In his decision, the arbitrator ruled at several points that administrators "manipulated" (the arbitrator's choice of words) the process to be able to fire tenured faculty that the administration had cherry-picked for layoffs. This is a damning indictment of the judgment of Larry Abele, the FSU provost who orchestrated the mass layoffs.

And yet he has been honored and lauded recently.

Why did the University agree to go into arbitration? Were they contractually bound to, or a matter of state law, or why?

Jffoster: FSU is unionized.

Thank you, shermandor (4), but that doesn't automatically require arbitration? Was it a part of their contract with the faculty union?

It's part of the contract, which you can get to by way of http://www.uff-fsu.org/

I wonder if the 9 freeloaders who owe their jobs to the union that they refused to pay dues into will now appreciate the FU enough to start supporting it?

Actually, it appears that nonunion faculty are given about the same protection as the union faculty. I suspect that the FSU administration does not want to be in a position where they treat nonunion faculty members less well than union faculty members. Hence it is may be the case that the nine nonunion faculty members will not perceive an incentive to join the union.

For those of you on this board who are familiar with this situation, I am curious about what is considered arbitrary here. For instance, if FSU decided to lay off tenured faculty members in a given department but kept the best buddies of the department chair (regardless of research productivity, teaching ability, etc.), that would be clearly arbitrary. But what if a department had 10 tenured faculty members and FSU decided to keep the five most research-active faculty, according to established criteria defining research productivity. Would that be considered arbitrary under the FSU contract?

Thanks in advance for any clarifications on this question.

In my opinion, the university was quick to treat the non-unionmembers equal to the unionized faculty so that the advantages of unionization would not be so clearly visible for all faculty.

I wish faculty on campuses around the country (and particularly the union-unfriendly South) would take note of the benefits of unions and collective bargaining and unionize...

Finally, an article that doesn't automatically damn the teachers and blame the union for every little problem to come down the pike.

Generalized accusations that unions make it difficult to fire bad teachers are never verified with actual case examples. When you examine some of the cases, like this one, you usually find gross incompetence at the administrative level.

Anyone who has ever managed personnel knows that even with unions, people can be fired, or laid off, you just need to follow the rules and document the need for that action. It takes time and effort, aka WORK. Look at the amount of work that went into this whole affair. Why not use the time and trouble on a productive problem solving process?

Ironically, incompetent administrators are rarely fired for their inability to do the work! Even without the protection of a union, they just keep sliding by. At what other job is it OK to break the law? to violate an employment or other contract? Oh, right, fund managers at Goldman Sachs.

Dashwood & Jffoster--I'm not familiar with the FSU situation, but an article from Inside Education seems to explain why the FSU decisions could be seen as "arbitrary" and a comment from a retired FSU prof suggests why FSU asked for arbitration:

In support of the arbitrary nature of the decisions, IE notes Elizabeth Peters, who has 38 years at FSU, had 20 years of seniority over some faculty members who were not "reduced." FSU offered no documentation that her seniority was considered when her position was eliminated, but, more importantly, the university supposedly selected Ms. Peters because she lacked "teaching breadth," a point that fell apart when the arbitrator discovered she had, in fact, taught a larger variety of courses than other department members, could teach in 3 of 4 anthropology subfields, and was the only member of the anthro faculty who always taught the introductory course, which "generates substantial tuition income." Overall Ms. Peters had "generated more anthropology credit in students taught than any other faculty member in the university's history," yet she was eliminated.

In addition, the arbitrator found the Department of Anthropology, which suffered cuts, generated enough tuition revenue to make it "financially strong." Comparing that department to the Department of Meterology (which experienced no cuts), and "applying the administration's stated goal of focusing on . . .high cost department," a degree from Anthropology cost FSU $33,343, while the meterology degree cost FSU $50,00, and "anthropology's net tuition earned exceeds that of 14 of the 17 departments in arts and sciences at the university." Thus, the arbitrator found no budgetary justification for the cuts to Anthropology, which was, apparently, the justification from FSU leaders.

A post in the comment section of the article, also explains, perhaps, why FSU brought in an arbitrator. According to that comment, the original leaders who, apparently, employed arbitrary decisions as they determined what positions to cut, are no longer at FSU, so the arbitrator may have been the first step in trying to generate healing.

Thank you, Kimballard (12). Could you possibly give us a link to or a fuller citation of that article in Inside Education?

Sine Meterology was a high cost department and, er, weathered the storm, what do you suppose (or know if anybody does) was the real reason they wanted to chop Anthropology up? Whom did it threaten?

