Students from the 2016 Walk with Excellence sit facing a stage during the celebration and wearing white t-shirts with the "Walk with Excellence" logo on the back.

This year, the Walk with Excellence is on Monday, May 14. Due to the strike, instead of taking the community to York, the Walk will be bringing York to the community. The Walk will start at Westview Collegiate and students will walk to the Jamaican Canadian Association (JCA), 995 Arrow Road.

There are two options for participation:

1. Meet the Walk as it arrives at JCA (995 Arrow Road) at approximately 11:00 a.m.
2. Join the Walk at Westview Collegiate (755 Oakdale Road) at approximately 10:30 a.m.

These times may vary; organizers will confirm by the end of the week.

The organizers are hoping Faculty will wear their robes! This is such an exciting opportunity to celebrate Jane-Finch students in their success!

For more information about the Walk, check out the 2016 walk.

The JCA is an institution that comes out of greatness. Its founders are Orders of Canada and have changed the course of history several times in their lives. The current leadership is young and dynamic. This year, we will be relying on some of these amazing community assets as we celebrate and encourage these students.

Please let me know if you and some of your staff and student leaders will be willing to come out for this. I know it will be a bigger time commitment, but especially important this year.

Please share with YUFA colleagues!

Regards,
Natalie Coulter
Co-Chair, Community Projects

YUFA conducted an electronic ballot from May 1 to 8, 2018 on the 2018-19 YUFA budget and on the continuation of the levy to fund the Faculty/Graduate Student Café & Pub (et al.).

The vote was conducted in accordance with Article 3.5 of the YUFA Constitution, which states:

“The annual budget and fee structure shall be prepared by the Executive Committee and presented to the general membership at the Annual Meeting. Assent shall be given by a simple majority decision of those members voting electronically subsequent to the meeting. Accommodations will be made for those who do not have access to the Internet and who request such accommodation. No proxy voting is permitted.”

The proposed budget was presented to the general membership at the Annual Meeting held on April 17, 2018.

The results of the vote are as follows:

Do you approve the proposed 2018-2019 budget?

Yes: 445 (69.9%) CARRIED
No: 192 (30.1%)
Abstain: 99 *
Total voters: 736
Total eligible voters: 1,512
Turnout: 48.7%

Do you approve a $2 per month levy for the fiscal year beginning May 1, 2018 to support et al. (the new faculty/grad café) with the understanding that 7 percent of the funds generated will go to support the costs of the Senior Common Room in Glendon?

Yes: 447 (64.3%) CARRIED
No: 248 (35.7%)
Abstain: 41 *
Total voters: 736
Total eligible voters: 1,512
Turnout: 48.7%

To review the approved 2018-19 YUFA budget, please click here.

For more information, please email [email protected].

* According to Bourinot’s Rules of Order, an abstention is “the refusal to vote either for or against a motion.” Abstentions are not counted as votes and therefore are not included in the total percentage of ballots cast.

OCUFA strongly condemns government attempt at tabling back-to-work legislation

TORONTO – The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) strongly condemns the government’s tabling of back-to-work legislation aimed at striking academic workers represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 (CUPE 3903) and defends the rights of academic workers to a fair negotiation process. This legislation breaches the constitutionally protected right of CUPE 3903 members to freely negotiate their agreement and undermines the collective bargaining process. More generally, such legislation subverts the bargaining process by signalling to employers that they can avoid meaningful engagement in collective bargaining by stonewalling and waiting for government intervention.

OCUFA welcomes William Kaplan’s recommendation for the creation of a government task force on precarity in postsecondary education employment, as outlined in the Industrial Inquiry report commissioned by the Ontario government. The increasing number of precarious positions on our university and college campuses is a critical concern that needs to be addressed. However, it is important to note that growing precarity in our educational system will not be resolved by undermining the collective bargaining process.

