U of L faculty association starts new contract talks

Late last month, the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association published an update on their website regarding contract negotiations.

The current agreement between the faculty association and the University of Lethbridge expires next month.

Toward the end of March, ULFA notified the U of L’s board of governors to let them know they were ready to begin bargaining for the next collective agreement.

The board responded in a letter to ULFA dated 2 April, naming their committee members and asking for bargaining dates.

Their committee is composed of 4 University of Lethbridge administrators and an external negotiator.

The U of L members of the committee will be Lisa Starr, newly appointed dean of the education faculty; Jennifer Copeland, associate dean of the arts and science faculty; Scott Harling, director of academic employee and labour relations; and Julie Henderson, human resources services coordinator.

The third-party committee member is Dwayne Chomyn, who the board of governors brought on late in the negotiation process for the current contract. He is based out of Edmonton and often represents employers in contract negotiations. He will also be the committee’s chief
spokesperson.

ULFA’s negotiating team consists of Locke Spencer (who will act as chief spokesperson), Olu Awosoga, Susan Findlay, Rumi Graham, and Mike Madore, all ULFA members. ULFA executive director, Aaron Chubb, will participate as resource person.

The two parties met officially on 22 April for the first negotiating meeting in this round of bargaining. They settled on a bargaining protocol, including a timeline for identifying which parts of the contract will be opened for negotiations.

At that meeting, ULFA’s bargaining team presented an opening statement. In it, they didn’t outline any specific proposals, but they did indicate that they have a negotiation mandate that ULFA members ratified back in December. The items in that mandate fall into two categories: fair compensation and fair working conditions.

Here are some highlights:

• Address erosion of salary and stipends relative to cost of living
• Address difference in salary and stipends relative to comparator institutions
• Revise salary structure and increments to be more transparent, streamlined, and equitable
• Increase board contributions to benefit plan
• Increase extended health, vision, and dental care benefits.
• Extend professional supplement to sessional instructors
• Reinstate professional supplement for term appointments
• Improve EDI aspects of benefit plan
• Improve equity and transparency in workload assignment of duties
• Create formal paid professional development leave
• Formalize recognition of non-classroom teaching duties
• Include service as an explicit criterion for promotion in professoriate ranks
• Create a teaching professor rank for promotion of instructor III faculty

The U of L board of governors provided no opening statement; although they promised to make a presentation prior to exchanging proposals.

Speaking of which, ULFA suggested that the parties exchange full proposals at the next bargaining meeting; however, the U of L bargaining team said that their first proposal won’t include monetary, preferring to see what the issues are, then preparing their financial proposals on those issues.

The next bargaining meeting is set for 21 May.

The previous round of bargaining was contentious, leading even to a weeks-long strike. Hopefully, the board of governors will be willing to respect the faculty this time around. But I guess only time will tell.