ULFA presents Bargaining Mandate; Board presents some preliminary considerations

Contract negotiations resumed on Zoom Tuesday 22 Sept 2020. Chris Nicol (Board’s Spokesperson, Library), Mary Ingraham (Fine Arts), Kelly Williams-Whitt (Dillon School of Business), and Linda van der Velde (Human Resources) represented the Board; Dan O’Donnell (Union’s Spokesperson, English), Joy Morris (Mathematics), Olu Awosoga (Health Sciences), Rumi Graham (Library), Rob Sutherland (Neuroscience), Eva Cool (ULFA), and Aaron Chubb (ULFA) represented the Union. Bargaining is taking place this semester entirely online and the beginning of the meeting contained a discussion of a protocol for online activities and exchange of documents and proposals.

Dan O’Donnell presented ULFA’s bargaining mandate by walking through all of the themes of the mandate, identifying rationales and goals for our Members. The presentation ended with a complete list of articles in the Collective Agreement that would be affected by the mandate items. While our modification of the entire Collective Agreement to avoid gendered language was not signed off on by the Board, there was agreement in principle that such a modification was desirable.

The Board opened with a discussion of their view of the economic context, including recent reductions in University employees, the Board’s view of likely future provincial budget reductions, changes in cost of living, and recent changes in faculty salary. In their presentation, they introduced Athabasca as a university salary comparator for UofL,  in addition to the five that have been previously agreed upon as appropriate comparators by both parties.

A second novel feature of the Board’s presentation was the description of Career Progress and Merit as a type of Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) rather than the more usual understanding of these as belonging to a career compensation structure. In their presentation, the Board indicated that their presentation focused entirely on salary growth and did not reflect the generally much lower starting salaries found at the U of L or take into account life-time earnings.

Finally, the Board also presented their intention to discuss several articles that have been involved in recent grievances. At the next meeting they indicated they will give a more detailed presentation of the issues involved in these.

The Board’s team indicated that they would take some weeks into the future to go over ULFA’s bargaining mandate with their extended bargaining team. Our bargaining mandate had been publicly discussed, amended, ratified, and published for many months; but this was the first time it was formally presented to the Board’s team.

The session lasted about 2.5 hours. We are waiting on the Board to confirm the next meeting date.  

Upcoming workshop for STP Chairs and Committee Members.

Two online offerings, choose the date that works for you:

September 23rd 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Join Zoom Meeting
See your email for zoom information

October 1st 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
See your email for zoom information

Workshop Overview:

Part I: General Principles Governing Personnel Decisions

Part II: STP Procedures under our Collective Agreement

Part III: Chairing STP Committee under our Collective Agreement

Part IV: Criteria for STP Decisions

Part V: Appeals

Questions & Answers

Facilitators include:
Claudia Steinke, ULFA Presiden
Dan O’Donnell, ULFA Vice-President
Aaron Chubb, ULFA Executive Officer

ULFA recently issued an anti-racism statement that expresses our support of our Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) and racialized faculty members, administrators, students, and staff, in response to a growing global awareness of the long road that remains towards justice. On September 9–10, academic staff across Canada are supporting the Scholar Strike (https://scholarstrikecanada.ca).

Many Canadian Faculty Associations, including CAUT (https://scholarstrikecanada34826019.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/caut-letter-of-support.pdf), are disseminating information about ways in which academic staff can participate in addressing social justice as classes get underway: for example, by participating in digital teach-ins (https://scholarstrikecanada.ca/schedule/) and by raising awareness through territorial acknowledgements.

While ULFA is not encouraging staff to engage in work stoppages or neglect the job responsibilities as covered by the Collective Agreement, we are supportive of engagement in larger social issues, and invite your awareness of these events, and your accommodation of students who intend to participate in them actively. 

In solidarity with the action on September 9th and 10th, ULFA would like to highlight ways that members can show solidarity with the #ScholarStrike under our Collective Agreement:

• Limit teaching activities to the official calendar times (e.g. 9:00-9:50 a.m.), explaining to students why you have no additional availability during September 9th and 10th;
• Share teach-in resources and the program schedule with students;
• Volunteer and become politically/socially active;
• Give personal capital (time, money, etc.) to worthwhile causes;
• Yield the floor and use your platform to echo and centre essential voices (in this case the voices of BIPOC scholars);
• Write to elected officials, expressing your opinion. Also, consider employment-related officials such as University Presidents, Union Presidents, and Student Union Presidents.