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STAFF KEEPS CLOSE WATCH ON HR CHANGES-C'VILLE WEEKLY, DECEMBER 25, 2007

Posted: Monday December 24, 2007

Staff Keeps Close Watch on HR Changes

Staff issues turned down to a simmer after some rancorous years, but the pot’s ready to boil depending on the University’s next move.

The Staff Union at UVA, led by its president, Jan Cornell, kept a close watch through the University’s push for charter restructuring, the new deal that UVA and some select other higher ed institutes worked out with the state for increased autonomy. One element Cornell has been particularly wary about is the introduction of a new UVA human resources system. All staff had been state employees, but new hires as of July 2006 are automatically part of the new system. Older employees can opt into the new system, but once they do, they can’t opt out. And Cornell is concerned that salaries, raises and benefits guaranteed state employees won’t translate in the new system.

The thing is, that system still hasn’t been unveiled. Susan Carkeek, appointed vice president of HR this year, has held some staff meetings and conducted a survey in order to help her put together that system.

“I like my job here at UVA,” Brad Sayler, an outspoken employee in the civil engineering department, said during one such meeting held in September. “I just don’t like the way employees get treated around here a lot of the time.” Sayler echoed those comments to local state legislators in December, asking whether any of them would support a bill to give workers the right to collective bargaining. State Senator Creigh Deeds noted that that would be dependent on the right to strike, and said the General Assembly is not about to grant that to workers any time soon.

A lingering staff issue from 2005 moved up a layer in the judicial system this year, as Dena Bowers’ $1 million wrongful termination lawsuit against UVA went from the U.S. Circuit Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Bowers claims she was fired for inadvertently forwarding an e-mail critical of charter restructuring to a large group of employees in 2005. UVA contends that her firing had nothing to do with censoring her speech. Judge Norman K. Moon threw out most of the substantive arguments of the suit after a March hearing in U.S. Circuit Court, and so her attorney, noted civil rights lawyer Deborah Wyatt, appealed the decision.

But that didn’t stop UVA from going after Bowers and her attorney, seeking sanctions and accusing them of misconduct in the case. A federal magistrate judge sided with UVA against Wyatt, fining her $4,150. Wyatt has also appealed that ruling.