On October 31 and November 1, 2024, the Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their twelfth and thirteenth bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA). For the October 31 session, one ULFA member joined as an observer, and the ULFA Labour Relations Officer attended as a resource person for part of November 1. Teaching obligations required three ULFA team members to be absent for portions of the two sessions.
During the negotiation sessions the parties discussed coordination of schedules for upcoming meetings, the status of some opened articles (including confirmation of provisional agreement on Article 36), requested disclosure data (some of which the ULFA team has received, some of which remains pending), the Tri-Agency Research Integrity Policy (related to Board proposals on Article 11), and the status of Board responses to the ULFA team’s Teaching Professoriate proposal and request for marked-up versions of the Board’s Article 9, 19, 23, and 24 proposals. The Board team indicated they are still working on a Teaching Professoriate response, and hope to present it in the near future, possibly in November. They also provided marked-up versions of their previously presented proposals on Articles 9, 19, 23, and 24. During the data disclosure discussion, the Board team noted that they are applying a labour market argument rather than an ‘ability to pay’ argument in this round of bargaining.
The ULFA team presented proposal language for Articles 4, 10, 18, 20, and 38 on October 31. These articles touch on allowed activities of inactive ULFA members serving as faculty Board of Governors representatives, appointment of members (especially term and sessional lecturer appointments), right of first refusal for sessional lecturers, and intellectual property (specifically for sessional lecturers hired to create course work). These were presented as a package due to the interdependence of the proposed changes in Articles 10, 18, 20, and 38 relating primarily to sessional lecturers.
On November 1, the Board team presented responses to the ULFA team’s proposals for Articles 4, 10, 18, 20, and 38. Their response proposals built on constructive discussion during the ULFA team’s package presentation and generated more related discussion as the parties continue to make good progress towards agreement. The remaining differences to be resolved include aspects of accessing the right of first refusal and limitations on inactive members’ participation in Association activities under Article 4.02.2.
Scheduled negotiation dates remaining during this semester are November 26, December 3, 4, 12, 13, 19, and 20. Of the items the Board and ULFA opened for bargaining, Schedule A (Salaries) remains the sole item to be tabled.
A Collective Bargaining Town Hall is scheduled for Tuesday November 12, 2 pm and Wednesday November 20, 12 pm to discuss proposed amendments to the ASCA’s PAR (Professional Activities Report) and salary increment provisions. Both will be held on Zoom. Please come out and share your views and questions.
A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.
