Pictured Above: As the administration of then-USF President Judy Genshaft mounted fierce opposition to the union campaign, adjuncts rebuked her at a rally on Nov. 29, 2017, on the Tampa campus.
Courtesy of Nancy McCann
By Nancy McCann
Now it’s official: Adjunct faculty at the University of South Florida have their first union contract.
On Tuesday, the USF Board of Trustees unanimously approved the collective bargaining agreement between the university and SEIU-Florida Public Services Union, the adjuncts’ union representative.
“We are the first state university in Florida to have an adjunct union,” Craig Dawson, USF associate general counsel, told the trustees.
He said the contract negotiations took about a year and a half.
“The goal throughout was really to take a minimalistic approach,” said Dawson. “We didn’t want some sprawling agreement that tries to cover every single aspect of employment.”
Adjuncts are temporary, part-time faculty members who teach many key courses.
In fall 2019, they made up 46.2 percent of the faculty at the St. Petersburg campus (excluding graduate assistants who teach) and taught 26.6 percent of the undergraduate credit hours, according to information provided to The Crow’s Nest by USF’s Office of Decision Support.
The contract – which covers all three USF campuses – includes details for minimum pay; a course cancellation fee paid to adjuncts; union representation for grievance procedures; a pool that lists all adjuncts available for teaching; and performance evaluations and annual meetings between adjuncts and university department heads.
It ends on June 30, 2023, and includes the possibility that the topic of wages could be opened up again in January 2022, Dawson said.
Forming a union was a tough fight for the adjuncts, who started their campaign in the spring of 2017 under the name Faculty Forward. They were opposed every step of the way by the administration of then-USF President Judy Genshaft.
Previous coverage:
