ULFA Update on Collective Bargaining January 20 & 22, 2025

The Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their eighteenth and nineteenth bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA) on January 20 and 22, 2025. Two ULFA members attended as observers, one on each of the two days. Teaching obligations required two ULFA negotiating team members to be absent for a portion of both sessions.

The January 20th session began with the ULFA team’s presentation of a package comprising proposals for Articles 4 (Applications & Exclusions), 10 (Appointments), 18 (Intellectual Property), 20 (Termination of Appointment) and 38 (Sessional Lecturers). Proposals consisting of this five-article package have now been exchanged five times since October 31, 2024. Discussion followed on an aspect of ULFA’s Article 38 proposal and on differing perspectives the parties have presented to date in their respective Article 4 proposals on the kinds of activities that should be available to ULFA members who serve as members of the university’s Board of Governors.

In the latter half of the January 20th session, the parties discussed the status of outstanding items in ULFA’s disclosure requests of July and October 2024. These requests seek data to help the ULFA team build an accurate understanding of our institutional context and evaluate and prepare informed ASCA proposals and responses. The parties also further discussed their views on the proper scope of activities of ULFA members who serve on the Board of Governors. 

The January 22nd session began with a follow-up discussion on some items discussed on January 20. The rest of the session was primarily focused on a discussion requested by the Board team on several aspects of its proposals for Article 23 (Evaluation Procedures, which they propose to retitle as Performance Evaluation) and Article 24 (Increments for Members, which they propose to retitle as Merit Awards). The discussion topics included the policy objectives of career progress and merit, the pros and cons of a peer review process to evaluate merit, the granularity of the performance evaluation scale to distribute merit awards, the idea of defining a standard merit unit amount for use across all faculties/schools, and workload issues involving performance evaluation processes.

The Board team verbally presented a final response on a ‘without prejudice basis’ to the ULFA team’s January 20th five-article package. Their response consisted of acceptance of the ULFA team’s January 20th package except for Article 4, for which the Board’s response is their November 1, 2024 proposal. The parties agreed that, per the ULFA team’s proposal package of January 20, 2025, Article 10 will remain open to allow for incorporation of recommendations from the Schedule V (Consecutive Term Appointments) joint working group.

The next bargaining dates are scheduled for January 29 and 31, March 19 and 21, and April 2 and 4, 2025. The Board team indicated they will not have new proposals ready for the January dates. The ULFA team indicated they will review their progress on proposals being drafted and advise the Board team before the next session.A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.