Big Bargaining UPDATE

Tentative Agreements
Article 20: Other Employee Rights

• Investigations for safe working conditions are now subject to UFF-GAU review, allowing UFF-GAU to waive an investigation if the administrator determines one is not warranted, or continue the investigation otherwise. We have the discretion to determine that the investigation should continue even if the administrator believes one is not needed.
• Moved outside employment provision from Article 10, kept the same. This solidifies allowing GAs to obtain employment outside of the University.

TA - Article 20 3.28.24.pdf

Article 21: Discipline

• Disciplinary actions will now be restricted to only 4 actions as detailed in 21.2.
• Notifications of disciplinary actions will now include more information about the charges against the Employee, and ensuring delivery via email AND mail.
• Investigations will also now require a written notice sent to the Employee
• Administrative leave is now an option at the University’s discretion for an Employee during an investigation. This leave is paid and will not count against the Employee for the paid leave they are allowed in Article 8.
• We failed to limit disciplinary action against prohibited bathroom usage under Florida’s new laws, as the BOG regulations forbid us from doing this. We will try to get these protections in other articles. 

TA - Article 21 3.28.24.pdf

Article 22: Grievance
    We made minor edits in this article, as our grievance team indicated they wanted. What we did push for was increases in the timeline at each step in the grievance process, to allow grievants and our grievance team the time they need to not rush into any step.
    In addition to these expanded timelines, we expanded processes for replacing arbitrator , and added a new process allowing grievants to ask for additional extensions at any step in the process. Then, we added a deadline for UF, that mandates they implement any final remedies within 30 days unless that is not practicable.
    The final change was for equities. Before, an arbitrator could only give equity(such as back pay) for up to 35 days before a grievance was filed. After bargaining, this is now up to 60 days.
    While minor, we believe these changes will allow both grievants and our grievance team the room and time they need to ensure justice is done with each grievance.
TA - Article 22 3.28.24.pdf

Article 6: Employee Evaluation File
TA - Article 6 3.28.24.pdf​

Ongoing Negotiations
Articles 23, 24, and “28”

• These articles deal with the few possible cases in which the contract can be renegotiated.
• We are ready to tentatively agree to Articles 23 and 24 but are waiting on the resolution of negotiations on Article “28”, which is a newly proposed article by GAU

Article 23 - Totality of Agreement

• The latest proposal is essentially the same as current contract language, which states that neither GAU nor UF have the right to bargain during the contract period, 
• The only insertion is that portions of the contract may be renegotiated only as specified in Articles 24, 25, and 28. Article 25 deals with reopening specific articles of the contract for bargaining, such as Article 10 (Stipends) which we do every year.

Article 24 - Severability

• This article is about what occurs in the event of new laws, court decisions,etc. That invalidate portions of the agreement
• We have added language that allows for the a provision that is currently invalid and unenforceable to remain in the contract until there is a final adjudication by the courts. This is especially important for laws like SB 256 and HB 7 that are currently being challenge in the courts
• In the event the final judgment of the court renders a provision of the contract invalid, we have added language that UF agrees to enter into negotiations to preserve the contract language as much as possible within the law.

Article “28” - UF Regulations & Policies

• This is an entirely new article proposed by GAU that deals with what happens when UF adopts a new regulation that conflicts with the contract
• If UF has to adopt a regulation by law, GAU agrees to bargain the impact of this change to the contract.
• If UF choose to adopt a regulation by its own discretion, GAU has the right to refuse to change the contract until the contract period is over or bargain over the substance of the new regulation prior to its implementation

Article 9: Academic Freedom

• We have proposed new language that protects the academic freedom of GAs in their teaching and research duties. This is especially important for those who might be affected by HB 7.
• We have added language that protects the ability of TAs to stop disruptive student behavior, including recording class without permission. Under HB7, which is currently unenforceable and being challenged in the courts, students would be allowed to record class to litigate instructors
• Our next proposal will also have new language protecting GAs speech and political activity outside of the university. Such activity cannot be grounds for dismissal or non-renewal

Article 13: Nondiscrimination 
     In November we gave UF our attempt at a massive upgrade to our nondiscrimination article. We expanded protected classes, added protections and rules to ensure access to gender neutral bathrooms, rapidly expanded the definition of sexual harassment and discrimination, and attempted to create a process for dealing with discrimination different than UF as a whole that benefited GAs. In response, UF gave us an article that is closer to current contract language, with modifications to protected classes to make them match UF general policy, and trying to tie all definitions and processes to UF regulation and Policy. In general, we disagree with this idea, as the contract exists to add protections beyond UF regulation.

       On April 4th, we are proposing our next attempt, which is even more bold than before. More protected classes, a larger process for dealing with nondiscrimination, which both relies on UF policy, but also expands upon it, and creating two committees. One, to research the root causes of discrimination and harassment and attempt to solve it. The second is a transitional funding method based out of the University of Michigan, which allows for victims of discrimination or harassment a semester of funding while they find a new place within the university, or to allow them to leave without ruining their finances. We believe that these changes, along with several others totaling 4500 words,  will not only allow for us to protect GAs from these issues, but to handle them the best way possible for the victims, and in the long term to start to prevent these issues from happening. 

