We Won! Retirees Spared in Budget

From AFSCME Council 79:

On Monday, April 19, the hundreds of calls we made to the capitol paid off when the House leadership announced they were backing down from their plan to eliminate the Retiree Health Insurance Subsidy in HB 5701.  In battling this bad bill that would have taken up to $150 per month from Florida Retirement System beneficiaries, AFSCME partnered with the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans and set up a toll free number so workers and retirees could call Senate President Jeff Atwater.

Hey... Do these guys work at USF?

From UFF: Staff Overwhelmingly Vote Against BOT'S Contract

Our allies at the United Faculty of Florida posted the following to their April 22, 2010 newsletter:

Last Friday, USF staff voted against ratifying contract language containing terms and conditions dictated by the Labor Committee of the Board of Trustees.  82% of the votes were against ratification of the language that is now the choice of the Board of Trustees but not the staff.  As a result, the terms and conditions dictated by the Labor Committee at the end of the impasse process are now imposed for the remainder of this fiscal year (ending June 30), but the staff's rejection of the imposed resolution means that the language dies on July 1, and the terms and conditions of employment will then return to the status quo ante--the conditions before impasse was declared.  The end of the impasse process was a victory for the staff union, with an overwhelming majority voting for the union's position.  Nonetheless, the whole process entails moral, morale, and political consequences that could bedevil USF for years to come.

What the UBOT Heard: Shift Change by Seniority

This is the presentation I made to the UBOT, March 29, 2010:

It has been established as fact that the last time a shift change took place at the University of South Florida in early May 2009, the affected custodians were selected by a random process. Their manager wrote the names of the 45 day shift custodians on the backs of his business cards. He then placed the cards on a table top, shuffled them around, picked up 18 of them, and called out the names on those cards to his assistant.

Not a single one of the allegedly crucial qualifications listed in management’s argument was taken into consideration during this shift change.

AFSCME Lobby Day 2010

Please take the time to thank Regina Gainey, Indrea Pope and Pam Wilson next time you see them in the Registrar's Office.  They are the courageous women from USF's Tampa campus who joined me for an action-packed, 23-hour trip to Tallahassee for AFSCME Lobby Day on Tuesday, March 16.

 L-R:  Susie, Pam, Indrea & Regina

After an overnight bus trip best left undescribed, we four USFers met with approximately 250 AFSCME members and supporters over an impressive 7 am buffet breakfast where we learned about the issues to be addressed that day, received a crash course in lobbying and picked up our t-shirts and loaded canvas bags.  The assembled activists then broke up into groups each advocating for issues of concern in their particular workplaces, be they State offices, Juvenile Justice Offices, Hospitals, School Boards, or State Universities.  Another large group, comprised of the myriad of other public employees from around the state, would spend the day fighting legislative assaults on the Florida Retirement System on behalf of us all ( see:  http://www.afscme.ourusf.org/2010retirementsheet.pdf) .

UFF posts update on AFSCME impasse

AFSCME IMPASSE UPDATE

In Monday morning's student newspaper, the USF Oracle, there was an article about the university's rejection of the neutral special magistrate's recommendation in the current impasse in bargaining between the university Board of Trustees and the staff union, local 3342 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME.

There are several issues at stake in the impasse. One is the basis for lump-sum bonuses – AFSCME proposed large bonuses to lower-salaried staff, and management proposed bonuses based on an evaluation process that was not bargained with AFSCME. The special magistrate recommended a total bonus pool equal to what management's proposal would cost but structured according to what AFSCME proposed (larger bonuses to those with lower salaries). The second issue concerns a number of terms and conditions of employment about overtime and leaves tied to regulations rather than contractual language. The old statewide AFSCME contract with the defunct Board of Regents identified BOR regulations as contractual terms and conditions of employment, and USF management wanted to eliminate those references. The special magistrate recommendation favored the AFSCME position where the magistrate was convinced that the USF language was not just "cleaning up" anomalous language but a substantive change in terms and conditions of employment. The third issue comes from the way that USF management randomly picked Physical Plant staff to change shifts a number of months ago. AFSCME members were upset at the capricious shift changes and proposed a seniority system of shift-change preferences. The special magistrate recommended the adoption of AFSCME's proposal plus language that would allow USF managers to decide which staff were qualified for positions in different shifts.

What the Special Magistrate Actually Said

The University has made the claim that the Magistrate's recommendation removes bereavement leave, floating holidays, and maximum holiday pay. Quite an alarming charge to be leveled at a man brought into help resolve the impasse between the administration and the Union!

Let’s look at what he actually said. First of all, there is no mention of bereavement leave, floating holidays, and maximum holiday pay in his recommendation.

Response to University's Impasse Decision

I wrote the paragraphs below on February 7th in preparation for the University's response to the Special Master's Recommendation. I held off posting it in hopes that I was wrong. Sadly, I was not.

Be prepared, folks! The University's hired gun attorney and the BOT team that he leads are angry about the Union's recent win before the Special Master, and it looks like they are gearing up to punish the workers and blame the Union. It appears that they are soon going to try to tell you that the Union has made it impossible for them to continue some of the popular benefits that were written into the "new" University Regulations. They're going to tell you that the Union's successful challenge to particular Regulations means that management, despite their reluctance, will be forced to throw out the good changes along with the bad. The fact is that nothing in the Special Master's Recommendation supports this action. The University is hauling out its favorite blame and punishment game, pure and simple. We've seen them play it before and are watching them gear up to do it again. We need to be ready this time.

UFF Supports AFSCME

The faculty union at USF wrote a fantastic article in this week's UFF Newsletter regarding our union.


United Faculty of Florida -- USF Chapter Newsletter Article:


February 4, 2010 AFSCME IN IMPASSE: THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATE RECOMMENDS...
A special magistrate recommended a resolution of the current impasse in bargaining (on salary and other issues) between the staff union AFSCME and the USF Board of Trustees (BOT). For salary, the recommendation is for a compromise to distribute approximately the amount that the BOT proposed, using approximately the distribution that AFSCME proposed. This is only a recommendation, and now comes the tricky part: is the recommendation an acceptable compromise?