The United Faculty of Florida, the union that has represented faculty at the State University System since 1976, filed collective bargaining authorization cards with the Florida Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) on Dec. 20. The union collected the cards from more than two-thirds of the 10,000 faculty it represents at 11 institutions.

Those cards represent the faculty's affirmation that the UFF is the union they want negotiating for them at the bargaining table. UFF is affiliated with Florida Education United/AFT/NEA.

Such an avowal is necessary because of the peculiar politicization that has taken place in Florida since Gov. Jeb Bush undertook to reorganize higher education in the state. Last year, the Legislature passed a law abolishing the state board of regents and putting into place 11 separate boards of trustees, all made up of gubernatorial appointees, to run the state universities.

Some of the centralization of power in the governor's hands was mitigated by the passage of a ballot initiative in November that reinstates an independent board of regents governance system. Yet the question of who the employer is for each campus remains up in the air.

On Jan. 7, the statewide contract under which UFF faculty work, will expire. Last fall, the union asked PERC to amend UFF's certification as the agent for each individual campus unit, but each university's administration fought against it. Then UFF asked for an extension of the contract until issues of governance could be settled. Again, the union was rebuffed.

"These actions would have been the simplest and least disruptive for faculty and administration," says Tom Auxter, UFF president. Instead, the faculty have recognized the importance of mobilizing to protect themselves.

"One reason we have seen such an overwhelming response in the card signing is that faculty know Florida is a danger zone when it comes to faculty rights, as we were recently reminded when the [state] commissioner of education called academic freedom 'a wasteland,'" adds Auxter. "Faculty want a contract guaranteeing that the political agendas of board members and the personal agendas of ambitious administrators do not define the horizons of their professional lives." [Barbara McKenna]

January 3, 2003