November 27 Bargaining Update

Dec 2, 2018 | Bargaining

Board of governors rejects ULFA’s proposal for expedited bargaining

The two parties met on Tuesday November 27th so that the Board of Governors’ representatives could present their response to ULFA’s proposed expedited package for negotiations. You can read more about the history of this proposal here, here, and here.

The Board of Governors’ team did not bring any language to the meeting. They indicated instead that they believed that the two sides were too far apart to complete the expedited process within the agreed-upon time-frame and, as a result, said that they were not willing to continue bargaining within the proposed expedited framework.

Under the ground rules to which the two sides agreed before ULFA presented its package, the Board of Governors’ decision brought the expedited process to an end. As previously agreed, the two sides now return to positions they presented on or before November 15, the last day of regular negotiations (you can see the progress of regular and expedited negotiations here).

Why did the expedited package fail?

The failure of the expedited package was always considered a possibility by both sides. Because it is an example of the very different type of bargaining possible with a single table, we believe it is important for our membership to understand how the process worked and some of the possible reasons why the Board of Governors rejected the expedited package at this time.

ULFA presented the offer after the Board of Governors’ representatives asked what it would take for ULFA to suspend its “bridging” complaint to the Labour Board.  The complaint is in regards to the Governors’ failure to pay a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) on July 1, 2018 as the Association asserts is required by its Collective Agreement and the Labour Code.  (You can read more about the issues at stake and background here. The history of our discussion and the involvement of the Labour Relations Board can be followed here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

ULFA’s proposal for expedited bargaining answered this question by creating a way to mitigate the risk of either side losing at the Labour Board.

The main risk to ULFA of the Labour Board hearing is essentially that a loss will make the status quo permanent. The Board of Governors has already withheld the July 1, 2018 COLA; if we lose at the Board, then our members will continue to receive the 0s they are already receiving. They will have lost the COLA adjustment we believe that they are owed. But nobody will be worse (or better) off after a loss than they have been since the Board of Governors began withholding that payment.  

The risk to the Board of Governors at the Labour Board hearing is the possibility of a decision requiring them to pay 2.2% in COLA backdated to July 1, 2018 and continuing forward until negotiations conclude. ULFA believes that this will cost the Board approximately $1.2 million in 2018-2019 with an additional similarly sized increase compounding this loss on July 1, 2019 should negotiations still be in progress.  

Beyond this, both sides will incur potentially substantial legal fees if we cannot settle before the scheduled Labour Board hearing date in February.

In addition to offering cost certainty for the parties, ULFA’s proposal offered the Board of Governors an opportunity to save a significant proportion of their potential loss in 2018-2019 (with additional saving in future years and a saving in legal fees) in exchange for an expedited settlement on terms, conditions, and benefits that are important to ULFA’s membership. This would mean that ULFA members would have given up a portion of the money we believe they are entitled to otherwise in exchange for settlement on important language and benefits. A major emphasis of the ULFA package included terms that would bring protections for our most vulnerable members up to the standard of our comparator institutions.

ULFA’s proposed approach only makes sense if the Board of Governors considered their chances of losing at the Labour Board sufficiently high to be worth the cost of mitigation. The Board of Governors representatives indicated at the table, however, that they are very confident in their position and do not expect to lose. If their assumption is correct, then their rejection of ULFA’s proposed compromise probably makes good tactical sense. Since ULFA’s members are facing potential gains in the bridging case compared to the Board of Governors’ current refusal to pay COLA but no potential loss, the choice facing ULFA’s bargaining team was far less high-stakes a gamble.

Next steps

ULFA will now resume its work on a response to the Board’s “Parts”– shorthand for its proposal to reorganise many articles in the Handbook by employee category (you can read more about this here, here, here, here, here, and here). ULFA had previously accepted in principle the idea of organising information so that it is easy to use by Members in each job category, though it had expressed fundamental reservations about the details of the approach taken by the Board in its initial proposal. It will now present an alternative that streamlines the Board’s proposal and addresses ULFA’s concerns. ULFA indicated that it should be able to present an outline of this proposal with some initial examples three meetings from now.

In the meantime, the two parties have positions for which they are awaiting responses from the other side. In ULFA’s case, it must prepare responses (in addition to articles caught up in the “Parts”) to previously presented Board positions on Articles 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 26, 29, and Schedules A and B. In the Board’s case, ULFA is awaiting responses on Articles 9, 16, 22, 25, 32, 33, and “36” (a proposed new article on equity language) as well as most of the Schedules other than A and B. In addition, the Board previously presented a partial response to ULFA’s proposal for a new typology of leaves (Article 34), promising a more complete counter-proposal at a later date.

