On September 9 and 10, 2024, the Board and ULFA negotiating teams held their eighth and ninth bargaining sessions toward a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA). For the September 9 session, one ULFA member joined as an observer, and the ULFA Labour Relations Officer attended as a resource person. Teaching obligations required two ULFA team members to be absent for portions of the two sessions.
Most of the September 9 discussions addressed questions from the Board team on aspects of the ULFA team’s proposals and responses. Topics included
- in Article 2, the definitions of “medical certificate” and “procedural fairness” (the Board team proposes to delete “procedural fairness”),
- in Article 5, the scope of the proposed ‘no contracting out’ clause,
- in Article 10, reasons for referencing in letters of offer the ASCA article under which term and sessional lecturer appointments are made,
- in Article 13, language describing teaching effectiveness and service as an equity issue,
- in Article 18, the categories of academic staff that may be “explicitly instructed to create work as part of the Member’s assigned duties,”
- in Article 20, circumstances in which term appointments can be modified by ASCA provisions beyond the term specified in an appointment letter,
- in Article 21, why reassignment of duties to another Department merits the agreement of the Member, and the meaning of “unusually high mentorship . . . duties,”
- in Article 25, administrative positions that should not be eligible to chair an STP Committee,
- in Article 32, the reference to human rights legislation in the proposal to jointly and regularly review the ASCA’s provisions for leaves of absence in light of best EDI practices, and whether 32.02.3 is needed in light of the provisions of Article 12.02 (Accommodation), and
- in Article 35, the proposed requirement for Faculty Members to demonstrate meaningful service contributions as part of tenure and promotion applications,
- in Article 37, the proposed requirement to appoint Instructors holding a PhD in the subject of interest to the rank of Instructor III,
- in Article 38, the proposed inclusion of a right of first refusal provisions for term appointments in this article, which addresses Sessional Lecturers.
The Board team asked for thoughts on their July 24 and 25 proposals for Articles 9, 19, 23, and 24. The ULFA team responded by welcoming any additional information the Board team would like to share and indicating work is underway to review these proposals and gather input from the ULFA membership. On the Board’s Article 24 (merit awards) proposal, the ULFA team asked if the Board anticipates time savings or workload implications and whether it will contribute to the Merit Pool on behalf of Members at their salary cap, as not doing so would raise fairness issues. Noting the Board’s tabled proposals for these four articles lack conventional mark-up, the ULFA team asked for versions that clearly indicate existing ASCA language the Board team proposes to retain or delete and new language they propose to add. The Board team indicated they would consider this request.
At the September 10 session, the Board team presented five proposals addressing:
- STP Committee Procedures (Article 26): the proposal accepts all of ULFA’s proposed housekeeping/clarity modifications in 26.03.1.
- Promotion of Members (Article 28): the proposal accepts ULFA’s housekeeping proposal to delete duplicate language in 28.02.3 and notes “Remaining clauses in Article 28 are unchanged, with proposals related to Teaching Professoriate reserved for further discussion.”
- Appeals of STP and Appeal Committees (Article 29): a counterproposal to ULFA’s proposal to leave unedited the reference to Article 11.02.6 in 29.01.3.
- Communication and Information (Article 6): the proposal accepts all of ULFA’s proposed housekeeping/clarification modifications in 6.01.2, 6.01.3, and 6.06.2.
- Personnel Committees (Article 25): the proposal expands the authority of a search committee for a senior academic administrator to include making recommendations on the award of tenure and the rank of an appointee; makes counterproposals to aspects of ULFA’s July 24 proposed changes; and notes that the Board team “Reserve[s] for further discussion on Teaching Professoriate” other changes proposed by the ULFA team for the establishment a new academic staff category of Teaching Professor.
The ULFA team presented a proposal to formalize the Board’s acceptance, via its August 23, 2024 memo, of ULFA’s proposed housekeeping/clarity changes in Article 36 (Professional Librarians). The parties spent most of the September 10 session reviewing the ULFA team’s July 31, 2024 letter requesting disclosure of information for bargaining purposes and the Board team’s August 6, 2024 letter providing a preliminary response.
A Collective Bargaining Town Hall on Zoom is scheduled for September 19 (noon-1:30 p.m.) and September 20 (1:00-2:30 p.m.) to discuss the bargaining progress to date and receive feedback from the ULFA membership. The next bargaining sessions are scheduled for October 17 and 18, 2024. Of the items the Board and ULFA opened for bargaining, Schedule A remains the sole item to be tabled.
A summary of the progress of articles opened in this round of bargaining is available here.
