Response of Graduate Assistants United/United Faculty of Florida to Step 1 Decision by Professor Gerhardt, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, University of Florida.

General Response to Step 1 Decision:
Dr. Gerhardt asks us to consider the "overall intent" of Section 23.2. In our estimation, its intent is to pay the eligible graduate employees at the University of Florida a 3% across-the-board raise, or $300, whichever is greater. We find particularly disturbing the notion, in this year of exceptional solvency and administrative raises, that the University of Florida finds its fiscal machinery derailed by a simple raise amount of two-tenths of one percent. Moreover, in no section of the contract do we find language suggesting that the contract between Graduate Assistants United and the Board of Regents, legal and empowered agent of the legislature, is immune from proper execution under federal labor practices and state contract guidelines. Yet Dr. Gerhardt's letter implies that the contract is binding only insofar as one party (the agent of the state legislature) desires it to be.

The arbitrariness of the contract suggested by this interpretation in no way conforms to the desired relationship between labor and management. It allows the Board of Regents to avoid responsibility for contractual obligations that it has in fact been assigned to negotiate and execute. This is inconsistent with responsible business management, state and federal contract statutes, and with good-faith bargaining.

The Step 1 response addressed only a small fraction of the arguments presented in our first summary. Our reply reconsiders these in light of Dr. Gerhardt's observations, mostly in the order his letter presented them. As for those many arguments not considered, consider them resubmitted for your consideration in this Step 2 Procedure.

Specific Responses to Step 1 Decision:
(1) Dr. Gerhardt's assertion that Section 23.1 is only meant to "acknowledge that the parties only have the power to recommend that the Legislature appropriate sufficient funds" implies that contract negotiations are not binding, but the section makes no mention of the relationship between the actual recommendation and the execution of the contract. Dr. Gerhardt's reading implies that, having recommended the raise, the BOR, as an agent of the legislature or as fiscal entity, is then absolved of its contractual obligations to graduate employees. This interpretation casts a shadow of arbitrariness over the entire contract, denies its enforceability, and makes a spectacle of contract negotiations.

(2) The distancing of the BOR from its superior entity, as implied by Dr. Gerhardt's position on 23.1 and throughout the response, implies a separate domain for the agents of the Board and the Legislature. Yet, if in fact the Board of Regents does possess a kind of compact sovereignty within the governance structure of the State of Florida, this only supports our earlier claims that it and its agents may draw from their substantial wealth outside the Legislative appropriation. The notion that the monies allocated by the legislature constitute the sole resource for graduate employee compensation at the university is difficult to maintain. Section 23.2 in no way binds the University to pay graduate employees solely from funds appropriated by the legislature. The entire finance and allocation structure of the university, as documented in the public records of transactions and pay raises, rests on a flexibility exactly opposite to such a notion. Refer to GAU Step 1 Arguments (3), (4), and (5).

(3) Dr. Gerhardt points to a claim of intent (see his page 683 of Step 1 response) by the Legislature which states that "salary increases provided in the sub-sub paragraph c. are applicable to both unit and non-unit graduate assistants and graduate health professions assistants." Yet he does not address the section which states "These funds shall be distributed in accordance with the negotiated collective bargaining agreements of the unite graduate assistants and as prescribed by the Board of Regents for the non-unit schools." The problem here is incoherent language in the legislative appropriation. Part of section c. suggests a 2.8% appropriation for unit schools, while the other section creates an imperative distributive mechanism "in accordance with the negotiated collective bargaining agreements." Similarly, the "applicability" sub-clause suggests a general statewide fund is created, which is consistent with the actual statewide issuance of a 2.8% raise. Yet the first sentence of section c. parenthetically delimits the unit schools "(UF, USF, and FAMU)" as the pool from which the raise is to be determined. A Step 2 response to our Step 1 (1), (1)(a), and (2) arguments could help us understand how the mechanism actually functions, but thus far we have seen nothing to challenge our interpretation of a statewide pool from which unit schools could be first paid their contractual raise amounts.

(4) Dr. Gerhardt disagrees that unit and non-unit schools should be treated differently. He claims this is "not provided for in the Agreement." Obviously, pay and conditions of employment of non-unit schools are not provided for in an agreement between a union and management at a unit school, but to call the fulfillment of our contract "preferential treatment" is hardly accurate. The position of equal treatment of unit and non-unit schools does not mete out with the reality that unit schools, having organized under federal labor law, do in fact have different rights and obligations from non-unit schools--the essential one being the right to collective bargaining and binding contracts.

Conclusion:
We reiterate that, while the above counter-arguments primarily respond to Dr. Gerhardt's decision, the majority of our Step 1 arguments were not addressed. The Step 1 decision focused on the legislative appropriation, but without revealing the mechanisms of funding and accounting that would clarify the issues raised in GAU Step 1 (1), (1)(a), and (2). Moreover, the Step 1 decision did not address the topics of flexibility; non-appropriated monies; past accounting practices with regard to administrative, OPS, and faculty raises; and prohibitive language as we discussed them in GAU Step 1 (3), (4), (5), (6). Even were we to concede to the University's interpretations of the legislative appropriations language, we would still be left with unresolved issues about the nature of the contract and your obligations to fulfill its terms.