The Board side also indicated at this meeting that it intends to establish a website for publishing information about the progress of bargaining. They have since informed us that updates will be posted to the following URL (requires a uleth username and password): https://uleth.sharepoint.com/sites/BargainingUpdates. They indicate that no updates pertaining to the negotiations with ULFA have been posted to date.

November 22 Bargaining Update: ULFA presents package for “expedited bargaining”

Nov 26, 2018 | Bargaining

On Thursday November 22nd, representatives of the Board of Governors and ULFA met to discuss the details of ULFA’s proposal for an “expedited” round of bargaining. According to this proposal, ULFA would agree to suspend and ultimately withdraw its ongoing complaint at the Labour Board regarding the Board of Governors’ failure to apply COLA on July 1 as required by the Labour Code in exchange for agreement by the Board before the end of the year on a package of articles and schedules focussed on issues that are key to the ULFA membership (You can read more about the issues at stake and background to the bridging dispute here. The history of our discussion and the involvement of the Labour Relations Board can be followed here, here, here, here, here, and here).

You can see the articles and schedules involved in the package and follow the progress of negotiations here. The red tab (first sheet) presents details of the status of the “expedited” bargaining process; the green tab (second sheet) presents the status of the regular negotiations which have been temporarily suspended to pursue this expedited process. Should the expedited process fail, the sides will resume negotiations where they left off on November 15.

The Board of Governors will present their response on November 27th. Because the expedited process involves tradeoffs among salary, benefits, and language, it will be necessary to understand the position each side holds with respect to all elements of the package before article-by-article level exchanges can take place.

Updates: ULFA proposes new approach to bargaining; Five articles settled November 15; Town halls to be rescheduled; AUPE information picket update

Nov 16, 2018 | Bargaining

Proposal for “expedited” bargaining

Over the last few weeks, ULFA and the University administration have been discussing a proposal by ULFA to streamline negotiations, focussing on a few key issues while reverting to the status quo on less central issues where the two sides remain far apart. As part of these negotiations, the two sides are also exploring whether our current case before the Labour Board on “bridging” could be settled at the bargaining table within this expedited proposal.

Under the proposal, ULFA is preparing a package of positions it would be prepared to accept in exchange for agreeing to reach a Memorandum of Understanding on the effect of bridging during the current round of negotiations. If the two sides are able to come to an agreement on ULFA’s package before the end of the year, ULFA would suspend its case before the Board until the agreement was ratified on both sides, at which point the union would withdraw its application. If the two sides were not able to reach an agreement on ULFA’s proposals before the end of the year, or if such an agreement were not ratified, the “bridging” case would proceed to the Labour Board as currently scheduled and the broader negotiations on all outstanding topics would resume. All positions presented by ULFA during this expedited process would be contingent on agreement being reached by the end of the year as part of the expedited process and would be otherwise subject to withdrawal or revision.

November 15 Bargaining update

The Board side agreed to pursue this expedited approach last week. As part of this agreement, the two sides also agreed that the Board would present written proposals on Article 10, 16, and 24 by November 8 and that the two sides would meet on November 15 to attempt to settle articles outside of the core package where agreement seemed close.

The Board sent its written proposals on November 7 as agreed. On November 15th, ULFA presented language on six articles, one of which was scheduled to be included in the package for expedited bargaining were agreement not reached on the 15th. The Board side presented three articles on the 15th, two of which are to be included in the proposal for expedited bargaining.

These are all articles on which the two sides have exchanged language a number of times (as always, you can follow the progress of negotiations here).

As always, the negotiations were cordial and constructive. In the case of ULFA’s proposals, we were able to reach agreement on new language for Articles 10, 24, 27, 30, and 31. This brings to 12 the number of agreed-upon articles.

We were unable to reach agreement on Article 16, which, under the agreed-upon proposal for expedited bargaining, will now be included as part of ULFA’s “package” on November 22nd.

In the case of the Board’s presentation, Articles 5 and 6 are part of the agreed-upon proposal for expedited bargaining. The Board side therefore used its presentation to clarify its understanding of the issues involved in each case and to suggest language that ULFA might consider for use in its “expedited” proposal next week.

Article 29 has been back and forth across the table several times. Unfortunately, there was still sufficient distance between the two sides to prevent agreement being reached on the 15th.

