Petice za okamžité odvolání výpovědi prof. Horáčkovi

Petici plně podporujeme! Za odborovu organizaci ReVize: Vašek Sebera,
Honza Tippner, Klemek Rejšek

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Dear international colleagues,

thank you very much for your interests in things happening in Brno, I
really appreciate it. Because there are many things happening in Brno
now and I dont want to bother you with long description, I will tell you
just main points of the situation, from my own perspective. It might
help you to get oriented and make your own opinion.

1. Department of Wood Science (DWS) produced 27% of research performance
of whole Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology last year (dean's
data). There are 13 departments at the faculty. People at DWS were not
rewarded for their hard work, instead the head was removed without
reasoning and incompetent person replaced him in November 2015 (new boss
is landscape engineer). The main reasons are loyalty and control, new
DWS head is vice-dean too.

2. for 6 months we were sending messages to dean, rector and senate that
we are not happy and we need better leader, we dont agree with such
policy, how to improve the situation etc. None of them was accepted,
despite, the treatment of ourselves by bosses become worse. They claimed
democratic principles in leading department was wrong way; our
attendance is checked the most often at the university; everything must
be decided by new boss, our opinions are irrelevant (he really said
that) etc etc..

3. In April, new Labor Union ReVision was established at DWS to have
"some" rights and information that must be given from employer by law.
Otherwise we were 6 months without any information, no meeting etc. We
were held completely away from the wood research conception of the
faculty too even though we just finished new labs in Utechov.

4. In selection procedure for head of DWS, that had suspicious procedure
(substantial changing of committee, removing prof. Wimmer), no one was
chosen, even prof. Petr Horacek who lead the faculty for 8 years and
established the DWS in 1995 was refused as "unsuitable". Prof. Horacek
made our department in a way it functions so far. (from 7 in 1995 to 34
employees now).

5. during the selection procedure, czech law and university rules were
violated (discriminating questions were put to candidate, required
schedule of procedure was not followed etc.). Complaints about that were
not heard at all --> controlling mechanisms of MENDELU failed.

6. two weeks after the results of selection results were published,
prof. Horacek was fired for "serious breaking of working duties" (czech
law wording). Reasons are false and constructed purposely (for instance
leaving working place by prof. Horacek when he went to Utechov labs with
students; new labs in Utechov dont meet criteria in project etc (after
accepting it by Ministry of education...etc.)).

7. the budget of the faculty was designed in a way it supports
"educational" departments, so our budget is quite tight and we dont know
whether we will have means till end of the year. Dean still claims he
supports excellent teams such us :)

8. We are now thinking about strike. It might be the way how to show tax
payers what is being done with public money... In case it will happen, I
might ask you for a "sympathy" letter (officially as Labor Union
ReVision chairman). ...it wont be obligatory of course :)

That is all in nutshell. In my opinion, the behavior of dean (tolerated
by rector) is brutal, in both content and form. Unfortunately, it is an
exhibition of Machiavelli theory that is difficult to fight with, and it
shows "nonmatureness" of czech academic environment in its purest.

You might still ask yourself "why all these things happen"? I dont have
any evidence to answer, but I will rather not tell you my speculations
about it in email.

If you feel like you need more information, let me or dr. Jan Tippner
know, we will try to answer as much as we can do. We still believe in
happy end!

I am pleased the DWS is part of European wood science community that is
open enough to talk and act when similar issues come. Big thank belongs
to Rupert Wimmer and Peter Rademacher for their inputs!

Thank you for your time and have a nice day!

Vaclav Sebera