Dear Fellow Faculty Members,
First and foremost, thank you all for the strong support you showed through the successful Strike Mandate Vote! The bargaining team very much appreciates it.
We have had two sessions since my in-person updates on January 16th, 22nd and 23rd. The sessions were on Monday January 28th and Wednesday January 30th. These sessions started off with a determined response from the Administration’s bargaining team, who seemed to have gotten the message that timely responses were a concern to our Members and came in with almost all of their outstanding proposals. Disappointingly, many were not that extensive, and in many cases, they simply re-tabled previous proposals with no changes. We are waiting to hear confirmation from them if this means we are at impasse on these issues.
One of main reasons to call for the Strike Mandate Vote was to press them to present their Monetary proposals. I am pleased to say that they have finally committed to a firm date to do so: Monday February 4th 2019. This is also our first day of conciliation.
I am also pleased to say that we did see more thoughtful and meaningful questions about some of our proposals, including Article 15 – Appointments, than we have heard before. A key part of our proposal is to bring us in line with other universities regarding hiring processes including elected hiring committees and administrative positions covered within the bargaining unit.
We had a good discussion on equity, and at a bare minimum, there appears to be agreement to continue with a Committee on Employment Equity to address employment equity for Faculty Members at UOIT. While we had a somewhat meaningful discussion on Intellectual Property rights, we haven’t seen much progress in terms of a commitment to respecting the intellectual property of Faculty Members as it pertains to their teaching materials. We remain hopeful that we can come to an agreement that fully respects the rights of our members.
We were able to sign four more proposals: Article 1 – Purpose, Article 2 – Definition of the Bargaining Unit, Article 18 – Official File, and Article 19 – Third Year Review.
They also verbally reaffirmed their position on Article XX – Termination of Employment, along with some other positions they have taken to which we cannot agree if we are to protect, expand, and enhance the rights of our members, and bring our agreement in line with those at other universities.
Our next bargaining date is Monday February 4th – we will meet with the provincially-appointed conciliator, and begin discussing monetary proposals. We are increasingly hopeful that with your support, and the assistance of the conciliator, we will be able make good progress on the key items of our bargaining mandate in the coming weeks.
I look forward to reporting again soon.
Sincerely,
Mike
Bargaining Team Members:
Mike Eklund, CNO, Professor, FEAS
Bin Chang, Associate Professor, FBIT
Sue Coffey, Associate Professor, FHS
Ana Duff, Academic Associate, FBIT
Qusay Mahmoud, Professor, FEAS
Elita Partosoedarso, Associate Teaching Professor, FHS
Ruth Simpson, Associate Teaching Professor, FHS
Christine McLaughlin, Executive Director, UOITFA
Chelsea Bauer, Executive Assistant, UOITFA