The job action in February-March concluded with several ULFA mandate items unresolved, including:
- Reorganisation of the Collective Agreement to improve readability and usability
- A joint benefits committee to review the effectiveness and desirability of Member benefits
- Agreement on a teaching professoriate
- Agreement on a means of resolving the employment of Members who have received multiple term contracts.
During the mediation that ended the February-March job action, MOUs were signed to create joint working groups to address these non-monetary matters.
In the course of the summer and fall, we have made great progress on several of these items.
The working group on reorganizing the collective agreement completed its work in early September, thanks in large part to the outstanding work of Joy Morris, a member of the ULFA negotiating team.
We are now very pleased to announce that the working group that investigated the desirability and feasibility of a joint benefits committee has completed its work and a new MOU has been signed by both parties to establish a joint Board-ULFA benefits committee as of December 1, 2022. This is notable because it was one of the items in the hours leading up to the commencement of job action that was strenuously rejected by the Board. We thank the ULFA members of the working group, Rumi Graham and Rob Sutherland, for bringing this tough issue to a successful conclusion.
We look forward to the outcomes of the remaining two working groups. One of these groups is evaluating the feasibility and desirability of creating a Teaching Professoriate career path for Instructor IIIs. The other group is evaluating the feasibility and desirability of limiting the number of consecutive term appointments (limited-duration contracts) that a member may undertake before their position converts to a regular tenure-stream appointment.
We have made progress on these files due to the efforts of our colleagues on the working-groups and the continuing and strong solidarity demonstrated by ULFA Members during and since our long and difficult lock-out/strike. Thank you very much for your continuing support.
Best wishes,
ULFA Bargaining Resource Committee