I believe this may be the article kimballard in 12 may have had in mind. It is in Insid Higher Education.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/08/florida_state

I'm at TCC in the same town as FSU and our faculty voted not to unionize like a bunch of whipped dogs. I wonder if they look at this decision and say, "Hmmm...they weren't allowed to terminate them unlawfully. Maybe this isn't such a bad idea!" One can only hope, but I don't hold much for my ill-informed brethren. They are very anti-union down here and I've never really figured out why since it protects workers from arbitrary and unfair firings. This truly is a victory for UFF and FSU professors in the not so sunshiney Sunshine state.

jffoster (13) - I have heard repeatedly that there's been a longstanding feud between the Provost's office and the Anthropology Department at FSU - entirely personal. I have no way of proving this, but I have to say it's the first time I've seen an academic department relegated to a strip mall down the street from the campus. But I've spent a lifetime in academentia and it comes as no surprise to me that in messes like the one described above, there's very often the official version and the real version.

They put their anthro. dept in a strip mall away from campus?!!!!!

This was most certainly "A Win For All Faculty" as described in this article - though I am not sure all faculty will see it as such. This situation has caused bitter splits in departments. Further - it was not just the faculty at stake and I was surprised to see in this article that no where were students mentioned. Apparently we are the forgotten objects of this situation. I would hope my University would be more interested in its students. Due to the original action - a thriving online Math and Science online graduate program of at least 20-30 current students/graduates was shut down. I am a Doctoral Candidate in the Science Education Program where two of my professors were the tenured ones impacted. This situation has gravely affected my degree proceedings. I would hope at some point that someone would take notice of the large group of students that were negatively impacted in some way by this grievous action by Provost Abele and the Deans involved.

Yes, katisumas, believe it. It's behind a CVS and next to a Chubby's.

The specifics of the arbitrator's decisions can be found at http://www.uff-fsu.org/. Go to the entry Victory for Faculty! to download the document, which is long but quite clear. It discusses the particular violations of the contract that vitiated the lay-offs but it also shows how easily the university could have managed lay-offs with a different strategy.

This may be a win but it's a short term one. It will give the govenor-elect and legislature even more incentive to eliminate both tenure for all state universities and decertify United Faculty of Florida.

My guess that within two years of the end of the 2010 legislative session those of us with tenure who still have jobs will be on annual contracts. Yes, there is a bit of paranoia on my part but as a faculty member in an unconventional role in the system I've seen the impact of the move from an academic model to a business model.

Can't FSU come back and lay off the very same faculty, so long as they paper the decision in ways that are consistent with the arbitrator's decision? The problem as I see it is that the decisions were not wrong or incorrect or not allowed, but simply were not supported by a sufficient record. To the extent that FSU is truly suffering a budget crisis, it can now lay off the same faculty as long as it "considers" their seniority in paper documents before making the decision. If this is true, the effect of such a decision will almost certainly be more centralized university determinations regarding who is laid off, rather than decentralized decisions at the department level -- since centralized determinations will be more likely to be made consistently and with a written record than decisions made by department chairs or deans. FSU also now has the option of closing entire departments, and in fact the arbitrator's order seems to encourage this much more harsh budget cutting strategy. I wonder how this is a victory for faculty. Universities like FSU are still going to be suffering budget woes and need to make cuts. FSU may even need to cut faculty or departments elsewhere to pay to rehire these faculty. These decisions will now need to be made centrally to comply with the procedural requirement of papering the record in the arbitors order. I seriously wonder how this is a victory for all faculty.

ghostofunder and 22206908 ask essentially whether FSU can still lay off faculty, and the answer is "it's complicated."

ghostofunder: The legislature might take some actions targeted at the United Faculty of Florida, but they tried to do that with the devolution of the universities 10 years ago, the voters created a constitutional university authority in 2002, most university chapters won recognition (again) with a pledge-card campaign, and UFF eventually won a state case ruling that the attempt to decertify was illegal. There are some anti-union laws they could pass, but there is a constitutional right of Florida public-employee faculty to unionize if the faculty want the union. Yes, they could remove tenure options from faculty hired in the future, but not from currently tenured faculty, and I don't think administrators would like that.

22206908: The layoff article inherited by the local contracts is fairly clear. FSU's administration (esp. Larry Abele, the provost left over from the past president) blatantly ignored it, and the new president will probably want to make peace with the faculty and not go through that again if at all possible. (One of the departments merged in the sciences? Oceanography. Eric Barron's specialty: Oceanography. The faculty expertise most in the news after the BP gusher: Oceanography.) If the legislature cuts funding for higher ed dramatically, all bets are off, but that would be after Abele leaves FSU in December.

