On October 17 and 18, 2024, the Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their tenth and eleven bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA). On October 17, teaching obligations required two ULFA team members to be absent for portions of the session. On October 18, the ULFA team welcomed an additional ULFA Member as an observer.
The ULFA team presented proposal language for Articles 1, 3, 6, 8, 12, and 26. The Board team presented proposals for Articles 4, 8, 10, 12, 18, 20, 33, and 38. There was also some discussion on document markup conventions, the provincial context and monetary proposals, and scheduling of bargaining dates for the remainder of the Fall term.
The ULFA team’s proposals on Articles 6 and 26 finalized provisional agreements on these articles. The ULFA proposals on Articles 1, 3, 8, and 12 largely related to maintaining existing language proposed by the Board for deletion or amendment (e.g. 1.02.3, 3.03.3, 3.05.4-3.05.8, 8.06, 12.01.4.a.ii). The Article 12 proposal also suggested some provisions on Accommodation requests and training on Accommodations.
The Board team presented two take-it-or-leave-it proposal packages. The first contained Articles 8, 12, and 33 and the second contained Articles 4, 10, and 38. The Board team also presented individual proposals for Articles 18 and 20. Topics covered within these proposals include Term and Sessional Instructors and Right of First Refusal (ROFR) conditions, Accommodations, Member reduced load status, and ULFA Board of Governors representative participation in some union activities.
The next bargaining sessions are scheduled for October 31 and November 1, 2024. An additional four negotiation sessions are scheduled for December 12, 13, 19, 20; the planned sessions for November 7 and 8 were canceled by the Board team due to scheduling conflicts. Of the items the Board and ULFA opened for bargaining, Schedule A (Salaries) remains the sole item to be tabled.
A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.