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.


What the Magistrate said is, “It is recommended that the current language in Article 17.1 [Leaves of Absence/Holidays] remain unchanged. “ The current language in Article 17.1 has been operational since the BOT took over as our employer in 2003. How does that same language now remove bereavement leave, floating holidays, and maximum holiday pay? If this were so, why didn’t the University make this point in front of the Magistrate at the hearing?

His recommendation does not remove this leave and the University did not raise this point because that argument has no truth to it.

The Union is opposed to the removal of any bereavement leave, floating holidays, and maximum holiday pay. If the University is sincere in opposing loss of this leave as well, why don’t they join us in protecting these issues by a simple agreement?

USF further claims that the recommendation removes meaningful performance incentives. In actuality, the Magistrate states in his findings:

• The current evaluation process was negotiated to capture employee performance, not to impact employee’s pay – there is a difference.

• At any time there is a percentage of employees who have no evaluation on file and would default to “satisfactory”. Those employees deserve to receive the wage increase to which they are entitled.

• Supervisors are not required to have training in the evaluation process.

• Supervisors are not held accountable for their performance in conducting evaluations.

• Performance standards are not required to be in writing.

• Tying pay to the current evaluation process could open many grievances.

• While USF has indicated a commitment to basing wages on a tiered performance-based scale, their actions suggest the opposite. USF authorized a 2% base increase for all Out-of-Unit Faculty rated “Satisfactory” or higher, the same criteria proposed by the Union. Thus, the USF proposal suggests that while basing its lowest-paid employee salaries on a tiered performance scale is necessary, it does not hold its administrative, out-of-unit faculty to the same standards.

The Magistrate recommends “For the reasons stated above, it is concluded that the current evaluation process should not be used to determine the amount of wage increase an employee will receive.” Meaningful performance incentives are not possible under the current evaluation system.

Also the University failed to mention in its email to staff that they also oppose the Magistrate’s recommendation to provide qualified employees assignment to work shifts based upon seniority – clearly a good result for the many employees who may face shift change.

The University says it now can offer an increase to its last pay proposal. They claim “Under this enhanced proposal the majority of in-unit employees would receive at least a $1,000 bonus based on performance with many receiving $1,500.” They do not mention that many employees, including most of the least paid, would make $250 less than that recommended by the Magistrate.

Where was this extra money when the University swore in the impasse hearing that their last proposal was the best they could do?

As the University has misrepresented the amount of money available to staff at the hearing, it is misrepresenting the Magistrate’s own words. They are trying to create confusion in the staff as to the real merits in his recommendation.

Read the recommendation yourself at: http://www.afscme.ourusf.org/images/SM%202009%2032%20Recommendations%202.pdf

Bill McClelland, President Local 3342 AFSCME