Town halls to be rescheduled

ULFA had originally planned to hold two Town halls next week to supplement the bargaining blog in bringing its members up-to-date on the current status of negotiations.

The Board’s agreement to pursue ULFA’s proposal for expedited bargaining, however, has greatly increased the amount of preparation the Bargaining team will be required to do in advance of next week’s bargaining session. We will therefore attempt to reschedule the Town halls for later in the semester. As always you can stay abreast of developments in negotiations by following this blog.

AUPE Information picket

ULFA had good representation at the November 7 AUPE information picket. Approximately 30-35 members of the Faculty attended some or all of the event, which also received positive media attention. The picket gave us a chance to try out our new banner, stand with our AUPE colleagues, and learn some techniques from pros.

On Tuesday November 13, the Board published a position statement on some of the issues raised by AUPE. You can read their statement here.

Updates: Bargaining (October 22 and 25, November 1)

Nov 4, 2018 | Bargaining

ULFA and representatives of the Board of Governors met for three negotiating sessions over the last two weeks: Monday October 22nd, Thursday October 25th, and November 1. As always, you can follow the exchange of articles here.

October 22

In the October 22nd session, the two sides exchanged 6 articles, in keeping with our September discussions.

This was an exciting and active session with lots of give and take.

In the case of Article 3, the two sides were able to settle on agreeable language after several rounds of at-the-table bargaining. Article 3 covers largely technical matters regarding amendments to the Collective Agreement. Under the new Labour Code regulations, however, it also governs the conditions under which job action (lockout or strike) may and may not take place. In the last few rounds, the discussion centred on the conditions under which Members of the Faculty Association may refuse to carry out scheduled duties in support of picket lines established on campus by other unions.

Article 5 deals with the conditions under which the Association can carry out its business. We are gradually beginning to identify the main areas of agreement in this article.

Article 6 deals with information required by the Association to carry out its business. Once again the two sides are beginning to identify the main areas of agreement.

The Board of Governors presented Schedules A (Sessionals only) and B as part of their proposed organization of the handbook.

Finally, the Board presented a new version of Article 4 (Applications and Exclusions). This article deals with the bargaining unit and who is, or is not, protected by the Collective Agreement. The Board of Governors expanded on their previous proposal to entirely remove Senior Administrators (Associate Deans and above) and Faculty Members serving on the Board of Governors from the protections of the Collective Agreement. Senior Academic Administrators normally hold concurrent academic appointments (i.e. as an Instructor, Academic Assistant, Professional Librarian, or Member of the Professoriate).

Currently, Senior Academic Administrators are protected by the Collective Agreement when teaching or engaging in research. This means their tenure, rank, and Academic Freedom are provided the same protections given to all other Members. Under the Board proposal, this protection would be replaced by an as-yet-unpublished Board policy governing Academic Freedom for Senior Administrators.

ULFA’s position is that a Board policy that can be rescinded unilaterally does not provide adequate protection for academic work, which is a concern for all faculty. If the Board rescinded their policy, Senior Administrators could conceivably be censured, disciplined, or fired for academic activities that would otherwise be protected by Academic Freedom provisions in the handbook.

ULFA has undertaken to research this issue further before presenting a response to the Board’s proposal.

October 25

On October 25, ULFA presented Articles 24 and 29, while the Board presented the final version of its “Parts.”

In the case of 24, the two sides seem to be very close to agreement. The ULFA proposal clarified a few places where the current language did not seem to reflect the agreement at the table. The Board side agreed to review these to ensure accuracy.

In the case of Article 29, ULFA presented a significant reorganisation to bring it more closely in line with current legislation on intellectual property, and correcting various terminological issues. Other than the reorganization, there were relatively few changes in language from that presented by the Board on June 9. In broad terms, the two sides appear to be relatively close in this article.

Over the last several months, the Board has presented a comprehensive reorganisation of the Collective Agreement by job category (i.e. Sessional Lecturer, Instructor/Academic Assistant, Professional Librarian, Professoriate). This means that a large number of Articles from the current handbook have been “tied up” in the different proposed “parts.” In some cases, the complexity of the proposal has required the Board to revise material already presented.  ULFA has been waiting for the final presentation on the proposed Parts before preparing a response. ULFA has agreed to present a counter-proposal by the end of November.

November 1

On November 1, the two sides met for a third time. Although both sides were prepared to present articles, the discussion shifted to a possible new approach to increase focus and efficiency in bargaining. Bargaining was adjourned to consider this approach and the two sides hope to reach an agreement early this week on the best way to tackle bargaining for the remainder of the Fall semester.