YUFA
Collective Bargaining
Members respond to the questionnaire
Results of the 2001 bargaining questionnaire
By Brett Cemer (staff)
In an unprecedented outpouring of opinion, more than 430 YUFA members took the time to fill out and return YUFA’s 2001 bargaining questionnaire. (In 1999, just 275 members responded.) The survey results were used by the Contract Review Committee as it developed bargaining proposals for this spring’s negotiations.
YUFA members gave their views about bargaining priorities in the areas of salary improvements, health & safety concerns, excessive workload, equity issues, and benefits plans. The distribution of respondents by home Faculty, age category, and sex, closely matched that of YUFA as a whole.
Priorities
There is a strong consensus among YUFA members that the top three bargaining priorities for the upcoming negotiations should be (in alphabetical order): benefits, salary, and workload. On scale where 1 is ‘not at all important’ and 5 is ‘extremely important’, the percentage of ‘4’ and ‘5’ answers for these three areas were, respectively, 71%, 77%, and 62%.
How YUFA members rank these priorities varies to some extent with demographics: female respondents’ first priority is workload, while male respondents put salary issues first. Older members emphasize benefits more, while younger members are more interested in salaries.
Salaries
A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) was the most popular of six kinds of salary proposals presented in the questionnaire. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents supported this proposal. In next place, tied at 40% support, were an across-the-board increase of the same dollar amount for every member and development of a salary grid. These results mirror those of 1999.
Members also indicated what factors they felt should determine salaries at York. As we know, the most important determinant of YUFA salaries has been and remains management discretion. Yet, this factor received the least support of those listed, at a mere eight per cent.
Clearly it is time for a change. The factors YUFA members most believe should influence salaries are years of professional experience (74%), merit (67%), and rank (63%). Merit is markedly more popular with younger colleagues.
Many of the respondents remarked on the recent/ongoing merit exercise. For the most part, comments were split between those who objected to merit pay in principle and those who objected to the process that the employer had designed for allocating merit pay. A minority suggested that far more money should be spent on merit so that more members could receive merit-based raises.
Dismay about the low levels of administrative stipends was widespread. More than 95% of respondents believe that Chairs and Programme directors are under-compensated for their efforts by the existing levels of yearly stipends, which are $3408 for Chairs and $2272 for Programme Directors. Instead, the median rates that members would consider reasonable are $5000 and $4000 for Chairs and Programme Directors, respectively.
In all faculties except Science, a majority of respondents believed that the salaries of Alternate Stream faculty members (who are assigned high teaching and service loads but who are not required to do research) should be brought up to par with Professorial Stream faculty members. Overall, 63% of members ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ support this proposal (49% in Science).
Health & safety
Although YUFA members rated health & safety relatively low in the list of priorities, a disquieting 59% of survey respondents said they have concerns about air quality and temperature in their offices and classrooms. Women were particularly affected.
These concerns applied to every building in which a significant number of respondents work. Moreover, many respondents working in the Centre for Fine Arts, Lumbers, and the Petrie Building questioned whether hazardous materials were being handled safely in their buildings.
When asked about other health & safety issues that had arisen in focus groups YUFA conducted last summer, the top three issues were inadequate ergonomic office equipment (34%), stress (27%), and worries about safety in parking lots after dark (31%). The latter concern was especially prevalent among women (62%).
Workload
Many YUFA members feel that their workload has increased in the last five years (67% of those who have worked at York for at least five years). Professors’ teaching or librarians’ ‘professional performance’ are most often identified as the source of the heavier load (83% of those experiencing an increase), while increased service demands also affect many (64%).
The five top workload issues, from a list of several possibilities provided in the questionnaire, were:
- ‘Overall, email from students has significantly increased my teaching load’ (51%)
- ‘My class sizes are too large for optimal learning’ (43%)
- ‘Other aspects of workload are so heavy that few members in my unit want to do committee work or fill chair and programme director positions’ (43%)
- ‘It is very difficult to achieve a balance among teaching, research, and service’ (42% of faculty members)
- ‘I receive no teaching-load credit for graduate supervision’ (39%)
Members appointed to Atkinson, Environmental Studies, and Fine Arts tended to feel most burdened by several facets of overwork.
Librarians also share faculty members’ sense that it is difficult to balance ‘professional performance’, research, and service (64%). This is largely because, as all librarian respondents agreed, York’s libraries are understaffed.
Equity
Although equity was a comparatively low priority for survey respondents, certain equity-related proposals were endorsed strongly by YUFA members of all ages and faculties, and both sexes.
Specifically, a proposal to broaden eligibility for continuing reduced-load employment after age 65 in order to assist those with low pensions was supported by 81% of respondents (44% ‘very strongly’).
Nearly all felt that improved harassment investigation procedures were needed (92%: 49% ‘very important’).
Other equity-related concerns, ranging from disability issues to chilly climate and low pensions, were described by 52 respondents.
These comments, as well as responses to open items elsewhere on the questionnaire, are being studied by the Contract Review Committee.
Benefits
YUFA retirees’ numbers are growing apace—they will double in the next 10 years as more than 450 or an estimated 42% of continuing members retire. It is not surprising that substantial and permanent improvements to the flimsy benefits programme for retirees is one of the most important proposals for survey respondents, regardless of their age group. Overall, 96% feel this proposal is important (72% ‘very important’).
Improvements to benefits for ‘active’ members are less popular.
Although there are areas of the benefit package that could be improved, consensus is lacking about which ones should be addressed.
For example, the two specific proposals assessed in the questionnaire—eliminating deductibles and a parking/commuting benefit—garnered much less interest than the retiree benefits proposal.
Thank you for your contribution
The YUFA Executive wishes to thank everyone who took the time to aid the bargaining effort by responding. Your input has already been very informative for the Contract Review Committee, which is formulating proposals, and it will also be most useful to the Negotiating Committee when proposals are being put forth at the bargaining table.
Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank Kathy Bischoping and Jay Rahn for improving this report.