Bargaining Bulletin #11
Still waiting for employer’s response on monetary proposals.
Bargaining continued on June 26th and 29th. While we continue to exchange proposals on such things as vacation banking and sectoral workload guidelines, progress on the items the CFA identified in our monetary proposals of May 29th has been slow. This is disappointing, since we requested financial information months ago—a standard practice in the bargaining process. The information we requested was designed to position us to make the best proposals possible, but the administration has been giving us information slowly and in a piecemeal fashion, and we have not yet received the complete details that would enable us to do a full cost analysis.
Further, and as we have mentioned in earlier bulletins, “cost items” often involve the most delicate discussions at the negotiating table. We tabled a set of CFA monetary proposals on May 29th, simplifying and reducing the proposals we originally presented on January 30th. The employer was not ready to respond during our next scheduled meeting, on June 1st. At their request, we cancelled that meeting so they could use the time to prepare. After they were still not ready to respond in the negotiation meeting on June 5th, we expected a response at our June 26th meeting. Counter-proposals were not, unfortunately, forthcoming at that meeting nor at our June 29th meeting (much of which was spent in caucus while the employer drafted language on a single non-cost proposal).
We are now into a summer hiatus, with the next bargaining session scheduled for the end of August.
The late-June bargaining sessions dealt largely with language around banking vacation time and the acknowledgement that many people are working well beyond their contractual obligation.
While progress has been slow, particularly around monetary (a.k.a. cost) items, the employer has acknowledged that they are not opposed “in principle” to various of our proposals. This is encouraging, but leaves us waiting for actual counter-proposals that will address such issues as release for research and scholarship, scale placement for non-regulars, updating inequitable pay for private music instructors and lab supervisors, and improvements in benefits coverage (an item recently successfully bargained at Selkirk College).
While progress on monetary items has been slow, we look forward to the resumption of bargaining later this summer and to the opportunity to bring discussions around the many important items still on the table to a close.
In solidarity,
Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff