At FAM-T bargaining today, we came to a major agreement with management: we were able to tentatively agree (TA) to an article on Discipline and Discharge. We also passed across three important counters (and held to two more) aimed at protecting our members’ job security, evaluation process, and what happens in case of program elimination or financial exigency.
The TA’d article on Discipline and Discharge protects our members in cases of discipline and termination, holding the university to a powerful just cause standard.
Our counter on Grievance and Arbitration protects faculty in cases when the University does not follow the contract or attempts to discipline faculty without just cause. We are close to management on many aspects of this article. One key area where we differ is in insisting on faculty members’ right to grieve in the event that they are denied tenure or promotion.
Our language on Financial Exigency and Program Elimination ensures that our members are protected when the University enters a period of financial insolvency or decides for any reason to restructure departments and programs. It also protects our members in the case of mandatory furloughs.
Management made significant movement toward our position on Faculty Evaluations, including agreeing to our language that any evaluation of our teaching cannot be based solely on student evaluations. Some major differences remain, including management’s insistence on a new, punitive post-tenure review process. We responded the same day with a counter of our own. Our counter on Faculty Evaluations ensures that members have a clear process for annual evaluations, and holds to our position that we are not subject to post-tenure review.
Management passed three counters, one package on Academic Freedom and Separability, and one MOU on the AI Task Force. Management’s counter on Professional Development Leaves and Appointments limits the number of Faculty Improvement Leaves to thirty. We pointed out that this could leave individual faculty members in certain divisions and departments waiting for years. (Their counter on Faculty Evaluations is addressed in the above paragraph.) Their new MOU on the AI Task Force made some minor changes that we are considering.
You can read all proposals in full at our website!
Join us Friday for the Rally for Raises! It’s time to choose your future and show management you won’t accept 1.25% raises. We gather at noon at the Seal behind Roudebush — RSVP here!
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Today’s Q&A
Q: Wouldn’t negotiations move faster if we had a lawyer at the table?
A: Your negotiating team has attorneys on speed-dial and has been consulting with them throughout the bargaining process. No one knows Miami better than workers do. That means your best advocates and representatives at the table are the faculty and librarian negotiators elected by your Bargaining Council. Management has wasted millions on expensive lawyers to try to delay our contract and bust our union. While we have the legal angle covered, legal arguments aren’t what moves a contract. The power to win a contract comes from you: colleagues united and ready to fight for better working conditions.
PS: Get answers here to your questions about raises, pace of bargaining, and more.
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