The most recent collective bargaining session between the USF/BOT and the USF/UFF was convened on Friday, November 5, 2021, and was most disheartening.The USF/BOT and USF/UFF agreed to a few house keeping collective bargaining proposals which had been agreed to years ago, but had not been ratified by a vote of the the faculty and the USF/BOT. The USF/UFF presented 30 collective bargaining proposals to the USF/BOT most of which were designed to provide the faculty with a reasonably friendly employment environment and monetary and other benefits which they justly deserve. The USF/BOT response was silence. On the other hand, most of the USF/BOT collective bargaining proposals were, to put it mildly, insulting and demeaning. The most egregious of those dealt with changes in appointments CBA  Article 8.3 and  8.4 and CBA  Article 23 Salaries.

Regarding appointments in CBA  Article 8.3 and 8.4 the USF/BOT wanted to be able to change, for instance, your 1. title, class code, rank, and appointment status, 2. employment unit, i.e. department, college institute, area, center etc. 3. percent of full-time effort (FTE) assigned  4. salary rate and 5. principal place of appointment all with only thirty (30) days written notice.

Regarding salary the faculty received its last salary increase of 1.5 % at the end on November 2019 and with an inflation rate of 1.4 % in 2020 and over 5.4 % so far in 2021, the USF/BOT’s salary offer was:

For 2021 a pool of funds equal to 1% of the in-unit employee salary base of August 7, 2021, in each department to be allocated among the employee’s in the department based on the in-unit employee’s annual evaluation in the department.

  1. For 2022 and 2023 the same as 1. above, but the pool of funds would be equal to 2%. HOWEVER , there would be CONTINGENCIES, some of which are as follows
  2. contingent upon positive funding of the university’s Legislative Budget Request (LBR) as compared to the level funded in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, respectively.
  3. in the event the University’s LBR is unfunded or insufficiently funded, the University shall have the sole discretion to determine whether to proceed with the 2022 and 2023 increases.

As they say  The devil is in the details of “positive”, “insufficient” and “sole”.

  1. For all three years the authority to make Administrative Discretionary Increases of 2% per year with a yearly carry over feature for unused authority. NO CONTINGENCIES

The actual collective bargaining proposals of each party can be found at https://uff.ourusf.org/bargaining-a-new-contract/