Building a Solution Focused, Quality Union
by Maddy Isaacs
In March 2005, I was asked to lead the Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) chapter of
the United Florida of Faculty (UFF) as its president.
UFF, like most faculty unions in Florida, was in long-term collective bargaining (at that
time it had been going on for more than a year) following a reorganization of the state’s
university system. While faculty elected UFF as its representative for negotiation and
other related issues, faculty members do not have to join to benefit from the contracts or
other services UFF provides or achieves.
FGCU opened in 1997 as Florida’s tenth state university with:

A contemporary mission of civic engagement and environmental sustainability.

A fixed contract system for employment for all new faculty (with about 30 tenured
faculty from a small regional campus).

A brand new campus with largely new faculty from all over the country.
The challenges were to build a campus, infrastructure and programs from a few
predecessor programs at a regional upper division campus, with values consistent with
its mission as an innovator in providing distance learning degrees and to recruit
and retain quality faculty under its more unusual employment circumstances.
Today, FGCU has 284 in-unit faculty and has quadrupled the number of programs since
it opened. The university has grown at a rate of 20% each year to more than 8,300
students.
UFF recently completed negotiations and ratified the annual contract reopener. Although
we are the second smallest faculty among Florida’s state universities, our proportion of
members is the third largest at 33%. The union now:

Includes membership of nearly 100.

Maintains a strong collaborative relationship with the university’s administration
and bargaining team.

Enjoys a reputation on campus for professionally representing faculty interests,
being assertive and having integrity.

Is preparing to enter into negotiations for a full three-year contract.
When I agreed to stand for the president, I did so under certain conditions. My first
condition was that I would need the executive committee to act as a team. I would
consult the group frequently before making public statements or writing anything to
anyone. I planned to strategize about how to invest our time and take the responsibility
of representing faculty livelihoods very seriously.
My background is in counseling and academic administration with a commitment to
solution focused leadership. So, I have been involved in a steep learning curve about
unions, our campus history and the small team of faculty who comprise the executive
committee.
The notion of shared governance for the union emerged quickly within the UFF
executive team. We already felt a shared responsibility with the board of trustees and
administration for growing a quality university.
．
．．．
．
As a union, our mission is prescribed by state laws and the provisions of the state local.
We help faculty and administration see that the contract spells out both faculty and
administration’s rights and responsibilities in key areas of terms and conditions of
employment for faculty. However, our method of operating was left for us to establish.
We started charting our operation method by informally identifying the strengths of the
union:

A mission to represent the faculty concerns on workplace and
employment issues.

Continued excitement about our new university and its mission.

Respect for the boundaries of our role and the roles of others

A record of success in negotiating the first local three-year contract.

Commitment to taking the high road and making positive public
statements.

Focus as the faculty’s on-campus professional association with collective
reputations mainstream.

Hard working and experienced faculty.

A respectful relationship with the university’s leadership at the president
and provost levels.

An understanding that we would always approach the administration with
a problem solving and common goals approach.

Commonly held and very related beliefs that the “university is the faculty”
and our mission as a union representing the faculty is to improve and
clarify faculty rights and working conditions to recruit and retain high
quality colleagues.
The good news was that our only future was to grow. Recent negotiation gains had
started a small, more positive momentum. We had successfully translated our
nontraditional fixed contract employment system to continuing contracts based on
performance evaluations and faculty support geared toward encouraging success.
Faculty members were feeling more value and recognition than in previous years, and
there was a new vitality and energy to move forward together.
Our weaknesses were several. Florida is a “right to work” state and thus faculty’s power
is not in its ability to strike. We had small numbers bolstered by the state’s laws that
allow faculty to be represented by a union and receive the benefits of that coverage,
while not requiring dues-paying membership.
With few members, the union was easily marginalized as fringe or angry by many in
administration and by faculty colleagues. We had a very few faculty who were actually
involved in key activities such as participating in collective bargaining, developing
membership, designing and maintaining the web page, attending faculty senate and
board of trustee meetings, responding to faculty concerns, filing grievances or
representing the faculty union voice to the media.
As a union (and university) there were additional threats to our success. These included
pressure to increase class sizes and decrease cost of instruction, a high cost of living
locally, competition for quality faculty in a growth mode (a great deal of hiring every year
to add to as well as replenish faculty ranks), ease of faculty to benefit from collective
bargaining and union representation without having to join, a conservative community
and board of trustees which sees faculty (as many do) as not working very hard, mission
drift with regard to teaching and environmental stewardship, a need for union succession
planning and faculty dissatisfaction with issues that were not subject to bargaining or the
collective bargaining agreement.
To capitalize on our strengths and meet the challenges we faced as a union and
university, we identified some key values and strategies early in the process. One
strategy was to find common goals and interests with the administration.
This meant seeing beyond faculty individual or group interests to what benefits the
university and students. Each understands the university and union goals must coincide
to make this work.
There are many examples of coinciding, starting with the union’s stated strategic
planning overall goals which are “growing an excellent university” in which to invest our
careers and “recruiting and retaining excellent colleagues.” Everything that we do as a
union—collective bargaining, representing faculty in problem solving or grievances,
providing information to the faculty senate (governance body) or building membership—
must accrue to those goals.
We extend the collaborative process in all that we do, including consulting periodically
with the university’s president, reporting to faculty on areas in which we have agreement
without characterizing the administration or its motives, not airing dirty laundry outside
the university or with appropriate staff and presenting a single voice for UFF to all as
positive and professional.
A good example of the collaborative mind-set occurred during recent negotiations. The
university president announced a lofty goal of paying faculty at an average of the 60th
percentile nationally. We used his stated goal to help shape our salary increase proposal
to work toward meeting that goal while improving the salaries of all faculty in some way.
We believe the eventual agreement was increased because our proposal, in part,
directly addressed the president’s goal.
We have increased local services to faculty including increasing reporting of UFF
activities at faculty senate, participating with senate leadership, providing milestone
reminders each month that highlight a section of the contract, co-sponsoring activities for
contract rollout and new faculty orientation, and attempting to help all parties solve
problems rather than take strong positions about issues. We understand the union is not
about any individual’s issues.
Our results are encouraging and we believe it speaks to the success of our methods. In
20 months:

We have significantly grown membership (at the highest growth rate in the state).

We have a cordial public and private relationship with our university’s president,
provost and academic staff.

We receive e-mails and voice mails that compliment our energy and integrity.

We receive thank-yous for our work.

We are taken seriously as providing useful and valuable services and we see a
strong future for faculty on our campus.
That does not mean that there are no problems or areas for improvement. It does mean
we have found core values, strategies and processes that work well for our campus and
faculty; both of which speak to our core reasons for the union to exist.
For more information contact Maddy Isaacs, professor and UFF president at Florida Gulf
Coast University, via e-mail at misaacs@fgcu.edu .