The YUFA Bargaining Team continues to meet with the Employer and since the last bargaining update, YUFA has secured additional bargaining dates with the Employer into the New Year. With the end of the Fall semester approaching, the YUFA Bargaining Team has asked the Employer to distribute the 2021 Progress-through-the-Ranks (PTR) increment to YUFA members by December 31st, 2021. We hope the Employer will agree to this gesture of good will, which would benefit all members in these challenging times. As the YUFA subcommittee on governance has underscored in its recent communication on Senate and the YUFA Senate Caucus initiative, YUFA members are more than ever raising serious concerns about collegial governance in our programs, departments, and faculties. Regrettably, these unilateral and top-down decisions from York University’s senior administration have become more prevalent, affecting unit rights and academic matters, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Defending and strengthening collective agreement provisions is a key priority for YUFA members in this round of bargaining to ensure fair, transparent, and accountable decision-making. For more information, please read YUFA’s bargaining backgrounder on collegial governance.

As YUFA’s mandate to address the erosion of collegiality deficit has never been stronger, the employer has unfortunately tabled some proposals that reflect a deepening of that deficit. For example, they have proposed to abolish the Dispute Resolution Committee, which includes both faculty and employer representatives and provides a collaborative, collegial means for dispute mediation. Without this mechanism in the collective agreement enabling the parties to explore creative resolutions, grievances would become more adversarial, lengthy, and costly when they are referred to labour arbitration.

The YUFA Bargaining Team, Executive and Staff remain steadfast in their commitment to defending and strengthening collegial governance structures and collective agreement rights that have served the interests of YUFA members, our students, and the integrity of York University’s academic mission.

To support YUFA’s collective power at the bargaining table, members are encouraged to:

● Reach out to the Bargaining Team or the YUFA Executive committee with their feedback, questions and/or concerns by email;
● Participate in discussions with YUFA colleagues at the next General Membership Meeting at 10:00am on Thursday, November 25th and Stewards’ Council Meeting at 10:30am on Friday, December 3rd (details to follow);
● Download YUFA’s “Bringing your Voice to the Bargaining Table” Zoom background to your device and follow these instructions to apply the Zoom background at upcoming YUFA and departmental meetings;
● Submit your stories describing the impacts of recent top-down decision-making by the senior administration on your working conditions and why YUFA’s proposals addressing equity, collegial governance, compensation and retirement security are important to our Stewards Council Representatives, Susan Ingram and Nancy Sangiuliano.