13 Nov 06 – On Friday 10 November, approximately 200 YUFA members met to conduct the business of the Association, including approving the budget, receiving Officers’ Workplans, appointing two Trustees to fulfill the constitutional requirement to do so, and, the major item of business for the day: hearing and discussing the report from the Bargaining Team.

YUFA’s Chief Negotiator Scott Forsyth, after introducing the Team, took members through a brief history of this year’s bargaining process, from the Contract Review Committee, Bargaining Priorities Subcommittee, and Membership Survey, all of which provided the groundwork for the 90 non-prioritized proposals prepared by YUFA Executive, amended by the Stewards’ Council, further amended and then approved by the membership, through the major points of Bargaining Update #8, which outlines where we currently stand in negotiations.

As he indicated to the Employer that he would do, Forsyth clarified to the membership that the Employer hasn’t already determined that salary would not be retroactive, as was implied in the flyers posted by the Bargaining Mobilization Committee.

Forsyth pointed out that while there has been movement, with the Employer cognizant of what concerns our members most (WORKLOAD), the two sides are still far apart on monetary issues and on how best to deal with workload. The Employer appears to want a slow and incremental pace, and this has not been helped by the logistics of meeting and teaching schedules which has led to a lengthy, drawn-out process. The Association has been slow to surrender major proposals without significant movement from the Employer on issues the Team knows are important to YUFA members; these include:

• Salary
• Article 14 on Retirement
• Workload
• Benefits and Funds
• Affirmative Action and SRCs

A particularly interesting part of the meeting was the single formal motion, proposed early in the discussion and deliberated for some time, and passed. This motion recommends that YUFA Executive apply for conciliation within two weeks if there is no movement on key issues, particularly WORKLOAD. What was interesting about the motion was that among the numerous speakers both for and against, just about everyone appeared to support the Bargaining Team. Those who wanted to pass the motion wanted to provide the Team with support for their position while facing the Employer across the table, to underline the Team’s efforts to tell the Employer that what matters most to our members now is the issue of WORKLOAD, and not just workload as potentially relieved by a half-course release for research. Our members see workload as defined by ever-increasing class sizes, by faculty facing 3.0 FCE course loads, by increasing numbers of graduate students in the push for greater graduate enrolment, by changes and increases coming with restructuring exercises. Those who spoke against the motion appeared to want to do so in order that the membership not be seen in any way to be suggesting a lack of confidence in the Team, expressing a desire that instead the Team should itself decide when to recommend to Executive to call for conciliation. There were a number of spontaneous rounds of applause for support for the Team during this discussion.

There were some areas of contention. Some members wanted to have more say in the prioritization of the proposals that would remain on the bargaining table. Some members were concerned with the protracted length of time that the process is taking, concerned about what will happen if we enter the Winter term still without a settlement. Some members expressed concern for issues which have taken or may have to take a secondary place at the bargaining table. Some members spoke eloquently about YUFA’s obligation to fight for Equity issues. Some members found it puzzling why the Employer appears to stand so resolutely against some of the Equity proposals, as well as the proposals on Privacy and Moral Rights, none of which would bear any monetary cost, and the Team found themselves unable to explain precisely what it was that the Employer objected to in most of those proposals. It was noted that both sides are approaching agreement on a way to bring together the Affirmative Action Officer with hiring committees. The Employer may be willing to extend retirement benefits to SRC faculty, but there is no agreement yet on the Team’s hoped-for extension to two more five-year terms for these faculty members. The Team finds frustration with the number of small but important issues which remain unresolved and that frustration was reflected among the membership as well. 

Forsyth did a particularly good job of explaining the new environment of voluntary retirement. There were very few questions on this subject, which has taken a huge amount of bargaining time as both sides have laboured to conceptualize and rewrite Article 14. The two parties have made some progress on finalizing language on this Article, but remain divided on the amounts available to encourage a phase out to retirement and for retirement incentives. The Employer also has not moved on the issue of the 2006 Cohort, those faculty forcibly retired on 01 July 2006.

Members expressed a desire that messages of support be sent to our brothers and sisters nearing a strike at both Carleton and Brock.

The last half hour of the meeting was devoted to the meeting of the YUFA Trust and YUFA Foundation.