YUFA
Communiqué
YUFA
Communiqué 2001
YUFA bargaining newsletter 22 May 2001
In
this issue ...
·
Priorities
clear from membership meeting
·
Exec
well-prepared for bargaining
·
Notes
·
Masthead
Meet Team YUFA
On the 2nd of May, the Executive Committee appointed
five accomplished members with complementary backgrounds to re-negotiate
your Collective Agreement.
YUFA’s 2001 Collective Bargaining Team are:
Mary-Louise Craven, Ellie Perkins, Brent Roe, Leslie Sanders, and Brenda
Spotton Visano. They will be assisted by Penni Stewart and Brett Cemer.
“This is a fabulous team,” said Penni Stewart,
YUFA Chairperson. “They bring just the right mix of expertise and
creativity to take our issues forward.”
Team members have strong track records in
negotiating agreements and contracts of various kinds. Brenda Spotton
Visano has negotiated a formal institutional relationship between the
Canadian Women Economists Network and the Canadian Economics Association,
as well as curricular articulations with CAAT while Associate Dean at
Atkinson College. Ellie Perkins has experience in community environmental
negotiations. Leslie Sanders has bargained twice for YUFA, several times
for CUEW Local 3 (now CUPE 3903) including three times as Chief
Negotiator, and for other unions as well.
Related to their diverse negotiating backgrounds is
team members’ work enforcing collective agreements, including grievance
and arbitration. Mary-Louise Craven and Ellie Perkins have experience with
YUFA’s Contract and Grievance Committee, while Leslie Sanders served for
several years as Chief Steward for CUEW Local 3, as well as on YUFA’s
JCOAA.
Most team members have recently been YUFA Officers
and Executive Representatives. Brent Roe has been Librarian Representative
and Recording Secretary, Brenda Spotton Visano is completing a term as
Atkinson Representative, Leslie Sanders is finishing her term as Vice
Chairperson Organization, and Ellie Perkins represented Environmental
Studies during the 1997 strike.
Finally, several team members have expertise
relevant to specific YUFA proposals in this round of bargaining. As a
veteran member of the Reference Department Co-ordinating Group, Brent Roe
is our expert on librarian workload issues. As a former Associate Dean,
Brenda Spotton Visano has been responsible for many aspects of university
financial management, including budgeting, managing enrollments and course
offerings, and costing distance education programs. Ellie Perkins was a
founding member of YUFA’s Equity Committee.
The team is enthusiastic and committed. Mary-Louise
Craven was interested in this appointment because “It’s pay-back time.
The union’s work on pay equity for women has been really great, and I
feel it is time for me to pay my dues.”
“It should be an interesting and rewarding
experience,” said Brent Roe, “The YUFA team are very good,
level-headed people who should be a pleasure to work with.”
Priorities
clear from membership meeting
At a general meeting held on the 25th of April,
members worked hard through the afternoon, reaching consensus on
the bargaining position YUFA would take into negotiations.
Negotiations began on the 17th of May.
“The explicit goal this year is to focus
bargaining on the three priorities identified by the membership: workload,
retiree benefits, and compensation,” said Penni Stewart, YUFA
Chairperson. “Within each of these areas we have attempted to address
equity principles.”
Compensation proposals generated the most debate.
The Contract Review Committee had devised modest proposals with raises to
address the increases in the cost of living in Toronto since the last
contract was negotiated (5.2% over two years).
However, members felt strongly that it would not be
enough simply to keep up with the cost of living. The proposals were
amended at the meeting to include an additional 4% raise in the first
year, in order to close the gap between York salaries and those at U of T,
Guelph, Queen’s, McMaster,
and Waterloo. Members endorsed the new salaryproposals unanimously.
Other major compensation proposals ratified
included:
- Increasing alternate stream salaries to 90% of
professorial salaries
- Raising stipends for Chairs, Programme Directors, and other YUFA academic administrators.
Workload proposals aimed at protecting members from
the incursion of the double cohort (which begins to arrive in 2003) also
received unanimous approval. Important elements include:
- Establishing maximum University-wide
faculty-student ratios & increased Librarian complement
- Greater flexibility & control of workload
for Librarians
- Regularising and reducing teaching loads
through increased credit for grad supervision, course co-ordination,
large classes
Proposals to guarantee retiree benefits also
received resounding support.
Other significant proposals ratified would:
- Create a health & safety committee
- Create a task force on inclusivity and
diversity
- Improve pensions for those with low projected
retirement incomes
- Establish fair harassment investigation
procedures
- Improve accommodation for members with
disabilities.
Exec
well-prepared for bargaining
The recent appointments by the Executive of YUFA’s
Collective Bargaining Team for 2001 is the latest in the Executive’s
preparations for an effective round of bargaining.
Since 24th January, the Executive has surveyed the
membership, given input on priorities and proposals to the Contract Review
process, organized area meetings, and discussed strategy.
More recently, the Executive has struck a bargaining
support committee and appointed the collective bargaining team (see
“Meet Team YUFA”).
The bargaining support committee’s mandate is to
include members in the bargaining process by fostering communication
between the membership and the bargaining team and by building
understanding of positions and processes. The committee is co-ordinated by
Kathy Bischoping, former YUFA chief negotiator and incoming Information
Officer.
The Executive’s responsibility for bargaining
flows from constitutional and by-law amendments approved by the membership
at the May 2000 AGM. These amendments re-united negotiating and leadership
functions in the Executive Committee.
Notes
Management’s team
John Brooks, Chief Negotiator
Phil Silver, Fine Arts Dean
Ellen Hoffman, University Librarian
John Amanatides, Pure & Applied Science Associate Dean
Barry Miller, Academic Staff Relations Director
Rob Lawson, Academic Staff Relations Officer
Mario Verrilli, Academic Staff Relations Support
Bargaining support network
Help YUFA at the bargaining table. Send names of
5-10 colleagues whom you could contact in the event of a bargaining
membership meeting this summer to Kathy Bischoping (kbischop@yorku.ca or
x55015).
Get the proposals
>From the YUFA Collective Bargaining Team web
page at —
— or come by the YUFA office (241 SSB).
Thank you, Contract Review Committee
Many thanks to these hard-working members who
developed the draft negotiating positions:
* Jay Rahn (Chair)
* James Check
* Mary Kandiuk
* Jody Warner
* Walter Whiteley
Masthead
Communiqué
YUFA bargaining newsletter
Editor: Kathy Bischoping
Production: CUPE 1281
Smail: 4700 Keele, 241SSB, M3J1P3
Email: yufa@yorku.ca
Telephone: 416 736 5236
Fax: 416 736 5850
Web: www.yufa.org