Negotiators for the Faculty Association and Board met yesterday for a further bargaining session.
The session was very productive, with one agreement-in-principle, several articles making significant steps towards provisional agreement, and the introduction by the Board team of a possible new way of organising parts of the Collective Agreement.
The Articles under discussion
The articles exchanged were:
| ULFA | Board |
| 1 (Preamble and objectives), 3 (Amendments), 23 (Mediation), 24 (Appeals of Recommendations by STP Committee and Appeal Committees) |
17 (Personnel Committees), “Part III” (see below), 30 (Travel Fund), 31 (Research Fund), Schedule A “Parts I through III” |
You can follow the current status of all articles under negotiations here.
Article 23 (Mediation)
The two sides came to an agreement-in-principle to delete Article 23 (Mediation). The current Article 23 overlaps with several other articles including 9 (Personal Files), 11 (Rights and Responsibilities), 22 (Grievance), and 25 (Discipline) as well as several policies and traditional management responsibilities to maintain a safe workplace. The previous language could also be read as attempting to constrain students and members of other bargaining units over whom this agreement has no jurisdiction. This was the fourth iteration of discussions on this article.
Articles 1 (Preamble), 3 (Amendments), 24 (STP appeals), 30 (Travel Fund) and 31 (Research Fund)
The two sides came closer to reaching agreement on all of these articles. These articles have been exchanged multiple times and in most cases the language that remains outstanding focuses on a single conceptual issue that is reflected in just a small number of the clauses in that article. Discussion at today’s meeting revealed possible ways forward on several of these outstanding issues.
Articles 17 (Personnel Committees), “Part III,” and Schedule A “Parts I, II, III”
Article 17, “Part III,” and Schedule A (“Parts I, II, III”) represent the first iteration of the University’s proposal to collect and group together material that is distinct for each employee category in separate sections or “Parts.” This proposal involves a major reorganisation of the Handbook including the movement of large amounts of material from previously disparate Articles.
In today’s presentation, the University provided its initial example of how this grouping might affect individual employee categories, with a section on Academic Assistants and Instructors (“Part III”) and versions of Schedule A (economic benefits) for three out of the four proposed employee groups: Faculty, Professional Librarians, and Instructors/Academic Assistants. In the case of Article 17, the University provided a first look at how the “source” articles might look after material that is arguably specific to each group has been removed.
This was the first presentation of examples of this approach, which involves some fairly substantial changes in organisation and is at the moment still incomplete. We can expect several iterations of these articles (and the corresponding articles in the Collective Agreement’s “Common” section) before a final agreement will be reached.
Future Negotiations
The University and ULFA have a negotiating session scheduled for July 25. Since it has been impossible to find common times for negotiations in August, the parties agreed to meet again in September, and are attempting to schedule potential negotiating dates from the beginning of September through to the end of December. The two sides also discussed the pace of negotiations in the fall and other administrative issues.
Bargaining Team Membership Update
Today, ULFA also informed the Board that effective July 26, Rumi Graham will be taking over from Paul Hayes as an official member of the ULFA bargaining team. This change has been planned for some time, due to Paul’s forthcoming semester in Japan at Hokkai Gakuen University. Rumi has been an observer throughout negotiations, so is well-informed and prepared for this role.