The University of Texas System settled a lawsuit yesterday (Apr. 13) agreeing to give hiring priority to more than 2,400 University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) employees who were fired in the wake of Hurricane Ike, which decimated the island campus in Galveston.

"There were concrete things gained here but it remains a horrible labor relations and employment situation [at UTMB]," Tom Johnson, executive director of the Texas Faculty Association, told The Scientist.

The association, which advocates for faculty members and support staff at Texas higher education institutions, and three Galveston residents sued the UT System last December, alleging that the mass layoffs were done in secret, closed-door meetings that violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The UT System, which admitted no wrongdoing and maintained that the firings complied with state law, agreed to pay $22,500 in legal fees to the faculty group's lawyer, Joe Jaworski, and to establish an official "re-employment list" for the next three years. When new jobs are posted, former employees will have 20 business days to apply and will be hired if they are deemed the most qualified candidate.

"If new positions open up, given the needs of the institution as it gets rebuilt then [the fired staff] will be considered," Barry Burgdorf, vice chancellor and general counsel for the UT System, told The Scientist. Whether these employees are rehired "really depends on who applies and what we think of them in relation to the position." UTMB has no plans to recreate the exact same positions that existed before the hurricane, Burgdorf noted.

Under the agreement, former staff members who are not rehired and feel they were wrongly denied re-employment can demand an arbitration hearing from Susan Sousson, an independent Houston-based judge. "It's beautiful," said Jaworski, "because it's final, it's binding, and it's independent."

Jaworski, however, doubts that this is the end of UTMB's legal troubles. "Personal lawsuits are in the pipeline and they're coming," he said. Currently, around 30 faculty members, many of whom were tenured, are appealing their terminations through special UTMB hearings. If those fail, the fired faculty "will have to pursue litigation after the kangaroo court hearings of their appeals," Jaworski said.

Johnson said that there were "a number of successes" in the settlement, but "the most important one was the one that's not visible" -- that is, it reflects the "tremendous upsurge" in support that the former staff received from local residents and non-fired UTMB employees, which the UT officials finally recognized. He noted that the lawsuit was filed when Galveston was "floundering" from the devastation wrought by Ike. The open meetings lawsuit "proved to be a focal point for standing up to UTMB and UT and insisting that the institution get rebuilt on Galveston Island," he said. Last month, the UT System board of regents announced that it plans to rebuild UTMB and its hospital in Galveston rather than move the medical school off-island.


Related stories:

Texas school hired while firing
[31st March 2009]

Fired faculty speak out
[4th December 2008]

Texas profs sue university
[2nd December 2008]