Art Redding, president of YUFA, welcomes members back to campus for the Fall 2018 semester, and provides an important update on the current round of bargaining between YUFA and the Employer:

"[W]e’re disappointed to report that the Employer has so far been largely unresponsive to our proposals, and has rejected most of them," says Redding. "At this stage of bargaining, we need to let the Employer know that these proposals really matter to our members, and that bargaining is the best way to achieve them."

On September 17, YUFA will hold a General Membership Meeting to provide a bargaining update to members and to discuss possible next steps. The full details of the GMM are here.

"Please mark the date in your calendars, and make every effort to attend. Our ability to get a fair deal for our members depends on your involvement."

To view more videos, please visit the YUFA YouTube channel.

An image of the poster for the YUFA GMM on September 17

Save the date!

On September 17, YUFA will hold a General Membership Meeting (GMM) on the current round of bargaining to negotiate a new Collective Agreement. All YUFA members are encouraged to attend.

The GMM is your chance to get a full update about bargaining and to discuss next steps. For the latest bargaining updates, please click here.

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

Join and share on Facebook.

The GMM will be followed by lunch and a social.

The GMM is open to all YUFA members and is governed by the YUFA Constitution. A meeting package, including the agenda, is available here (PDF) and here (Word). We encourage members to download/print their own copies, as a limited number of copies will be available at the GMM.

Accommodation: Members who require accommodation should contact YUFA by 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 12: email [email protected] (please use subject line: Accommodations).

Members of the York Cross-Campus Alliance assemble at the 2017 Labour Day parade in Toronto (credit: James Clark)

The York Cross-Campus Alliance (CCA) invites all its member groups to march together as a contingent in this year's Labour Day parade. Each member group of the CCA may march as its own contingent within the bigger group. Please bring any banners, flags, and/or placards that represent your group.

Labour Day parade 2018
York Cross-Campus Alliance contingent

Monday, September 3
Assemble at 9:00 a.m.
March begins at 9:30 a.m.
Meeting point: Southeast corner of Dundas Street West and University Avenue
Nearest TTC: St. Patrick | Map

Please join and share on Facebook.

The Labour Day parade steps off at 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Queen Street West and University Avenue.

The York Cross-Campus Alliance represents the vast majority of the York community and includes the following groups:

• CUPE 1356
• CUPE 3903
• OPSEU 578
• York Federation of Students
• York University Faculty Association
• York University Graduate Students' Association
• York University Staff Association

For more information, please email [email protected].

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:

• Compensation backgrounder
• Pension FAQ
• Background to proposed pension plan changes
• Bargaining updates
• Summary of YUFA bargaining proposals (YUFA 1)
• Revised YUFA bargaining proposals (YUFA 2)

A photo from above of food and beverages on a light-blue coloured table, laid out for a summer picnic

You're invited!

Reception for new faculty
Tuesday, August 28
3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Doors open at 3:00 p.m.
et al. faculty / graduate student café & pub *
S166 Ross Building (map)

Join on Facebook.

The York University Faculty Association (YUFA) is pleased to invite all new full-time faculty to a reception, immediately following the Resource Fair at Welcome to York Day. New faculty members and their spouses or partners are welcome to attend.

The reception will feature a BBQ and a buffet of hot and cold foods, with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. An open bar will also be available.

* The reception will take place at et al., the faculty / graduate student café & pub. et al. is a sustainable, fair trade cooperative run by faculty and graduate students, for faculty and graduate students. You're welcome to stop by anytime throughout the year.

Members of the YUFA Executive Committee will attend the reception to welcome new members to YUFA and to provide a brief update about negotiations that are currently underway for a new Collective Agreement. Come by to socialize with your colleagues and learn more about your union.

Please RSVP by email to [email protected].

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday!

UPDATE: Due to water damage caused by renovations in the Ross Building this week, et al. will re-open on Monday, August 27. The previous announcement about et al.'s re-opening has been updated below: 

YUFA is pleased to announce that et al., the faculty/graduate student café & pub, will re-open for business on Monday, August 27.

et al. is located in S166 Ross Building. Its regular hours are:

Monday, Tuesday, Friday 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Wednesday, Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

For the week of August 27 to 31, its hours will be 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Regular hours will resume on September 4.

et al. serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner (see its menu here). Stop by for some delicious, organic, locally-sourced food.

Or just drop in for a drink. Enjoy a fair trade coffee or a local craft beer. et al. is fully licensed and serves a range of beverages.

et al. is also available to cater departmental meetings, events, and social gatherings, either in your academic unit or on site in the café & pub (see its catering menu here).

For more information, please visit the et al. website or email [email protected].

YUFA continues to receive queries related to remediation from members across the University. Ongoing member feedback has confirmed YUFA’s view that the Employer’s communications regarding remediation continue to be contradictory and/or confusing and/or unclear.

YUFA’s position is that the Collective Agreement provides members with the right to an adequate and reasonable level of support from the Employer. This includes the provision of an adequate level of teaching and/or marker/grader assistance for a reasonable number of hours. For example, if a YUFA member’s remediation plan for a course requires a certain level of marking for a given number of hours, the Employer must provide that support.

Furthermore, YUFA members cannot be required to take up work that was previously assigned to teaching assistants and/or marker/graders. YUFA has received queries from members who are experiencing pressure to take up such work. YUFA’s unequivocal response is that YUFA members are not required to take up the work of their teaching assistants and/or markers/graders and YUFA urges its members not to do such work.

YUFA has heard from members who are experiencing pushback and/or comments and/or concerns following the provision of their remediation plans to their Dean’s/Principal’s Office. Decanal feedback has included direction for YUFA members to modify their remediation plans and/or to reduce the number of hours of teaching assistance they have built into their plans and/or to request that remediation hours conform to the number of hours that the Dean’s/Principal’s Office has deemed “reasonable”. Any YUFA member experiencing these or related issues is urged to contact YUFA by email at [email protected].

YUFA remains very concerned about some communications that have been sent by Dean’s/Principal’s Offices regarding remediation plans. YUFA’s position is that members have the right to remediate their courses as they consider appropriate. YUFA notes and objects to the threatening tone of some recently disseminated emails.

Finally, YUFA is here reminding members that they have a right to YUFA representation at any meeting with their Dean/Principal.

YUFA urges any members with related questions or concerns to contact YUFA by email at [email protected].

YUFA is pleased to announce that et al., the faculty/graduate student café & pub, will re-open for business on Monday, August 20.

et al. is located in S166 Ross Building. Its new hours are:

Monday, Tuesday, Friday 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Wednesday, Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

et al. serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner (see its menu here). Stop by for some delicious, organic, locally-sourced food.

Or just drop in for a drink. Enjoy a fair trade coffee or a local craft beer. et al. is fully licensed and serves a range of beverages.

et al. is also available to cater departmental meetings, events, and social gatherings, either in your academic unit or on site in the café & pub (see its catering menu here).

For more information, please visit the et al. website or email [email protected].

The Bargaining Team met with the Employer on five dates in July. In the lingo of bargaining, the University is referred to as the "Employer," a term that describes the University's legal position in relation to YUFA members as employees. What follows is an update on some key developments in bargaining related to compensation and benefits issues. Updates on important items such as working conditions and governance will be covered in other backgrounders and updates in the works that we will be sending out in coming days.

Positives

We have signed off on housekeeping items and altered statutorily required dates for various kinds of leave such as pregnancy/parental and caregiver leave. We are working on revised language for Post-Doctoral Visitors, including academic freedom rights in the classroom and in relation to their own research as well as the Employer’s obligation to provide adequate facilities (e.g. computer access). The parties are working on YUFA's proposal for an inclusive equal pay exercise, but nothing has yet been signed.

YUFA has responded systematically to almost all the Employer's proposals. We are holding a consultation with members on the Employer's proposal on intellectual property and patents. Once we have finished our member consultation, we will be providing the Employer with a counter-proposal on intellectual property. In addition, YUFA is preparing a second set of proposals for the Employer, which will pare down our initial items and integrate the changes that have been agreed to so far.

Negatives

The Employer has said no or has not yet replied to the other YUFA proposals. The Employer refuses to deal with pensions and long-term disability (LTD) in bargaining. They have told us that these matters are more properly dealt with in other venues. Yet YUFA has attempted to resolve the issues in other venues, in some cases, for years, without resolution from the Employer side. If the Employer does not change its position on this, we will be blocked from even discussing pension and LTD improvements in bargaining. In addition, the Employer has also rejected our proposal for an increase in the amount of PTR.

