Faculty Association Questions
Below are some answers and/or additional information relating to questions asked of or to the UNF Faculty Association.
Administrative Raises & Promotions
Could the Faculty Association request the salaries of every administrator as well as the history of raises for all of these individuals during the time in which John Delaney has been president? Could the Faculty Association then report on the trends and especially the comparison with faculty raises over this same period?
UNF-UFF has collected such data (administrative salaries and changes to those salaries since 2008) and has comparisons to faculty raises over that period. We would be happy to share this information with the Faculty Association and faculty at large.
Paying Outside Counsel
The administration claims there are no resources for faculty raises. Yet salaries and raises for current and former administrators, as well as ongoing payments to Leonard Carson, suggest that there are resources available for salaries. How can these resources be shared with faculty, who are teaching students on the front lines and are justifiably surprised by these raises, when their own cost-of-living raises with no increase in pay?
Why does the administration employ an expensive outside attorney to negotiate with the union, when the union/faculty do not similarly employ an attorney to represent us and negotiate on their own? We have many in-house lawyers, including John Delaney, and all of our in-house lawyers recently received very large raises because they threatened to walk out en masse, in a state where faculty do not have the right to strike. Couldn’t the fees that Leonard Carson charges each year be put instead toward a faculty/staff raise?
Our chapter has repeatedly complained to university administration about the costs of maintaining outside counsel for negotiations as well as the often patronizing and dismissive approach that this attorney brings to contact negotiations. The costs for paying outside counsel are substantial and, just as importantly, the administration’s insistence on paying him to lead negotiations seems to represent the former’s desire to win in negotiations rather than to have an equal and balanced exchange of ideas and to find mutually beneficial possible solutions. The UFF side, conversely, comes to the bargaining table absent an attorney and it consults attorneys very rarely (and when it does, it does so through the Florida Education Association rather than directly). For more information, see our last letter to President Delaney regarding this matter.
Gender and Racial Equity
Has there been any study done at the university to support what is being discussed among some faculty members about male patriarchy and faculty salaries? I would like to know if there is any truth to the rumor that female faculty members make less than their male counterparts?
Our chapter of UFF has proposed the idea of such a study (and we would be willing to help fund such a study). Our idea was to examine such issues as starting pay and time in rank disaggregated for gender and race/ethnicity. We encourage faculty or graduate students who have an interest in the area, the statistical expertise and data analysis skills to collect and analyze archival and current salary data, and who are willing to take on the challenge. The Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity has welcomed such a study and has agreed to supply any data that is not confidential per state law.
