The Canadian Assn of University Teachers (CAUT) has awarded Richard Wellen its Dedicated Service Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the York University Faculty Association.  

Professor Wellen has made an outstanding contribution to collective bargaining both at York University and nationally. In addition to serving as YUFA Treasurer, President, Vice President Internal and other positions over the years, on the YUFA bargaining team and as Chief Negotiator, Dr. Wellen has led YUFA’s achievement of landmark settlements in areas related to equity in pay and hiring, improved job security for precarious faculty, and strong settlements in core areas of bargaining. He also serves on the Collective Bargaining Committee of the Ontario Confederation of University Teaching Associations (OCUFA), 2024-2026, and he was a member of the CAUT Council in 2014-2018. In his many years of service to YUFA, Richard has led the association’s bargaining, not only at the table but also in developing innovative and progressive bargaining agendas and successful mobilization efforts to complement them.

Dr. Wellen’s most notable achievements have involved bolstering sector-leading equity hiring provisions and Indigenization initiatives. In 2015 he worked with YUFA’s equity officers and its equity subcommittee in negotiating improvements to the so-called “tie-breaker” equity trigger in appointments by including not only women but also members of racialized groups in representation thresholds. In the same year Dr. Wellen helped to design a targeted group hiring program for Indigenous faculty which mandated a minimum of four searches focused on Indigenous candidates. In 2018 a similarly-structured targeted program was initiated for Black faculty. In 2021 Dr. Wellen played a role in negotiating a new pay equity program that remains in place to this day.

Dr. Wellen also led efforts to update York University’s tenure and promotion criteria to specifically recognize Indigenous knowledges. In the most recent round of bargaining between YUFA and our Employer, Professor Wellen was central to to developing a creative proposal to reserve a proportion of the available funds in the Education Leave Fund to pay for a Special Equity Support Initiative over the coming three years. Finally, in the same round Dr. Wellen and the negotiating team fought off the employer’s attempt to significantly reduce physiotherapy benefits to levels that would have been especially restrictive for members with disabilities.

Dr. Wellen’s contributions to collective bargaining long precede his current appointment in the YUFA bargaining unit. In 1994 he was appointed to chair the committee for implementing the national merger between the Canadian Union of Educational Workers (CUEW) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). This led to a period where he played a leadership role in bargaining for Teaching Assistants and contract faculty members of CUPE 3903 at York. In 1996 he became the lead negotiator for CUPE 3903 in a highly-fraught round of bargaining that took place during a period of austerity associated with Mike Harris’ Conservative government in Ontario. On the eve of the union’s strike deadline, his team won key gains in Teaching Assistant funding with an innovative tuition rebate provision, and further gains in the area of equity hiring. The latter program introduced a requirement that at least 50% of members receiving “conversion” appointments to full-time positions be members of equity groups (then defined as either women or people of colour). In 1999 Dr. Wellen’s team successfully negotiated a novel program which initially transferred six long-service contract faculty members per year into “special renewable contract” positions in the full-time bargaining unit (YUFA). In the same round, Dr. Wellen took the lead in negotiating the first program of fully-paid family benefits for contract faculty in the province.

In sum, Dr. Wellen’s collective bargaining work puts him at the leading edge in Ontario’s postsecondary sector. Other faculty associations have looked to YUFA’s pay and hiring equity and Indigenization language as a model for the sector, and Dr. Wellen has played a large role in that achievement. His work to negotiate improvements not only for full-time faculty but also for other employee groups makes his thirty-year record of bargaining accomplishments even more impressive.

Thank you so much for your many years of dedicated service, Richard!