Fellow FIU faculty:
Important Update: For the Self-supporting Summer Supplemental Assignments, it has been agreed that a scrivener error occurred in the language for the salary rate for the summer programs. The specification of the rate should have included the words “no less than”. The final wording of Article 13.2, item 3-b-i-i, should read:
“These rates shall be set to no less than the fall/spring overload course equivalent for the individual program.”
After more than a year of bargaining, the FIU chapter of the United Faculty ofFlorida and the FIU administration have signed a series of tentative agreements for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) covering the years 2021-2024.
UFF-FIU will hold an online ratification vote for the new CBA on Monday, September 13th and Tuesday, September 14th, 2021.
When voting opens, detailed instructions and an access link will be sent to your FIU email via ElectionBuddy, a secure third-party election service. All in-unit faculty, regardless of UFF-FIU membership, are eligible to vote YES or NO on ratification of the new CBA.
Voting will open through the online system at 12:01am on Monday, September 13th and remain open through 5:00pm on Tuesday, September 14th. Results will be announced immediately upon the final counting of ballots at a special virtual meeting at 6:00pm on Tuesday, September 14th (visit the CBA page for the link to the meeting).
Below you will find an executive summary of the new agreements. You can view the new CBA in its entirety here.
We anticipate that the FIU Board of Trustees will vote on the ratification of the agreement at their meeting on Tuesday, September 14th.
Prior to the ratification, all in-unit faculty are invited to attend a virtual ratification meeting on Thursday, September 9th from 12:00pm – 2:00pm (Link to Meeting).
At this meeting, representatives from the UFF-FIU bargaining team will be on hand to answer questions about the bargaining process and the new agreements.
In solidarity,
UFF-FIU Bargaining Committee
Charles G. Shields, Chair
Executive Summary of Tentative Agreements for CBA 2021-2024
Important Update: For the Self-supporting Summer Supplemental Assignments, it has been agreed that a scrivener error occurred in the language for the salary rate for the summer programs. The specification of the rate should have included the words “no less than”. The final wording of Article 13.2, item 3-b-i-i, should read:
“These rates shall be set to no less than the fall/spring overload course equivalent for the individual program.”
The most recent “full book” CBA expired July 1st, 2021. During “full book” years, the entirety of the collective bargaining agreement is subject to negotiation except for those items where both parties agree to maintain the status quo. Negotiations for the new agreement began during the summer of 2020 and concluded August 18th, 2021. UFF-FIU and the administration reached agreements on changes to following items; the remainder of the CBA therefore remains unamended.
Page numbers listed below reference the new amended CBA, linked above.
- Academic freedom
- The new agreement affirms that academic freedom is a contractually protected right (previous CBA language defined academic freedom as a “principle”) and specifies that academic freedom includes pedagogical decisions (pg. 11)
- Bereavement
- Annual bereavement leave has been increased from 3 to 7 days, and qualifying categories for bereavement have been expanded to include “parents, children, spouse, or surviving spouse of the family member, or any other relative by blood, marriage, domestic partnership, or adoption” (pg. 107)
- Conflict of interest
- The agreement adopts a new set of policies to address concerns raised by recent state legislation which altered some definitions relevant to conflict of interest policies and federal regulations pertaining to certain foreign entities. The policy continues annual reporting requirements but provides clearer guidance on which outside activities are required to be reported and which are not. The new policy also strikes a previous provision that exposed faculty to financial liability if they pursued and lost a conflict of interest dispute (pp. 122-127)
- Emeritus status
- To qualify for emeritus status, faculty must uphold principles of academic responsibility in addition to other qualifications already present in the CBA(pp. 135-136)
- Family and Medical Leave
- Language has been adjusted to measure leave in days rather than in hours for consonance with legislative language. No substantive policy changes were made (pp. 90-96)
- Minimum salaries
- The agreement adopts, for the first time, minimum salaries for all eligible faculty, implemented over two years. As of year 2, the minimum salary forfaculty with a doctoral degree will be $60,000 and the minimum for faculty with a master’s level degree or equivalent will be $55,000. This agreement significantly benefits a number of structurally underpaid library and teaching faculty and sets an important standard for the future of faculty salaries at FIU (pp. 34-35).
- Observation for evaluative purposes
- The same procedures for evaluative observations will now apply to all courses regardless of the mode of delivery (i.e., face-to-face, online, or otherwise). Supervisors must provide notice before accessing instructor Canvas shells (pg. 72)
- Patent/inventions policy
- The process for filing patents has been amended to distinguish inventions made through independent efforts from those made with university-supported research. (Previous language was less clear and may have been interpreted to allow the university to assert patents over inventions made independently). The distribution of ownership of patents made with university-supported research has been streamlined such that faculty automatically receive 40% and the need to negotiate with supervisors is eliminated (pp. 113-121). Additionally, the policy on patents/inventions has been separated from the policy on works/copyrights (pp. 108-112).
- Release time
- Release time available for faculty to carry out the UFF chapter’s obligations in representing the unit and administering the CBA have been increased from 7 to 10 units during fall and spring and from 3 to 6 units in summer (pp. 9-10)
- Salaries
- The salary agreement extends across two years; in the first year (2021-2022), all eligible faculty will receive a one-time non-recurring payment of 2% of their base salary or $2000, whichever is greater, and in the second year, all eligible faculty will receive an increase to their base salary of 2% or $2000, whichever is greater. The second-year raise is contingent on funding and may be reopened for negotiation. The administration must notify UFF of the university’s budgetary outlook for the second year no more than 10 days after the governor signs the budget (pp. 31-32)
- Self-supporting summer supplemental assignments
- The agreement sets pay rates for self-supporting summer supplemental courses (aka “auxiliary” programs offered as summer supplement assignments) as equal to pay rates for the same courses offered during fall and spring, permits academic units to set those rates, and requires the administration to provide UFF with an annual report of the salary schedule for these programs (p. 60).
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Important Update: For the Self-supporting Summer Supplemental Assignments, it has been agreed that a scrivener error occurred in the language for the salary rate for the summer programs. The specification of the rate should have included the words “no less than”. The final wording of Article 13.2, item 3-b-i-i, should read:
“These rates shall be set to no less than the fall/spring overload course equivalent for the individual program.”