The Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their twentieth and twenty-first bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA) on March 19 and 21, 2025. Three ULFA members attended parts of these sessions as observers, two on the 19th and one on the 21st. Teaching and other obligations required two ULFA negotiating team members to be absent for portions of the sessions. One Board team member missed the sessions due to illness.
The March 19th session began with the ULFA team’s presentation of a response proposal on the teaching professoriate, including Articles 02, 13, 21, 25, 28, 35, and 37 and Schedules D and WW. This proposal anticipates broad adoption of the teaching professoriate by ULFA members in the Instructor category and includes a transition plan (Schedule WW). In the discussion and questions that followed, one discussion point related to the ULethbridge salary floors compared to our historically agreed upon comparators for economic matters. The figure below illustrates the floor gaps that ULFA seeks to correct.
Figure 1. Salary floor data for ULethbridge and comparator institutions.
The ULFA team next discussed other proposed changes contained in the articles comprising its teaching professoriate proposal. This included a proposal for professional development leave for Instructors (and study leave for members belonging to the teaching professoriate), and a response to the Board team’s proposal to allow search committees to grant tenure for some searches. The ULFA team also presented response proposals on Grievance, Investigation, and Discipline (Articles 9, 11, and 19). Additional discussion on aspects of grievance and discipline with respect to the proposals and the current practice followed.
During the March 21st session, the Board team presented proposals on Articles 3, 16, and Schedule Z. The Article 3 (Amendments to the ASCA) proposal included revised language on a Member’s ability to cross picket lines and terminology of the end of the contract. The Article 16 (Holidays) proposal contained revised language relating to holidays, and the Schedule Z (Term of ASCA) proposal reiterated the Board’s desire for a four-year contract.
The ULFA negotiation team took note of further questions on its grievance and discipline proposals and presented response proposals for Articles 1 (Purpose & Objectives) and 29 (STP Appeals). The Article 1 proposal reaffirmed ULFA’s position on grievance-related stays within the collective agreement, and the Article 29 proposal responded to the Board’s proposal to modify an internal reference to another section of the ASCA. The ULFA team also provided an updated Article 19 proposal after identifying two instances of an incorrect reference in the version presented to the Board team on March 19th.
The parties agreed to exchange availability information within the following week for the period from April to August 2025. The next scheduled negotiation sessions are for April 2 and 4, 2025. A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.