Unions and tenure protect lazy outdated professors. You need to join the real world where people are not protected by tenure. No one "owes" you anything. You need to earn it. If these programs and professors were not producing the desired results, why should they be protected..

peggy, what an incredibly uninformed statement you make.

Tenured professors do indeed earn their tenure. The process is nothing short of a nightmare. Tenure does not protect bad professors . . .it protects academic freedom. Bad professors can still be fired regardless of tenure. The process just can't be arbitrary.

Unions protect workers rights from capricious administrative decisions.

Both the working environment and the productivity of the unionized hospital I once worked in was far superior to the non-union hospitals. Patient care was better. Outcomes were better.

Please take some time to look past sterotypes left over from the Teamsters in the 60's to see what unions really do for modern employees.

Speaking as an academic, Joseph Travis, who was harshly criticized in the ruling, is the most qualified person on campus to become provost. Hopefully, Barron will still appoint him provost.

Peggy (25) and ...908 (26),
Ive read the entire 83 page Arbitrator's report and decision. Ive also read the briefs of defendants (the University) and plaintiffs.

Travis behaved abominably, evidently abusing academic power, privilege, and personal proclivities. He's not qualified to be a Dean, let alone a Provost.

I also read the arbitrator's order, and frankly, for anyone familiar with the history of these layoffs at FSU there is a lot to disagree with in it. For example, the merger of the departments in sciences has been discussed on campus for more than a decade. Celebrate all you want how much of a vistory this is for faculty, but it is simply false to characterize this as a subterfuge to manipulate a few layoffs of faculty. In addition, there is no discussion of some of the alternatives FSU discussed and rejected, such as the closing of the hospitality department. If I were FSU's administration, I would find a way to appeal it, although I can understand how the administration may just want to allocate a few million of its dollars annually to just keeping these faculty and payroll and move on. I would highlight, however, that (in contrast to universities like UF and even UCF) FSU is seriously budget constrained with no money for significant push forward hiring. Any new provost at FSU, if they have any ambitions for the institution, is going to have to make some tough decisions, whicn might include furloughing faculty, closing departments to avoid redundancy and duplication (anthropology, hospitality, public policy, medical humanities and social science, music therapy?) or merging them, or closing some of of the many centers on campus that fail to cover their expenses year after year. As I've highlighted, a provost could also lay off the same faculty all over again, as from reading the arbotrator's order there were reasons for laying off most of them which, if simply put in writing, would be in compliance with the university's procedures.

For those who think that Joe Travis has abused power, in my experience he is one of the finest deans I have experienced at FSU. Definitely one of the smartest, but also one of the most ambitious for the university. I must disagree with jffoster and think he would be a terrific provost. Unfortunately, the faculty union and faculty senate has had it in for him (and of course, for Larry Abele) from the start. I suspect any new provost is going to face a similar hostile environment from the lefty folks who run the faculty union and oppose merit increases and rention packages for faculty (who are leaving in droves) and the career associate professors and humanities/performing arts cabal who run the faculty senate. Based on the history with Abele, Travis, and the previous Dean of A&S, I don't think you're going to like anyone who has serious academic and research ambitions for FSU, and who is willing to make some tough choices to pursue them.

...908's (28) disagreement with the Arbitrator's Report (and my conclusions drawn from it) is noted. ...908 appears to be a member of the Liberal Arts College faculty and as such has a broader perspective, while I, like Will Rogers, only know what I read in the papers. It would be good if more FSU faculty were to give us their persopective here.

...908, I refer you to "Interface"'s comment, No. 16 above. Can you shed any further light on that or counter it?

I don't know anything about such a longstanding dispute, but a) there are always going to be personality conflicts between some individuals, b) there are ongoing space issues with anthropology, and c) many universities, including very good ones (yes, even AAU members), have abolished anthropology or merged it into other departments in recent years. These issues certainly don't seem unique to FSU, to Larry Abele or to Joe Travis. In addition, who made the decisions on layoffs? Abele or Travis? 16 seems to be contradicted by the arbitrator's order. The claim seems to be that Travis is a mere agent of Abele, who has some personal vendetta. To suggest Travis is a mere automaton seems rather silly, and is belied by the facts which show Travis struggling to make difficult decisions for his college. It really pains me to see FSU maligned in all of this, and if no one else is going to raise the issue that these are smart, committed people doing their best in a very difficult financial situation I am happy to. As I said, another smart, committed person in the administration must be prepared to make some difficult decisions about programs in the near future, and the community needs to be prepared to get behind this, not paint it as a personal vendetta (it probably helps here to have someone new from outside of the university at the top).

Regarding the decision of the arbitrator not applying to non-union members - does Florida law not include the concepts of "exclusive representation" and the "duty of fair representation"?