PENSACOLA – The faculty of Pensacola State College have voted to reject a tentative contract agreement forged during 16 months of negotiation. More than 50 percent of fulltime faculty cast a ballot June 11, despite the fact that many faculty do not work during the summer. The ratification failed by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent.
Following a long series of negotiating sessions that began in February 2013, the Pensacola State College Faculty Association (PSCFA) and the Board of Trustees of Pensacola State College tentatively agreed to proposals for the 2013-2014 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). PSCFA is conducting a survey of all faculty members to determine why the language, which included a 2 percent raise retroactive to August 2013 as well as $120,000 to address compression pay issues, was denied by a majority of faculty. However, several central issues that angered faculty during negotiations are likely to blame.
Among those contested issues were administrative proposals to reduce pay for several categories of classes, including vocational training, clinical classes for health care fields, and Collegiate High School classes. The proposed language required faculty members teaching these classes to both work more hours and earn less for doing so, as much as $6,000 less per year in some cases. With PSC salaries already in the bottom third in the state, such a cut was hard to stomach.
Another hot topic was the college’s desire to increase the time required to receive a promotion. Initial administration proposals would have barred any faculty without a master’s degree from ever becoming a full professor as well as mandating a minimum of 17 years to reach full professor for others. To offset this increased time period, PSC agreed to increase the promotion raise to 5 percent of base pay for each step, but that bump did not convince a majority of faculty to vote for the whole package.
“Generally, proposed changes to the CBA pass with more than 95 percent support from the faculty,” said PSCFA President Paige Anderson. “That such a large proportion of faculty voted ‘no’ despite a pay increase on the table speaks to the overall dissatisfaction with this negotiating cycle. We hope that when both parties return to the bargaining table, the Board of Trustees’ representatives will be more willing to give on some of the provisions that are causing most harm to hard-working faculty’s ability to support their families.”
2 comments:
"With the approval of the Vice President, Academic Affairs, a non-tenure track full-time faculty member may schedule all office hours on-line."
Now the College can hire someone living in Arizona to teach on-line classes for us.
... President Edward Meadows said in a statement, “and the college will remain focused on fulfilling our mission of providing access to high-quality education.”
Our College president is IGNORANT, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a derogatory way. The word “ignorant” comes from the word “ignore”, as in ignore the facts. During bargaining, the union repeatedly explained the facts that the College has a hard time attracting and retaining nursing instructors for the salary that we currently have. So what does the President do? The President decides to lower the load points for nurses making it so they have to work longer for less money. Why will nurses want to work and stay at PSC? The answer is, they won’t. That’s ignorance.
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