The Bargaining Team met with the Employer on three dates in August. In total, the YUFA Bargaining Team has met with the Employer sixteen times.
Agreement has been reached on the following:
- housekeeping matters
- revisions to Appendix Q on harassment, providing for streamlined procedures and reflecting new statutory requirements
The Employer's current monetary offer:
- across-the-board increase of 1.1%, 1.2%, and 1.3% in each year of the agreement; the Employer characterizes this as an “initial offer”; annual inflation rate as of July 2018 is 3%; see Statistics Canada numbers here
- progress-through-the-ranks (PTR): no increase
- professional expense reimbursement (PER): no increase
- benefit improvements (e.g. improved dental, vision, mental health provision): no increase; failure to keep up with inflation is reducing our coverage
- 100% sabbatical salary: no response
- 6-month 100% paid sabbatical after three years: no response
- conference funding: no response
- retiree benefits: no response
- pensions: no response
- LTD: no response
- Appendix P: no response
On non-monetary items:
- YUFA’s governance proposals: no response
- YUFA’s complement proposal: no response
Recent Employer proposals:
- making aggregate member data from C.V.s available “to track and analyze trends in applicable areas, e.g., research or teaching and learning” (quoting Employer proposal 8)
- requiring submission of digital C.V.
- reducing annual PTR for members who do not submit C.V. by the annual deadline; PTR would be prorated to the date at which the member submitted the C.V. and prorated to zero if the C.V. was not submitted in a contract year
- spousal hiring; anyone to whom an offer is made would have the chance to put forward their academic spouse for a five-year CLA with the consent of hiring unit in the spouse’s area of expertise
- intellectual property proposal (details provided in YUFA’s intellectual property survey at the end of July)
- an additional Associate Dean for Lassonde
Items under discussion:
- equal pay exercise
- Indigenous hiring
- pregnancy/caregiver/parental leaves
- academic freedom for Post-Doctoral Visitors
- Employer obligation to provide facilities such as workspace to Post-Doctoral Visitors
YUFA has submitted a second comprehensive proposal to the Employer (YUFA 2). Some proposals were dropped, and some others were scaled back. For example, YUFA moved from proposing that YUFA retirees receive the same benefits as active members to a position that would improve benefits for retirees without bringing them to the same level as active members. Despite this, the Employer has not yet given any reply to our proposal. The full text of YUFA 2, YUFA’s current proposals, is available here.
In sum, there has been little progress to date.
There are six scheduled bargaining dates in September. In addition, YUFA will hold a General Membership Meeting (GMM) to provide further updates to members and to discuss next steps. The details of the GMM are as follows:
General Membership Meeting on bargaining
Monday, September 17
10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Founders Assembly Hall
152 Founders College
The GMM will be followed by a BBQ and a social. A separate message announcing the GMM will follow this update.
We look forward to meeting with you at the GMM.
For more information, please see: