the employee at the 20th percentile (144th from the bottom) got, and so on up. And also for percentage raises, what the percentage raise for the employee at the 10th percentile of percentage raises got, what the percentage increase for the employee at the 20th percentile got, and so on up. Here they are:

Percentile$ Increase
10$ 1462
20$ 2250
30$ 2626
40$ 2950
50$ 3443
60$ 4027
70$ 5263
80$ 7248
90$ 11580
Percentile% Increase
102.30 %
203.06 %
303.40 %
403.73 %
504.23 %
605.10 %
706.93 %
809.20 %
9013.18 %
Notice that the median dollar increase (half got more, half got less) was $ 3,443, as opposed to the mean (average) $ 4,783 increase. On the other hand, the median percentage increase was 4.23 %, somewhat less than the mean 6.31 % and less than the CPI increase of 6.83 %. In fact, the salaries of over 69 % of the employees did not keep up with inflation.

Notice that by some coincidence, the 1.5 % merit raise followed by the 2 % merit increase compounds to 3.53 %, not too far from what most people got.

Notice that the means tended to be substantially above the medians. This typically means that a few people did a lot better than most. Now let's take a peek at how employees at various ranks did.

  • While the mean increase for the 194 professors in our sample was $ 6,603, the median was $ 3,787. And while the mean percentage increase was 6.42 %, the median increase was 3.57 %.
  • While the mean increase for the 220 associate professors in our sample was $ 4,313, the median was $ 3,754. And while the mean percentage increase was 6.57 %, the median increase was 4.49 %.
  • While the mean increase for the 114 assistant professors in our sample was $ 3,729, the median increase was $ 2,583. And while the mean percentage increase was 5.63 %, the median percentage increase was 3.98 %.
  • While the mean increase for the 74 instructors in our sample was $ 3,110, the median increase was $ 2,217. And while the mean percentage increase was 5.90 %, the median percentage increase was 4.62%.
  • While the mean increase for the 95 librarians (all ranks), coordinators, assistants in, program directors, curators, scientists, research associates and counselors was $ 4,573, the median increase was $ 2,980. And while the mean percentage increase was 7.16 %, the median percentage increase was 3.75 %.
There were a few people in categories we didn't look at, but that's all we have time for right now.

LOGISTICS

No Chapter Meeting tomorrow.

Membership: Everyone in the UFF USF System Bargaining unit is eligible for UFF membership: to join, simply fill out and send in the membership form.

NOTE: The USF-UFF Chapter website is http://www.uff.ourusf.org, and our e-mail address is uff@ourusf.org.

About this broadcast: This Newsletter was broadcast from uff.ourusf.org, hosted at ICDsoft.com, and is intended for all members of the UFF USF Bargaining unit (USF faculty and professionals at most departments). A (usually identical) version will be broadcast to USF-News and USF-Talk from mccolm@usf.edu.

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