The negotiating teams for the Board and ULFA met on July 24 and 25 for two full-day bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA). Four ULFA members attended some or all of the sessions as observers. These meetings represent the fourth and fifth joint meetings for this round of negotiations.
Bargaining began with the Board team reiterating its preference to exchange and discuss all non-monetary items before addressing Schedule A (Salary Schedules and Stipends), describing this approach as normal. The ULFA team reiterated that it disagrees with the approach and believes full package exchange to be the best way forward.
On July 24th the Board team tabled proposals addressing grievance and discipline (Articles 9 and 19, with follow-on proposed changes to Articles 1, 2, and 3). Proposed changes to Article 9 include reducing the time allowed between the initiating incident and the filing of a grievance, removing the process for addressing stays, and removing all references to procedural fairness. The Board team noted their Article 19 proposal is a full rewrite, their intent being to increase the expediency of the process while maintaining fairness.
The ULFA team tabled a proposal to introduce a Teaching Professoriate spanning Articles 2, 13, 21, 23, 24, 25, 28, 35, 37, Schedule D, and a new Schedule provisionally titled WW. This proposal is consistent with the principles and processes described in the jointly signed Working Group Report and mirrors the language in that report to a significant extent.
In this proposal:
- a Teaching Professor is a tenured Faculty member with rank equivalent to Professor;
- Members with the rank Instructor III who have lengthy and meritorious records of teaching effectiveness, and evidence of scholarly work involving educational leadership and/or the scholarship of teaching and learning may apply for promotion to Teaching Professor, normally after 10 years at the rank of Instructor III; and
- the initial round of appointments is limited to 5 promotions, and adjudication is a university-wide process, with the intent to shift to a more typical Faculty-based STP process once an initial cohort of Teaching Professors is established.
The ULFA team then presented additional proposals within the articles comprising the Teaching Professor proposal. These included:
- revisions to Articles 23, 24, and Schedule D intended to reduce time consumed by the PAR process by applying a 5 page limit to the PAR document (but not the CV) and changing the evaluation cycle from biennial to quadrennial.
- Other revisions in ULFA’s Articles 23, 24, and Schedule D proposals included introducing career progress for Instructors and Academic Assistants, introduce a promotion increment for all job categories, and recognizing the unique circumstances of Indigenous Members in terms of the evaluation criteria.
- definition of a number of relevant terms (Article 2),
- language intended to ensure that service work is appropriately valued (Article 13),
- recognition of a wider range of teaching activities (Article 21),
- establishment of a professional development leave for Instructors and Academic Assistants (Article 21),
- language specifying that STP committee chairs cannot be senior academic administrators (Article 25),
- language giving Members the option to stipulate that the Dean chairing an Appeals committee be different from the Dean who chaired the original committee (Article 25), and
- language specifying that an Instructor with a Doctoral degree be hired at a rank no lower than Instructor III (Article 37).
The last proposal to be tabled by the ULFA team on July 24th addressed Schedule B (Economic Benefits). They noted that the Board’s benefit contributions have not increased for over a decade (see figure 1 below). Based on the work of the Joint Benefits Committee launched in January 2023 and input gathered through ULFA’s fall 2023 membership survey on benefits, the proposal aims to bring Members closer to parity with benefits found at comparable institutions. The proposal seeks to increase the amount of Board-funded life insurance, improve vision, dental and paramedical coverage, increase the amount in the flexible spending account plan, provide out-of-province travel coverage for Members over age 65, harmonize professional supplement levels across job categories, return professional supplement funding to term appointees and provide a per-course professional supplement for Sessional Lecturers.
Figure 1. Historical Board monthly benefit contributions for the four member categories since the July 2002 Collective Agreement.
The Board team also tabled a proposal for Schedule B on July 24th. Their proposal suggests redeploying the $250 flexible spending account money to other benefits due to low usage and the disclosed fact that funds not spent remain with Alberta Blue Cross. As well, the Board proposal seeks to align tuition benefits for Members and dependents with other employee groups on campus and prorate the tuition benefit for part-time members.
On July 25th, the Board team presented their proposals on PAR, career progress and merit (Articles 23 and 24). These proposals separate the evaluation of career progress and merit, which would both occur biennially. The proposals would reallocate some of the funds currently allocated to merit for Instructors and Academic Assistants to career progress. Career progress would continue to be evaluated by Deans while merit would be awarded by one of two university-wide committees (one for professors and librarians; one for Instructors and Academic Assistants). Members would choose whether to apply for a Merit Award of fixed value ($3,000), and the relevant committee would select which Members qualify for Merit Awards based on the PAR materials submitted for career progress (PARs would have a 5 page limit) and a short letter from the Member. The maximum number of Merit Awards recommended by each committee would be determined by the funds in the relevant merit pool; unused funds would carry forward to future cycles. Merit Awards for Instructors or Academic Assistants at maximum salary and for professors or librarians at maximum academic career years would be paid as one-time bonuses rather than increases to their base salary; Merit Awards for other members would increase their base salary. The Board team described these proposals as cost-neutral.
The ULFA team concluded the July 25th session by presenting proposals for Articles 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 32, 33, 38 and Schedule Z. These proposals address a variety of themes including allowing term employees whose contract is not renewed to access rights of first refusal for courses taught during the appointment (Articles 10 and 38), giving Members the right to rule on recordings related to their teaching and research (Article 11), allowing the Member and Dean to agree on a fixed duration for reduced load status rather than requiring that load remain reduced until retirement (Article 33), and ensuring that Sessional Lecturers are not expected to pay for materials required to teach a course (Article 38). The ULFA team’s proposal is for a 3-year term for the new Collective Agreement (Schedule Z).
The next Bargaining session will be on August 6, 2024. The ULFA team requested exchange of Schedule A at that session, as it is the sole remaining item to be tabled of the items opened by the Board and ULFA. The Board proposal packages exchanged over July 24 and 25 can be found here. The ULFA proposal packages exchanged can be found here and here.
A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.
