The Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their twenty-second and twenty-third bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA) on April 2 and 4, 2025.
On April 2, the Board team presented proposals on Articles 9 (Grievance), 23 (Performance Evaluation), and 24 (Merit Awards). For Article 23, the Board team re-tabled its July 25, 2024, proposal. The Board team’s Article 24 proposal states that a Merit Award will recognize outstanding performance of a member’s assigned duties. It also proposes that the number of recipients shall not exceed 25% of the eligible members in each job category and Faculty/Library within each cycle.
The ULFA team presented proposals on Articles 3 (Amendments & Modifications to the ASCA) and 16 (Holidays). The Article 3 proposal revises how Schedule Z is referenced and retains the current language on Member rights relating to other picket lines on campus. The Board team accepted the Article 16 proposal, which maintains Member access to Federal holidays and gives the parties an opportunity to mutually agree to waive the observance of the first instance of a new holiday.
On April 4, the Board team presented proposals for Articles 3 (Amendments & Modifications), 5 (Recognition), and 19 (Discipline). In Article 3, the parties continue to hold different views on the existing ASCA provisions regarding Members’ right to not cross a picket line. The Article 5 proposal was largely a re-tabling of the Board team’s previous proposal presented on May 21, 2024. The Board team’s proposals for Articles 9 and 19 are a partial response to a package that ULFA tabled on March 19 that also includes the teaching professoriate.
The ULFA team presented a package comprising Articles 4 (Applications & Exclusions), 10 (Appointments), 18 (Intellectual Property), 20 (Terminations), 38 (Sessional Lecturers), and Schedule V (MOU on Consecutive Term Appointments). This package of articles has been exchanged several times in previous sessions. New content in this proposal relates to a clause intended to allow inactive members serving on the Board of Governors to participate in some ULFA activities, incorporation of the March 10, 2025 Consecutive Term Appointments Working Group final report into Article 10, and the consequential deletion of Schedule V. Articles 18, 20, and 38 remain unchanged from the January 20, 2025 proposal and are included for completeness in the package.
The Board team presented a package comprising Articles 1 (Purpose & Objectives) and 29 (Appeals of Recommendations by STP Committees). It includes a proposal to move a clause on grievance-related stays from Article 1, where it has been located since 1989, to Article 9. After some discussion, the Board team expressed a desire for the ULFA team to accept this package immediately. When this suggestion was not adopted, the ULFA team was surprised to hear the Board team direct frustration towards the ULFA team on the slow pace of bargaining over the past year. The teams exchanged availability for the April to August 2025 period and agreed to continue to look for suitable dates. So far, bargaining has been tentatively scheduled for parts of April 24, May 5 and 26, and June 24 and 25, 2025. A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.
