Imagine More... Respect!

See Blog Updates Farther Down This Home Page

or visit the new blog page at http://s154358142.onlinehome.us/ 

• Visit www.facebook.com, search for "Ferris Faculty Association" and you should find the page with information that is updated constantly.
  

• https://twitter.com/FFAatFSU (just copy/paste this into your search bar)
  

• (8/29/10: 4PM) Ferris faculty know that quality education strengthens communities, and they are committed to providing that quality education.
  
  
  •    Ferris faculty are dedicated to providing students with a quality educational experience. They are bargaining to honor that commitment.
  o    Faculty believe educators, not administrators, are best qualified to set educationally sound policies for online courses
  o    Faculty believe recruiting and retaining highly qualified permanent instructors should be a key university priority
  o    Faculty believe limiting the number of temporary instructors helps maintain the quality of students’ education
  
  
  •    Quality faculty providing quality education attracts students to Ferris and benefits the broader community.
  o    Ferris faculty and students are recognized as important components of community economic development
  o    As long-term residents, faculty contribute to community stability and participate in community life and service
  o    The administration wants unrestricted growth in online courses, adversely affecting educational quality and on-campus enrollment
  
  
  •    Providing quality education means recruiting and retaining quality faculty, but the administration has other priorities.
  o    The administration purchases real estate with resources that could be invested in educating students
  o    The administration wants to hire more temporary instructors with resources that could be invested in retaining permanent faculty
  o    The administration routinely gives itself ample salary raises and bonuses but balks at the idea of fairly compensating quality faculty
  
  
  •    In good faith, the faculty entered into discussions more than two years ago to reach an early settlement. The administration has dragged out the process until it reached a crisis situation.
  o    Faculty have abided by mutual “relationship-building” guidelines
  o    Faculty have repeatedly offered a one-year extension of the existing (now expired) contract, but their offers were rejected
  o    Faculty want to resolve the crisis and begin the school year in their classrooms
  
  Note: If the Ferris Faculty Association should take part in any lawful concerted job action, the sole and exclusive basis for that job action will be for the purpose of protesting and/or responding to an unfair labor practice
  committed by University representatives during the bargaining process.

• (8/29/10: 8 AM): Webmaster note; If you have been around FSU for a more than a couple of years, you remember when we were paying almost $6,000 per year out of our paychecks for health insurance. That was only 4 short years ago and none of us wants to see that kind of money coming out of our pockets again! Do not miss the meeting tonight - our financial fate is in everyone's hands!
  

• (8/29/10: 8 AM): Your negotiating team met on Saturday, 8/26, from 10 AM to past 9 PM in a meeting room at the Holiday Inn separate from Dave's team, with the mediator again present and shuttling between us.  As a reminder of the response to our last proposal, Dave's team had sent word that they were not authorized to add any new money to the table.  
  
  We completed our analysis of Dave's team's last offer from Thursday, and formulated a response that refocused resources where we thought they would do members the most good.  This took a great deal of time to get right.  They responded later in the afternoon with an offer that had some optional aspects and some additional funding that took us a long time to decipher.  We anticipated it would take a long time to work up an appropriate response, so we told Dave's team and the mediator we would give them our response at 10 AM the next day.  We then worked until after 9 PM to put it together, and then retired for the night.
  
  Please remember our Sunday, 8/29 meeting at 5 PM at St. Mary's Parish Center.  At that meeting we will be determining the near-term fate of 450+ faculty, 10,000 students, and many more people in related areas.  If you only make one FFA meeting this year, this is the one to make.
  
  
  Regards,
  
  Jim Rumpf
  President, Ferris Faculty Association

• (8/27/10: 1:15 PM): Your negotiating team met on Thursday, 8/26, from 10 AM to past 7 PM in our usual room separate from Dave's team, with the mediator again present and shuttling between us.  As a response to our last proposal, Dave's team sent word that they were not authorized to add any new money to the table (not the first time we have heard that they are not authorized to do something, and we still don't know who *is* authorized).  In effect, we were told we have to counter ourselves.
  
  After much creative discussion, we sent them an official proposal that we were told was regressive.  Given the opinion that it could be seen as so, we modified it again alleviate that.  Their response to that, albeit without much time to review it, was to offer to repackage the very same money from their previous proposal, just rebalancing it between raises, SMA, and insurance. Our initial take was that this was the equivalent of just redistributing your change to different pockets in the same pants (someone said "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"), but upon further review, because some of the money would go from guaranteed to at-risk, this may be outright regressive bargaining on their part.  We will try to complete our analysis for our next scheduled meeting at 10 AM on Saturday, 8/28, at the Holiday Inn, before we make any more formal charges.
  
  As I worked on this update, I received the same "Update to Campus on Faculty Negotiations" that everyone else did.  That sort of communication is still as shameful as ever, and the content is as misleading and misdirecting as ever, and still focuses on the state of the state instead of the state of the university.  We are still dealing with their outright refusal to implement some rudimentary quality controls, so when anyone associated with Dave's team, including their spokespeople, say they are interested in quality, ask them why they still refuse to codify practices that would help us ensure it.
  
  Words - nice, cheap words - will not solve our problems.  We need the deeds to back them up.
  
  Please remember you can receive these updates via Facebook and Twitter as well, and continue to feel free to contact me at any time.  Regardless of the outcome this weekend, we look forward to seeing you on Sunday.
  
  
  Regards,
  
  Jim Rumpf
  President, Ferris Faculty Association

• (8/26/10: 2 PM): Hopefully the negotiating meeting for this evening will go well. As soon as anything is relayed to me I will post it.
  

• (8/25/10: 6 PM): Make sure you attend the NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE on Sunday, August 29 at 5 PM at the St. Mary's Parish Center, 919 Marion Avenue, Big Rapids.

• LINK: FSU Financial Report
• LINK: Salary Survey from NEA
• LINK: College Ranks
• LINK: Eisler Membership Expenses-1
• LINK: Eisler Employment Contracts
• LINK: Eisler Gifts
  
• (8//10: 6 PM): Informational picketing on 8/25/10. Pick up your signs and a T-shirt at the FFA Crisis Center next to McDonalds!