As mentioned in the previous Biweekly, the UFF Senate is the primary policy-making body of the United Faculty of Florida, it meets twice a year, it met three weeks ago to set policy, and the biggest item on the agenda was ... educating politicians. And UFF is calling on members to join the new Higher Education Regional Outreach (HERO) program in which participating UFF members undergo training on How To Talk To Politicians: to sign up, just fill in the form.
But that was not all that happened at the meeting...
The USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida will meet tomorrow Friday at 12 noon on Zoom. On the agenda: the upcoming Assembly meeting of the Florida Education Association, government relations, and more. And here are the minutes for the previous meeting.
Any employee in the Bargaining Unit may attend, but you must have an invitation: contact the Chapter Secretary to get one. This fall, we are meeting on October 8, October 22, November 5, November 19, and December 3. Meetings this semester will be online.
Meetings and events are posted on the Events Calendar of the UFF USF Website. Come and check us out.
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. Here is the membership form. Come and join the movement.
The UFF USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida will distribute six $ 500 Professional Scholarships to UFF (USF System) members for professional travel (e.g. to attend & present at a professional meeting), equipment for classroom / hybrid / online teaching, or page charges during this academic year. But you must be a UFF member. If you are a member, you can submit a 200-word proposal for professional activities during Fall 2021, Spring 2022, or Summer 2022 by November 30 to the chapter secretary by November 30. Be sure to include your name, title, address, the details of the professional activity, and a brief description of its importance. For more information, see the program flier.
If you have been the victim of a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement or the recent Memorandum of Understanding, 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 Grievances Page.
Many of our students are struggling during this crisis, and the USF Foundation is supporting the USF Food Pantries to help out. They are accepting non-perishable donations, but one can also make monetary donations for the pantries at St. Petersburg, Sarasota / Manatee, and Tampa. See also the Student Health Services Feed-a-Bull site.
Yes, we are on social media.
As the Biweekly reported two weeks ago, at the top of the agenda at the last Senate meeting was government relations. Last spring, the UFF persuaded legislators not to permit guns on campus, not to limit access to Bright Futures scholarships, not to restrict Sunshine access to presidential searches, and, ahem, not to block UFF's current practice of collecting dues via payroll dues deductions. Alas, legislators went ahead and passed a bill mandating "viewpoint diversity" surveys and empowering students to record classroom lectures; in response, UFF's parent affiliate, the Florida Education Association has unleashed its lawyers (paid for by union dues). (Meanwhile, there is a lot of speculation about what the survey will look like.) All this is evidence that we have a lot of politicians to educate.
Two other important items came up.
First of all, UFF is a union local of the Florida Education Association, and in turn is divided into chapters, one for each institution where UFF represents faculty - and four more for graduate students. We heard tales of two chapters.
The second interesting item is something that administrations across the state are requesting in bargaining. There is a new Statute regarding Disclosure of contracts that affect the integrity of state universities or entities; penalties. The federal government is also looking more closely at such contracts. At the Senate meeting, chapters across the state reported that their administrations were presenting contract language on the subject, and since this is a matter of statute (sigh), faculty can expect to see even more forms. Another example of a subject on which politicians may need a little ... guidance.
The demonstration was organized to draw attention to six demands: to more energetically encourage vaccinations at USF, to more energetically encourage mask-wearing, mandatory vaccinations (with religious and medical exemptions) for people present in USF buildings, mandatory masks (with religious and medical exemptions) for people present in USF buildings, barring anyone testing positive from entering USF buildings, and anti-contagion upgrades in ventilation.
The Administration responded by noting that this was a bit beyond the State University System Board of Governors Guidelines. But that was the point that the UFF was making: the Guidelines are not enough and colleges and universities should have the authority to do more, a point emphasized by statements by the Advisory Council of Faculty Senates, the statewide United Faculty of Florida (which also sent a formal Cease and Desist letter to the Board of Governors), and the USF Chapter of the UFF.
We are somewhat heartened by reports that the pandemic is moderating (albeit not universally) and that models of the pandemic - or, more precisely, of the current panoply of variants of the pandemic - are projecting that the pandemic will continue to recede. But a sideways glance at a recent discussion of viral evolution reminds us that there was a similar surge of optimism before the Delta variant exploded - and even without a variant, some experts are warning about a possible winter surge.
Considering the state's passive response thus far, UFF intends to keep the pressure up.
Chapter Meeting tomorrow Friday, October 7, at 12 noon, via Zoom. All UFF USF members are welcome: for the Zoom link, contact the Chapter Secretary.
All UFF members are invited to attend. Non-members are also invited to come and check us out. To get the link to Zoom, contact the Chapter Secretary. Come and join the movement.Membership: Everyone in the UFF USF System Bargaining unit is eligible for UFF membership: to join, simply fill out 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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