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.
USF management sent an e-mail out to staff on Friday after rejecting the special magistrate recommendations, and in response, this week AFSMCE distributed an e-mail from its president, Bill McClelland, available on AFSCME 3342's new blog. In its e-mail to staff, USF management claimed that adopting the special magistrate's recommendation on references to the BOR regulations would wipe out any additional benefits from USF regulations currently being applied to staff that were not in BOR staff regulations. President McClelland’s response is that there is nothing in the recommendation or in the AFSCME contract’s current language that prohibits USF management from continuing the benefits mentioned in management’s e-mail.
There is one other simple fact about terms and conditions of employment placed in regulations as opposed to a bargained contract: nothing prohibits USF management from proposing to include those benefits in the AFSCME-USF contract.
The special magistrate’s recommendations are non-binding, and the understanding of UFF's state-level staff is that a Board of Trustees is required to eliminate all contact with its bargaining team on the substantive issues in the impasse until a public hearing, so that it can legally remain neutral … but the BOT’s bargaining committee is likely to impose what management recommends. Florida law gives the advantage to management in impasse so that in many cases, the governing board that supervises the bargaining team also has the authority to impose a settlement at the end of the impasse procedure.
(When management does not think it needs a waiver from the union on a mandatory subject of bargaining – i.e., a subject that management is required to negotiate by law or regulation – the primary power of the union is to organize against ratification of the imposed settlement. The reason is this: if the impasse resolution is not ratified, the imposed resolution lasts only to the end of the fiscal year. This means that bargaining on non-salary issues has to start from square one at the beginning of the next fiscal year.)
After an imposed settlement, as our statewide staff has explained the process, representatives of both sides then need to meet after imposition to draft contractual language that is then put up for ratification. In the case of an imposed settlement (different from a regularly-bargained tentative agreement), the union is free to organize against ratification of an imposed settlement. If the unit votes in favor of ratification, and the board also ratifies the language, the imposed settlement language becomes part of the binding contract that remains in effect until a contract agreement (or another imposed impasse resolution). If the unit does not ratify the language of the imposition, then the imposed settlement is in effect only until the end of the fiscal year. If employees in AFSCME’s unit at USF reject an imposed settlement, the main effect is primarily in the bonus, which is a one-time payment, and the other provisions would die on July 1. If employees in AFSCME’s unit at USF ratify an imposed settlement and the BOT also ratifies it, then all the provisions of the imposition would continue past the end of the fiscal year.
A longer discussion of impasse proceedings is available at the UFF-USF blog; and background is in the previous Biweekly. As of yet, there is no date for the impasse hearing of the BOT.