Strikes and bargaining difficulties in the sector are products of underfunding and problematic hiring practices in the postsecondary system. Contrary to Mr. Kaplan’s suggestion, an investigation into alternative “methods of dispute resolution” simply ignores the underlying issues and is a solution in search of a problem. In fact, almost all negotiations in the postsecondary sector are concluded successfully, without a need for job action. In the rare instances job actions have taken place, they have been short. An inquiry or a commission with a mandate to explore alternative means of dispute resolution fully misses the mark. What we need instead is a thorough review of the impact that systematic underfunding has had upon our postsecondary system, and the role that the Ontario government and postsecondary employers have played in creating and reinforcing precarity

Founded in 1964, OCUFA represents 17,000 faculty and academic librarians in 28 faculty associations across Ontario. For more information and to download the poll results, please visit the OCUFA website.

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For more information, contact:

OCUFA:

• Ben Lewis, Communications Lead, at 647-894-8938 or [email protected]
• Mark Rosenfeld, Executive Director, at 416-306-6030 or [email protected]

YUFA:

• Richard Wellen, YUFA President, at 647-637-3475 or [email protected]
• Jody Berland, YUFA Communications Officer, at 416-735-7571 or [email protected]

A photo of raised hands

Dear members,

Nominations are now being accepted for the positions listed above for the term 1 June 2018 to 31 May 2019.

The Stewards’ Council Representatives (2) to Executive Committee are elected by Council (Article 5.2 of the YUFA Constitution). The members of Stewards’ Council are: members of the Executive Committee, all elected Stewards, and one representative from each Recognised Caucus (Article 4.2). The Stewards' Council Representatives to Executive Committee serve as co-Chairs of Stewards' Council meetings (alternating every other meeting). Stewards' Council Representatives to Executive receive a 0.5 FCE release and serve for a one-year term.

Candidates for election as Stewards’ Council Representatives to the Executive Committee should submit written statements of their interest in serving. Elections will be conducted by electronic ballot. Where only two or fewer candidates are nominated, a ratification ballot will be conducted.

Stewards’ Council members who wish to nominate Stewards or who are themselves willing to serve should indicate their interest in writing to the Acting Returning Officer by email at [email protected].

Nominations will be accepted until 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 22, 2018.

Best,
Maura Matesic
Vice-President Internal and Acting Returning Officer

The voting period for approving the 2018-19 YUFA Budget and the continuation of the Faculty/Grad Club Levy ends at 12:00 pm on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. 

All YUFA members who are eligible to vote will receive an email invitation to vote. You may vote by clicking on the link in the email invitation.

If you do not receive an invitation to vote, please contact YUFA right away: email [email protected].

This electronic vote is being conducted in accordance with Article 3.5 of the YUFA Constitution, which states:

“The annual budget and fee structure shall be prepared by the Executive Committee and presented to the general membership at the Annual Meeting. Assent shall be given by a simple majority decision of those members voting electronically subsequent to the meeting. Accommodations will be made for those who do not have access to the Internet and who request such accommodation. No proxy voting is permitted.”

The proposed budget was presented to the general membership at the Annual General Meeting on April 17, 2018.

YUFA is seeking nominations for the following committees (see below). Terms of service are two years unless otherwise indicated. Committee service carrying a course release is also indicated.

If you are interested, kindly submit a written statement outlining your interest and any relevant experience to YUFA ([email protected]) no later than Tuesday, May 22, 2018.

Serving on a YUFA committee counts as service.

-- 

Call for Nominations: Joint Employer – YUFA Committees and YUFA Committees

Below are the names and descriptions of the various joint and YUFA committees which will have vacancies beginning June 1, 2018. For each committee, the number of vacancies is indicated along with any course release associated with service. Unless otherwise indicated, all terms of service begin June 1, 2018 and end May 31, 2020. Appointments to committees are approved by the Executive Committee and ratified by Stewards’ Council.

If you wish to be considered for any of the positions available, kindly submit a written statement describing your reasons for wanting to serve, any relevant experience and any education or training. The deadline to submit your written statement is May 22, 2018. Statements should be submitted to [email protected] (subject line: Committees).

Health & Safety Committee (1 vacancy)

The YUFA Caucus of the Joint Committee on the Administration of the Agreement (JCOAA), per Article 7.03 (d), is seeking 1 volunteer to be appointed as a Committee Member to the Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC).

Applicants should have an interest in Occupational Health & Safety. One member of the committee must be formally certified to perform workplace inspections and accident investigations. Meetings are set by the Committee. The JHSC protocol can be found here.

Joint Financial Information Subcommittee (3 vacancies)

The Joint Committee shall establish a Financial Information Subcommittee to serve as the channel for the passing of data and analyses of the financial operations of the University between the parties. The Subcommittee shall meet at least once every six (6) weeks during the Autumn/Winter session and shall submit a summary report of its activities to the JCOAA once annually, between 1 February and 31 March. The Association shall receive all financial information given to Senate APPC and its subcommittees.

There are three vacancies for at-large members.

Joint Implementation Committee on Affirmative Action (2 vacancies)

YUFA is seeking three members for the Joint Implementation Committee on Affirmative Action for Faculty, Librarians and Archivists (Article 12.22).

The mandate of this subcommittee is to ensure that units conform to the Article 12.21 criteria for selecting candidates and to ensure that units actively seek out and give fair consideration in their selection processes to candidates designated in the affirmative action provisions of the Collective Agreement. The subcommittee approves academic unit affirmative action plans in order to ensure that policies already established are implemented. Any substantive revision to a unit’s plan must be submitted to the Joint Committee on Affirmative Action for approval.

The meeting schedule is determined by the Joint Subcommittee. For this academic year, members are asked to keep Wednesdays 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. available in case meetings are needed. Most meetings occur during the hiring period, between January and the early summer.

Equity Subcommittee (2 vacancies)

YUFA By-law 3 establishes the Equity Subcommittee to assist the Equity Officers to facilitate, advance, and advocate for the reduction and removal of inequities at York University, with regard to issues such as hiring, tenure and promotion, salaries, and retirement.

These include inequities on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, age, ethnicity, religion, political belief, language, culture, ancestry, place of origin (birth place), colour, citizenship, creed, sex, pregnancy, sexual preference, marital status, family status, number of dependents, or belief or membership in associations, and other forms of discrimination.

Dispute Resolution Committee (1 vacancy – 0.5 FCE course reduction)

YUFA is seeking applications from members who wish to be considered for the position of YUFA Side-person (1 position) as described in Article 9 of the Collective Agreement.

DRC Side-person: Applicants should have familiarity with the Collective Agreement in general and the grievance process in particular, as outlined in Article 9. Only members who agree to set aside a scheduled three-hour block of time twice a month shall be appointed to the DRC. Each appointee receives a 0.5 FCE course release during the term of appointment. Service to YUFA by its members is included within the definition of “service to the University” for purposes of assessing workload and evaluating performance. Up to two (2) members shall be appointed by YUFA Executive, ratified by Stewards’ Council, for a one-year term beginning June 1, 2018 and ending May 31, 2019.

An image of the name and logo of "et al."--the new faculty/grad student café and pub

This is to inform YUFA members that et al. (the Faculty/Grad Student Café & Pub) will hold its first Annual General Meeting (AGM) as follows:

et al. Annual General Meeting
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
UNIFOR Local 112
30 Tangiers Road

Map

* The UNIFOR Hall is an accessible venue.

All et al. members are invited to attend. If you are not yet a member, but wish to be, please sign up here.

Elections for new board members will be held at the AGM. Any member can run for a position on the board. If you are considering running for the board, but would like more information, please e-mail Jacob McLean: [email protected].

The agenda of the AGM is below:

Agenda: 

1. Welcome
2. Approval of the Agenda
3. Presentation of Annual Report (Chair)
4. Adoption of Annual Report
5. Presentation of Accounts (Treasurer)
6. Adoption of Accounts
7. Election of Board Members
8. Other Business
9. Closing remarks
10. Adjournment

The following letter was issued by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to York University President Rhonda Lenton and Board of Governors Chair Rick Waugh, following its national council meeting of on April 28 and 29, 2018. The letter expresses CAUT's alarm at recent actions by York's Board of Governors that undermine the authority of Senate to make decisions on academic matters and to set academic policy. The letter also refers to a unanimous resolution passed by delegates at the meeting to condemn the Board's actions.

To download a PDF of the letter, please click here.

Dear members,

YUFA was first alerted, in January 2012, to extensive, long-standing problems in the administration of the York Pension Plan. These problems involve the use by Pension & Benefits of procedures explicitly violating the terms of the York Pension Plan document (YPPD) and led to improper reductions in the pension account balances of affected active members and the pensions paid to affected retirees. The University's lawyers confirmed the YPPD-violating nature of the procedures in question in February 2012. Since that time, YUFA has been attempting to get the Employer to act to correct past pension account and pension errors, and stop the continued use of these YPPD-violating procedures.

Owing to a lack of any substantive progress, YUFA has been forced to file a policy grievance over these matters.

This communication is a follow-up to an earlier announcement about these same issues. Its goal is to alert members who may have missed the first announcement about the existence of these problems. Links are also provided to online resources aimed at helping members understand whether their pension accounts or pensions are likely to be among those affected. Notifying YUFA if it appears you have been affected will help YUFA to push the policy grievance forward, and (eventually) to get past errors corrected.

The errors in question result from the use of YPPD-violating procedures for determining pensionable income (relevant to determining minimum guaranteed pension entitlements) and employee and/or employer contributions to the pension accounts of members in specific sabbatical or irrevocable reduced load (IRL) situations.

"One member who retired in 2009 is currently receiving a pension $842 per year lower than it should be and is owed more than $6,100 in back pension."

The impact of these errors can be quite large. One member who retired in 2009, for example, is currently receiving a pension $842 per year lower than it should be and is owed more than $6,100 in back pension. A number of other examples are already known of current retirees owed more than $1,000 in back pension. The impact can also be smaller, and not all members are affected. It is, however, likely that well in excess of 500 members will have had their accounts and/or pensions negatively affected (see below for more on this point).

A brief outline of all problems we are currently aware of follows. Links providing access to form-fillable PDF worksheets designed to help you determine which (if any) of these errors is likely to have affected your pension account may be found below.

The problems go back to at least 2000 and affect the pension accounts of members who received retroactive payments and/or merit award payments in certain irrevocable reduced load (IRL) or reduced-pay, "topped-up sabbatical" situations. (A "topped-up sabbatical" is one during which the member opted to top up employee and employer pension contributions to 100%.) Your pension account balance will definitely be lower than it should be, and your minimum guaranteed pension entitlement may also be lower than it should be, if any of the following applies to you:

• (a) you received a merit award payment while on any reduced-pay, topped-up sabbatical (this problem ended with the termination of the merit award program, with the last of these errors thus occurring in December 2012);
• (b) you received a retroactive payment of any kind (due to an anomaly adjustment, a marketability adjustment, or the late signing of a new collective agreement) while on any reduced-pay, topped-up sabbatical, through to at least the end of 2015;
• (c) you received a retroactive payment of any kind in the year immediately following any reduced-pay, topped-up sabbatical (this problem continued through at least 2016);
• (d) you received a retroactive payment of any kind while on IRL through at least the end of 2015 (this error also occurred in all of the relatively small number of 2016 and 2017 examples of this type we are aware of, and thus is likely still ongoing).

Further details, including some historical information, and additional numerical examples of how large the impact on members' pensions can be, can be found at this link.