More on pensions

• After retirement, our pensions have traditionally been indexed each year based on the five previous years' earnings of the Pension Plan fund. Since 2014, the Employer has imposed a significant reduction in the amount of earnings-based indexing we can receive in the first five years after one retires, making it very unlikely that our pensions can keep pace with inflation.
• The York Pension Plan has returned to surplus, but the Employer has thus far been unwilling to accept YUFA's proposals to restore a meaningful degree of indexing or inflation protection to our pensions. Pensions are an important component of our total compensation and retirement security, both of which have been diminished by an indexing formula that is weaker than that of other plans in our sector.
• A comparison with Ryerson vividly illustrates the impact of the lack of indexation on York pensions. Ryerson's plan provides for indexation of pensions to CPI increases of up to 8% (any excess is banked for use in future years), while the current York plan provides indexation linked to the plan's average earnings for the last five years above 6%.
• The analysis in the table below shows the effect over the last 20 years, using CPI data and York's pension plan earnings over that period, assuming a starting annual pension of $80,000.
• The $24,535 difference between the annual pensions of Ryerson and York is fully attributable to the differences in indexation.

More on Long-Term Disability

• Our long-term disability plan is funded entirely by us through payroll deductions. YUFA is seeking to index LTD benefits so that monthly payments for LTD claimants will rise with inflation over the years.
• Until this year, some of our older members who went on LTD years ago, were receiving as little as $2,000 per month in long-term disability because of the lack of indexation. YUFA's proposal seeks to ensure that this never happens again.

Expert advice

• YUFA's proposals on pensions and LTD are based on expert advice from lawyers and actuaries who have told us that there is no legal reason that these items cannot be dealt with in bargaining. These proposals are in the best interests of members and much of the cost is borne by us through payroll deduction. Other Ontario universities routinely negotiate pensions and LTD at the bargaining table. Yet the Employer refuses to take our proposals seriously and has stated that they are not appropriate topics for collective bargaining.

Progress-through-the-ranks (PTR) pay increment

• In eight of the last nine rounds of bargaining, the Employer has imposed a freeze on our members' annual PTR increments. The Employer is insisting on a further freeze over the duration of the next collective agreement. As a result, younger faculty at York could end up with a much flatter career salary trajectory than their counterparts at other universities where annual increases to the amount of the PTR increments are the norm.
• The comparison between Ryerson and York below demonstrates the impact of PTR freezes on our members, if one assumes an $85,000 starting salary and no annual cost-of-living increases.

More information

For more information, please click on the following links:

• Compensation backgrounder
• Pension FAQ
• Background to proposed pension plan changes
• Bargaining updates
• Summary of YUFA bargaining proposals

YUFA continues to receive numerous queries from members regarding remediation. YUFA members are seeking clarity and trying to make sense of the contradictory and/or confusing and/or unclear information about remediation that they are receiving.

YUFA's view is that, throughout the current strike, the Employer, York University senior administration, has failed to provide clear and timely communications to YUFA and its members. When the Employer has communicated, it has provided contradictory information to members, particularly regarding the timing of remediation, summer vacations, and sabbaticals. YUFA has heard from members that this lack of clarity and/or confusion has resulted in a variety of forms of harm, including members' choosing to postpone or even cancel previously planned research or conference travel, and also the disruption to, or revision of, sabbatical plans. YUFA has filed a policy grievance addressing these concerns on July 19, 2018. YUFA urges any members with related questions or concerns to email [email protected].

YUFA filed a second policy grievance on July 19, 2018 in response to the Employer's communication of June 2, 2018 ("Remediation FAQ for Full-Time Faculty"). The June 2, 2018 communication to faculty states that for faculty scheduled to take sabbatical, courses can proceed with instruction from other faculty: "The YUFA CA provides for collegial arrangements for covering short periods of instructor absence." In YUFA's view, the Collective Agreement does not contain any such provision. The teaching/professional and service responsibilities of a colleague shall only be taken up by another colleague, in YUFA’s view, in the event of short-term leave or pregnancy and parental leave, and not for the purposes of sabbatical. The Collective Agreement stipulates that any such coverage will be for a period of no longer than four weeks, but coverage for remediation following the CUPE 3903 strike will be longer than that. YUFA's understanding at this point, based on discussion with the Employer, is that colleagues cannot be compelled to cover for colleagues nor can they be compelled by the Employer to defer their sabbatical. YUFA urges any members with related questions or concerns to email [email protected].

Finally, based on feedback from members, YUFA is very concerned about the cancellation of courses during the current summer term. Members are being told by their respective Dean's office that they will "owe" any such cancelled course and, further, that they will need to teach the courses they "owe" in the Fall/Winter 2018/19 terms. YUFA does not accept that members shall owe courses as a result of strike-related cancellation, as occurred with the cancellation of summer term courses. YUFA is hearing from members that their Fall/Winter 2018/19 courses may also be cancelled and that they will "owe" those courses. YUFA urges any members with related questions or concerns to email [email protected].