Official Update from USFFA
June 10, 2020: Update from USFFA
General Meeting, Today (Wednesday), 3:30pm – 5:30pm
The Policy Board has agreed to change all June meetings to General Membership meetings. We will also be holding meetings on Wed, June 17 and Wed, June 24.
Please join us today; we need your input and ideas, and we want to be able to answer any questions. As we move forward with negotiations, our greatest strength is our active membership!
Tentative Agenda:
1. Approval of minutes of past meetings
2. Preliminary results of the first weekly survey conducted the the Proposal Development Committee
3. Presentation of the three focal areas for ongoing negotiations with administration
- Health & Safety
- Teaching & Overload
- Budget (including salaries and benefits)
4. Focus on health and safety: The Public Health Working Group will provide an overview of its recommendations for the safety and well being of the USF community .
5. Open Discussion
Message from the President, Sonja Martin Poole:
On negotiations
This week our Negotiating Team is continuing to meet with the administration. We are gathering data to inform these conversations and develop proposals for different scenarios. Our work is currently concentrated on three primary bargaining topics: Health & Safety, Workload & Instruction, and Budget & Economics. In our deliberations are considerations of the results from recent USFFA member surveys and advice from a wide range of experts from within our membership. If you have any creative suggestions or ideas, please click here to submit them.
Any specific proposals for bargaining will be passed along to the Negotiating Team.
On recent events
This is a painful time for our country and for our community. The social unrest going on around all of us is distressing and weighing heavily on us, our families, and our students.
Like so many of you, I continue to be heartbroken and angered by the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others, and by the deep pain and division we are seeing so vividly every day.
These senseless deaths reflect the deeply ingrained racial prejudice and injustice that still exists in our communities today.
It is stirring many emotions — which it should. The unnecessary and unjust killing of anyone is unacceptable. The issue of race and the experiences of people of color cannot be ignored. We cannot ignore that we exist in an inherently racist and unjust system. My hope is that we become more keenly aware that there is more than one pandemic affecting U.S. lives. We are also living in a racism pandemic.
Being mindful of all of this, let’s hold each other up during this difficult time.
Sabbatical proposal
There has been some confusion around the sabbatical proposal. We put out a joint statement with the administration that should clear things up:
The USFFA and the university have agreed to abide by the will of the faculty, and the sabbatical postponement will be implemented. Faculty members who were scheduled for sabbatical in the upcoming year should contact their Deans by 5pm on Wednesday, June 10th to confirm their return to campus or their eligibility for one of the two exceptions outlined in the proposal.
Exceptions:
1) Faculty members who have already obtained external funding sufficient to cover 25% or more of their salary and benefits during their previously agreed-upon 2020-2021 sabbatical leave will be allowed to continue taking their sabbaticals as planned.
2) A faculty member who already has seven or more years of credit towards their next sabbatical (when only seven are now required to apply for, and then take, a sabbatical in the eighth year) may continue to take a sabbatical leave in academic year 2020-2021, if previously approved by their dean.
Statement from the International Probationary Faculty and Librarians
We, the international probationary faculty/librarians, want to express our utmost gratitude to all USFFA members for safeguarding our careers, dreams, and immigration statuses in the United States. Thank you for providing us a platform to voice the distinct immigration complications that potential layoffs could have led to. Thank you for listening to our fears and consciously advocating for us. Thank you for empathizing with us and sharing your concerns in your letters to the administration. Thank you for all that you’ve committed to in order to protect us. Because of your support, we have restored our faith toward building a career, a life path, and a future in this country. We will forever remember the support and sacrifice you made to safeguard us and our lives in the United States. We hope to work closely with the USFFA leadership in the coming month of negotiations to continue to clarify the specific situations and challenges that international workers on H1B visas face regarding our legal statuses.
Sincerely,
Your international probationary faculty/librarians
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) resources for the COVID-19 crisis
Our parent union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), has compiled an FAQ for resources regarding workers’ rights in the COVID-19 crisis. Click here for this FAQ.
The passing of FR. Dan Kendall, SJ
Fr. Dan Kendall, SJ, a member of the Theology and Religious Studies faculty since 1979, passed away on May 26 at the age of 81. Dan was a much-loved member of the THRS faculty who enjoyed a long and influential career and ministry at USF. He passed away at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, SJ where he had been for the past several days. He passed away after a fall, and had been in hospice care for the past three days.