Tangled in red tape

About 50 Santa Fe adjunct faculty, along with students and other community groups, rallied inside and outside Santa Fe's board of trustees' meeting Tuesday afternoon for the right to organize a union, while protesting what they call Santa Fe’s efforts to block a vote to form one.

Holding signs stating they wanted at least $15 an hour and to unionize, the adjuncts filed into a board room at Santa Fe, before about half of them were forced to leave because the room was at its maximum capacity of 49 people.

The group members were allowed 15 minutes to speak to the board of trustees about their dissatisfaction with how Santa Fe has tried to thwart or “block” the group's efforts to form a union to push for better pay, shared governance, benefits and full-time treatment.

About six people spoke in support of the union before the 15-minute time period was up. Several others had planned to speak.

Adjuncts at Santa Fe College and other Florida colleges filed for unions in December. Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, filed a petition to start a union on behalf of Santa Fe. Adjuncts at Santa Fe make up about two-thirds of the Santa Fe faculty.

While forming a union has garnered support from adjunct faculty, it has yet to form or get to a vote, while it navigates through rigorous red tape, according to union supporters.

Glynn Hayes, a professor of natural sciences at Santa Fe, said since December, the efforts to form a union have been halted by Santa Fe administration.

Santa Fe has hired a legal team from Bryant Miller Olive, an outside law firm specializing in labor laws, to make sure the prospective union group follows the state's unionization legal process.

In accordance with state law, Santa Fe and the legal team told the adjuncts to gather support of a third of Santa Fe’s adjuncts and have them fill out cards to prove they support unionizing.

If they gained the support, they could hold a vote to unionize.

Then, Hayes said, the group was required to gain additional signatures and support from Santa Fe police and health science professionals.

They did, Hayes said.

Then, there was an issue in which Santa Fe and the lawyers objected to the petition to unionize and weren’t going to accept the signatures from some employees who supported the efforts to establish a union.

Hayes said they could be required to reapply. It’s been one thing after another, he said.

“They’re just trying to throw a monkey wrench it in,” he said.

Alachua County Commissioner Ken Cornell told the board Tuesday, speaking for himself and the County Commission, that adjuncts’ efforts to unionize are supported at the county government level. He called on the board to “cease using any public funds to fight these efforts to prevent these adjunct professors from taking a vote to organize and form a union.”

Santa Fe General Counsel Patti Locascio confirmed that the school had hired an outside counsel to make sure the adjunct group follows legal protocols when forming a union.

Locascio said she didn’t know how much money would be spent on the lawyers because they “get paid by the hour,” and how much they got paid “depends on how long this goes on.”

“Once SEIU filed the petition using their lawyer, we realized we needed one, too,” she said, noting she didn't have experience in practicing labor law.

Kate Murray, an 11-year adjunct at Santa Fe, said the law firm is making unionizing “as difficult as possible.”

Murray has been one of the more vocal leaders in the fight to form a bargaining union, arguing for better pay, benefits, a role in curriculum planning and other benefits received by full-time employees.

“We are treated as if we are Uber drivers,” she said. “They get us for cheap and without any other benefits. They don’t even pay into social security.”

In August 2017, Santa Fe administration bumped the pay of full-time, on-campus workers to $12 an hour. But part-time workers, including adjuncts, received no pay increases. The minimum wage in Florida is $8.25 an hour, though the state employment handbook defines a living wage at $15.44 an hour.

Adjuncts make well below that and often can teach more than three classes and get paid well below $25,000 a year.

Adjunct professor Nicole Nesberg told the board she loves her job but she supports unionizing with fellow adjuncts because she needs a salary to support her family. She said despite the low pay, not more than $24,000 a year, she has stayed at the college because she believes her teaching has had a positive impact on students.

“I stay because I’ve had a student telling me my class was the most giving class she’s ever had. I’ve had students say they were going to quit college until I took your class," Nesberg said.

"A college student I supported is going to be a doctor and just graduated from UF’s med school. That’s why I stay and I deserve to support my family by making a living wage. We are underpaid.”

Santa Fe board of trustees’ Chairwoman Lisa Prevatt insisted to the group that Santa Fe was following all legal protocols when handling its staff’s unionization efforts.

Santa Fe President Jackson Sasser addressed a crowd of perplexed adjuncts and community members after the board meeting was over. Many people in the crowd said they felt their concerns were dismissed by the board members.

“This is pathetic,” said one adjunct, as she left the board room.

Sasser said he shared the adjuncts' concerns over low pay, putting much of the blame on cuts in state funding. Sasser told the crowd he wouldn’t engage in a “shouting match,” but he cared about their concerns and wasn’t against a union, apparently contradicting previous statements.

In a video posted to Youtube from a Santa Fe College meeting, Sasser is heard stating he doesn’t think it's best for Santa Fe adjuncts to form a union, but he understands it's their right.

Several adjuncts called him out on the statement. He said their concerns upset him and he would talk more about them in June.

“If there’s anything that I ever loved, and I built my career around, it’s faculty,” he said.

As Sasser walked away, one adjunct said he would go on strike if Santa Fe blocked the union from forming. After this comment was made, the crowd began chanting, "Strike!" with Sasser about 100 feet away.

Murray said it was important for her to become a leader in unionization efforts because she’s helping her colleagues who might be younger and less likely to stand up for themselves.

“I’m a gray-haired lady, a woman with certainly no prospective for a full-time job. I have multiple revenue streams and I’m getting to the end of my career,” she said. “A lot of academics are terrified of getting in bad with boss. So I’m sticking my neck out for them.”

The group made plans to meet at Santa Fe's next board of trustees' meeting June 18.