The days of relatively smooth sailing between Edison State College’s faculty union and administration may be over, at least for now.

After years of negotiations that have been, by all accounts, collegial and civil, the two sides could be returning to collective bargaining that takes place through attorneys. That was how bargaining occurred before college President Kenneth Walker came to Edison in 1991, and his tenure heralded a new era of civility for the college, union President Ellie Bunting said.

Twenty years later, the climate between some Edison administrators and faculty union representatives has reached a virtual fever pitch, as the college seeks legal opinions on whether the union is operating in bad faith, and union representatives say they feel like they have targets on their backs.

The strife came out into the open just a month ago, but insiders say it has been bubbling below the surface at Edison for months. As with many of the grievances shared by faculty in recent weeks, faculty union representatives connect their woes to Vice President of Operations James Browder.

Though Browder was moved to an off-campus assignment in March, Walker on Wednesday broadcast his intention to return Browder to campus as vice president of operations, in spite of an agreement with faculty that seemed to preclude such a move. While Walker maintains Browder will not oversee college faculty in the new position, his possible return to campus nonetheless raises questions.

“The common denominator for all of these things that have happened in the last six months is Dr. Browder,” said Marty Ambrose, chief negotiator for the faculty union at Edison, during a March 24 public meeting with Walker. “I can unequivocally state right now, the union will never sit at the table with Dr. Browder.”

As senior vice president of operations, Browder held a position generally occupied by the administration’s representative in union negotiations. While Ambrose said Browder never participated in bargaining with the faculty union — he wasn’t there long enough — it was expected that he would eventually. In the meantime, he acted as the “point person” for day-to-day issues that fell under the umbrella of union contracts, such as grievances, Ambrose said.

Then-Superintendent James Browder asked the School Board to release him from his contract “for the good of the district and for the children” during the Lee County School Board meeting Wednesday, September 22, 2010. The Lee County School Board voted to have Browder leave his position effective Sept. 25, 2010. Browder had accepted a job at Edison State College. Lexey Swall/Staff

“Do something about that (expletive) union,” a union leader at Edison said James Browder was overheard telling an administrator at the college.

That changed March 28 when Walker met with representatives of both the Faculty Senate, a representative body of faculty members, and senior leadership for the union, a chapter of the United Faculty of Florida.

To appease angry faculty, Walker promised to reassign Browder to another position off Edison’s campuses, and to remove him from overseeing any academic affairs or faculty.

With Walker requesting the Board of Trustees approve Browder’s return to campus as a vice president (technically a demotion from his last on-campus assignment) it raises the question of whether Browder eventually could be installed as the college’s negotiator with the faculty union. Asked on Wednesday whether Browder might step into that role in the future, college General Counsel Mark Lupe responded: “That would be an impossible question to answer.”

Faculty members say Browder coming to the negotiating table would severely complicate negotiations.

Ambrose points to a number of exchanges with Browder — both overheard and shared second-hand — that she said contributed to an air of hostility between union leadership and Browder.

In the office suite belonging to former Vice President of Student and Academic Affairs Steve Atkins, Ambrose said she one day overheard Browder yelling at Atkins to “do something about that (expletive) union.”

Around the same time, she said she and Atkins learned second-hand that Browder was asking people what the nature of the relationship was between Atkins and Ambrose.

“You can’t (negotiate) when the person in the meeting is making defamatory comments about the union people in the meeting,” Ambrose said. “It makes it impossible to come to the table.”

Browder didn’t return phone calls or an email from the Daily News seeking comment.

Ambrose and Bunting said the relationship between the union and the college hasn’t always been so strained. Under then- Executive Vice President Noreen Thomas, Browder’s predecessor, negotiations were civil, if not downright pleasant.

“The relationship was excellent,” Ambrose said. “Not to say we always agreed — and we shouldn’t.”

Earlier this month, the college sought legal opinions from a labor law firm, including one opinion on the rights of the union to seek the ouster of an administrator from the bargaining table.

Read the documents

“Neither party may insist on the removal of certain members of the administrative bargaining team as a condition for collective bargaining agreement negotiations,” wrote Michael Mattimore, of the law firm Allen, Norton & Blue, in a letter to Walker dated April 6. “Such insistence is an indication of bad-faith bargaining, which potentially constitutes an unfair labor practice.”

Mattimore’s letter underlined the fact that the college would need a ruling from the Public Employees Relations Commission to determine whether anyone had in fact acted in bad faith.

Lupe, the general counsel, said Edison hasn’t sought such a ruling, but he declined to comment on whether the college believes the union has acted in bad faith, saying, “I’m not really able to address that.”

Dennis Lynch, dean emeritus and professor at the University of Miami School of Law, said it would be “highly unusual” for one party to exclude the other side’s representative from sitting at the bargaining table. But even if the state Public Employees Relations Commission makes a finding that one side has acted in bad faith, there is little that can be done, he said.

“A typical remedy would be to simply go back to the table without that person,” said Lynch, an expert on labor law. “Or, to go back to the table and behave.”

Ambrose said her comments at the March 28 meeting weren’t intended as a refusal to negotiate, but simply to say the union representatives would be unable to negotiate directly with Browder.

If Browder were brought in as the negotiator after all, Bunting said, “I think we would definitely get the best labor attorney to be up against him.”

Lupe said he has taken over as the college’s representative in the bargaining process and the point person on day-to-day issues — issues that Ambrose said were piling up for weeks without a representative handling them on the administrative side.

Lupe and Ambrose met Tuesday to discuss relations between the union and the college.

“It was a really good conversation about what it would take to move forward,” Ambrose said.

Given the tense air at the college, there are lingering questions about what the path forward might be.

Read the documents

On April 7, Bunting sent a letter to Walker and Board of Trustees Chairman Chris Vernon attempting to explain the union’s role in recent events at the college.

“I’m sort of getting the drift that the union was getting blamed for the vote of no confidence,” Bunting said. “The problem is a lot of people that are in the union are in the Faculty Senate (too). We try to keep union business union, and Faculty Senate business Faculty Senate.”

Bunting’s letter explained the difference between the two entities, in the interest of clearing up “misconceptions,” she wrote.

“All of the concerns that have been raised in the last few weeks have come out of Faculty Senate, not the union,” Bunting wrote. “The union did not orchestrate or promote the vote of no confidence against Dr. Walker or Dr. Browder.”

She concluded by stating that the union is ready to bargain in good faith this summer, when both sides sit down to discuss salary issues within the previously ratified contract.