To find out if your pension has been negatively affected by these errors, please visit this webpage. It contains links to worksheets covering all of the situations noted above. Simply provide the required information in the worksheets.

No calculations are required to fill out these worksheets -- the information you provide will be enough for us to determine whether or not your account was among those affected. If it was, filling out and returning the appropriate worksheets will help us ensure that past errors in your pension account and/or current pension will be properly identified and (eventually) corrected.

It is worth bearing in mind, in this regard, that, from the cases of a number of recent retirees who responded to the first version of this mailing, we know that, as recently as July 2017, members were still entering retirement on pensions improperly reduced as a result of uncorrected versions of these past errors.

"It is likely that well in excess of 500 YUFA members will have had their accounts and/or pensions negatively affected by these unreported errors."

It is also worth emphasizing the scale of the problem. From a list of members on reduced-pay, topped-up sabbaticals in the period 2000-2007, for example, we have been able to identify 325 members whose accounts were, with certainty, in this period, negatively impacted by errors of type (a), (b) and/or (c) above. Based on the numbers of members known to have been on reduced-pay, topped-up sabbaticals in each of the years in the period 2008-2015, we also know that an additional 301 errors of type (b) and/or (c) will have been made in this later period, and, based on the number of merit award recipients affected each year in the period 2000-2007, we expect a further roughly 60 errors of type (a) to have been made in the period 2008-2012. Finally, a further roughly 130 unusually large errors of type (b) are expected to have affected those on reduced-pay, topped-up sabbaticals in 1998-1999 or 1999-2000 (these errors result from the improper treatment of the often very large salary adjustment fund retroactive payments and late 1999-2001 Collective Agreement retroactive payments received by members in 1999 and/or early 2000).

Please forward this email to any currently retired former colleagues who may not otherwise have access to it.

For more information, please email [email protected] (subject line: pension errors).

The following motion was submitted by York University Senators Richard Welland, Ricardo Grinspun, and Mina Rajabi Paak to the Senate Executive Committee in advance of the Senate meeting on Thursday, April 26 (see here for agenda). Following a period of discussion, the motion passed with near unanimous support from Senators.

MOTION

(submitted by Richard Wellen, Ricardo Grinspun, and Mina Rajabi Paak)

Senate instructs Senate Executive that any actions or decisions attempting to clarify the authority and role of Senate, including the formation of any committees, working groups or investigation bodies, will be acted with, and only with, the formal approval of Senate.

RATIONALE

In his April 2 letter, the Chair of the Board of Governors calls for the formation of a joint committee appointed by and composed of the Executive of the Board and of the Senate to clarify "the respective roles of the Board and Senate." Anticipating that Senate Executive may develop a process to clarify some of these matters, it is important to assert the need to bring any such plans and decisions as a recommendation for formal approval of Senate.

Senate Rules and Procedures stipulate (Section D, page 33) that:

The Executive Committee shall be responsible for monitoring and making recommendations to Senate on all matters pertaining to: the organization of Senate and its committees, the organization and function of academic governance in the University Senate's relation both with other bodies in the University and with bodies external to it. The Executive Committee may make recommendations on behalf of Senate, and subject to Senate approval, to the Administration and the Board on matters related to the organization and structure of the University.

Although this is a broad mandate, it is circumscribed to "monitoring and making recommendations to Senate". Senate Executive does not have independent decision-making on matters of "the organization and function of academic governance in the University, Senate's relation both with other bodies in the University and with bodies external to it"; rather, it "may make recommendations on behalf of Senate, and subject to Senate approval" on the matters at hand.

The intent of the motion, therefore, is to instruct Senate Executive that, in regards to establishing a process for reviewing these governance matters, forming a body to conduct such a review, as well as deriving conclusions and decisions, Senate Executive, shall, as per Senate procedures, bring any recommendations to Senate for approval.