Article 16: Use of Facilities
02/8/2024

• Released Time appointments are a right our CBA currently provides GAU. Basically, any GA can apply to work as an administrative worker for GAU for a semester, instead of doing their regular GA assignment that semester. They are “released” from their regular GA appointment, and instead have an appointment (paid for by UF) to work as an admin worker for GAU (because UF needs to work back and forth with GAU on administrative matters, like grievances, so it’s mutually beneficial to ensure that there is an administrative worker at GAU whom they can interact with).
• GAU tried to expand the eligible application pool for Released Time jobs to include people who do not already have a GA appointment– because most of the people who are interested in the job, historically, are people who need funding (i.e., don’t already have it). For this reason, for the last couple years, we haven’t even been able to fill all the Released Time positions we are currently allowed to fill.
• GAU also tried to get 3 parking passes allocated to our officers so that we are actually able to park near the GAU office on campus. Currently, we are unable to transport materials from our office to events on campus without parking illegally, and we have gotten parking tickets for this reason.

02/22/2024

• UF reacted to our proposal of expanding the applicant pool for Released Time positions by removing Released Time appointments from the contract entirely. In other words, they are trying to remove the right we already have. Released Time appointments have been part of our contract since GAU first got bargaining rights almost 20 years ago, and every single Graduate Assistant and University Faculty union in Florida have released time rights. FSU GAU even has the ability to hire people who don’t already have an appointment (like we were asking for in our proposal). It is not clear why they reacted so negatively to our earnest proposal. They simply stated “we don’t feel that released time is mutually beneficial anymore.” 
• They also struck out the sentence about parking passes, saying there’s no precedent for giving parking passes like this, and they have no interest in doing so.

3/7/2024

• GAU returned to the current contract language on Released Time appointments in our latest proposal. We believe the request to broaden the applicant pool was reasonable and innocuous, but it was clearly received poorly and GAU has higher priorities to address this year than broadening the applicant pool for Released Time.
• Because UF said there was no precedent regarding parking passess, we instead changed the request to be for a single parking space to be allocated to GAU outside GAU’s office. We presented a slideshow of the 20+ specifically allocated spaces in front of our office, none of which GAU is allowed to use. We again emphasized that even though the contract provides us with an office, we cannot transfer materials in and out of the office without a parking space.

Article 4: Appointments, Reappointments, Terminations
02/22/2024

• In the current contract language, UF has an “absolute right” to decide whether or not to renew GAs’ contracts each year. The CBA has some protections for GAs from being terminated during their appointment each year, but UF can simply not renew your contract the next year without any explanation if they feel like it. 
• There has been confusion about this because departments often provide GAs with “Letters of Offers” (not to be confused with “Letters of Appointment”) when the GA first decides to attend UF; and the Letter of Offers sometimes suggest or even state that GAs will have multiple years of funding. Only problem is, UF has asserted these letters of offer are not legally binding. When grievance(s) have been filed, where a GA argues they must be renewed because their Letter of Offer says they can expect funding across multiple years, UF simply dismisses Letters of Offers as non-binding and asserts an absolute right to decide whether to renew a contract or not.
• GAU is trying to create the most basic, common-sense right regarding renewal. As we stated in our proposal: “Because full time enrollment as a graduate student is an eligibility criterion for graduate assistantships, because graduate programs require longer than 12 months to complete, and because the act of hiring an employee implies that the employer believes the employee is capable of performing the duties of their graduate assistant appointment, the University and UFF-GAU recognize there is a normative expectation that re-appointment will occur.” We then laid out the various reasons why non-renewal might happen: a) unsatisfactory performance, b) not in good academic standing, c) Incompetence or misconduct, d) departmental lack of funds, or e) voluntary resignation/program completion. The right we are fighting to add pertains to reason A, unsatisfactory performance. We proposed that, If UF wants to non-renew based on unsatisfactory performance, the GA must at least have 1 negative performance review on their record and must at least have been given 1 performance improvement plan to help fix the issue. These need to occur at least 60 days prior to non-renewal to give the GA enough time to fix the issue.

02/29/2024

• UF said “We have no interest in, nor will we have any interest in, curtailing nor constraining our ability to reappoint in accordance with Current CBA 4.6.” In other words, they won’t even agree to this most basic right: the common courtesy of at least telling a GA there’s a performance issue and giving them a plan for fixing it before they unilateraly decide to not renew them. The only part of the new language they kept was the introductory paragraph quoted above that talks about there being “a normative expectation” for renewal. But they added a sentence directly afterwards that says “No appointment, however, shall create any right, interest, or expectancy of continued employment.” They insisted this was not contradictory.

Article 5: Employment Performance Evaluation
02/01/2024

• GAU is trying to create protections for students who are “deficient” as per their evaluations by introducing a required “personal improvement plan” or PIP 
  • In theory, students who are “deficient” in some way would be offered a PIP with concrete ways to improve on their performance
  • 60 days, at minimum, would be given for them to improve 
• GAU is also attempting to use this mechanism to provide some protections for GAs who may be non-renewed at any time at the sole discretion of the university 
  • This “renewal” happens every time a student receives a new letter of appointment - may be every semester, 9 months, year, etc. 

02/22/2024

• Added language to 5.1 where if no performance evaluation exists it is assumed to be satisfactory.
• For unsatisfactory evaluations, added a requirement that the evaluation should specifically state what the result of the evaluation is and where there are deficiencies.
• Created a limited right where a PIP must be offered if given an unsatisfactory evaluation, as well as for non-renewal for performance under Article 4.

02/29/2024

• Changed language to be more binary; satisfactory vs unsatisfactory evaluations instead of “performance deficiencies”.
• Allows for suggesting improvements without needing a PIP if performance is satisfactory but “could be better”.