Faculty Work Resumes
MoveUP gives faculty & students general picket pass
We are gratified that we can finally share the news you have been waiting for. Our staff colleagues met this evening and approved a general picket pass for all faculty and students, effective tomorrow. This means our work can resume without faculty or students having to cross a picket line.
Our staff colleagues in MoveUP are, unfortunately, still on strike. The administration continues to insist on a unilateral right to discipline (investigate and punish) staff for actions during the strike. We hope this will change: today MoveUP convinced the employer to attend a mediation meeting about that issue tomorrow. With that meeting set, and having finally achieved its goal of an appeal process for decisions about flexible work arrangements, MoveUP wants to enable our teaching to resume.
We thank MoveUP for their care for our University community in making this difficult decision as Summer Term 2 approaches.
And the CFA and MoveUP thank you, faculty members, for your commitment and dedication in standing together and calling for a fair agreement for the staff who do so much to make the University a great place to work. The past three weeks have been very difficult. Faculty and staff have made deep sacrifices in pursuit of a fair agreement. We have halted our work with students, sacrificed income, and coped with the uncertainty about how long the administration would hold out against negotiating MoveUP’s reasonable proposal.
For MoveUP, the work continues for a fair return-to-work agreement. For faculty, our work resumes this week. We have some advice and information on what that means below (notes about summer courses, tomorrow’s payroll, and pick-up of picket-line cheques.).
For faculty, our own collective bargaining work continues on Thursday, when we hope to receive a response to our monetary package (we did not receive one in our meeting on 26 June).
And as the new academic year begins in August, we will need to begin rebuilding our University community. With the collegial model that is the foundation of our work as faculty, we are confident we can do this—while recognizing the need for continued commitment and solidarity.
Work in remainder of the summer term
Faculty with May-June courses
Today the HR department advised deans to tell us that instructors of Term 1 courses need to keep working on Summer Term 1 courses through 30 June. They issued this directive even though this is work that would have been completed by the end of the academic term, 26 June. They have even applied this directive to regular faculty who were scheduled to start their vacation the day after the grade submission deadline. Their argument is that we are paid for course work for the entirety of May and June, so deans can impose this work schedule.
The CFA does not believe HR or deans can impose this work schedule on faculty. We will grieve this overriding of the collegial decision-making model.
However, we do not want to expose faculty to the risk of disciplinary action. If your dean has specifically directed you to continue work until the end of the week, our advice is to continue to work until that date, or risk the potential that the administration will penalize you for insubordination. (We would defend you against and grieve any discipline, of course.)
We advise you to carry out the work you believe is reasonable to do in those remaining days of the month to support your students.
However, after 30 June, we strongly advise against doing any work on Summer term 1 courses unless the administration pays you for this work. That is work you would have done during the May-June term. The administration cannot withhold your pay in June and then expect you to do the work for free in July or August. And the administration has conceded that after June ends you cannot be expected to continue May-June course work unless you are paid for it.
The exception to working through the end of the week is regular faculty whose department recorded your vacation schedule as starting before 30 June. You have the right to start your vacation on the scheduled date, without fear of discipline.
For departments with a longstanding practice of faculty starting vacation as soon as the term ends, but which have not recorded this schedule and relayed it to the administration: We believe this practice is valid. Deans and HR have accepted it in the past. However, the administration stated today that unless it finds a recorded vacation schedule, deans can insist that you work until the end of June. We want you to be aware of the risk of discipline if your dean rejects your department’s vacation-scheduling practice and insists that you continue to work through 30 June before starting vacation.
Faculty with May-August courses
It is up to you as the expert in your subject to determine how best to adapt the course after the interruption during MoveUP’s strike.
Faculty with May-June and May-August courses
We recommend that you ask your dean to forward any communications between the dean and the students since president Paul Dangerfield declared the academic disruption on 13 June. As the teacher of that course, you have a right to know who has taken a CR or a refund (since there is no need to mark their work), and you have a right to know what other arrangements the dean has put in place or instructions the dean has given the students.
Faculty payroll on 29 June
Your pay will arrive by direct deposit Friday, June 29. Correction notice: original bulletin indicated June 28, but should be June 29.
It will be difficult to assess how you have been paid, or whether your pay has been calculated accurately. It is always difficult to do this, due to the lack of information on our pay stubs (we are taking that problem to arbitration and have been in talks with administration on the topic for months), but in this circumstance, it will be all the more difficult.
The CFA won’t be able to answer specific questions in the near future. This will take time to sort through, especially with most MoveUP finance staff still on strike. We do have some information, however:
Faculty who honoured the line from 6 June on will receive income only for the first three business days of the month. The pay for the last few days of the month will be on the July payroll.
Faculty who honoured the line but then crossed it later in June by “signing in” daily: Your pay tomorrow will reflect only the business days up to 20 June, when payroll closed. We learned today that salary for the days after 20 June will be on the July payroll.
(We don’t think the latter applies to regular faculty who did a pro-forma sign-in on the day before your scheduled vacation. There is no need to sign in during each vacation day. So if you did this before 20 June, the June payroll should include your salary for the remainder of the month.)
Picketing pay cheques
Sparky Lawrence will have these ready for pick-up from 10 to 2 Wednesday, 28 June at MoveUP’s Purcell Way picket station. After that, he will mail all the cheques not picked up, in hopes of their reaching you before the weekend. (If you live on the coast, Reini mailed your cheques this afternoon.) Thank you, Sparky and Reini!
Once again, the CFA officers, job action committee members, and picket captains express our deepest appreciation to faculty who stood united with staff colleagues. Although this has been a difficult June, it has also been a month filled with inspiring moments of community spirit. That is the spirit we want to draw on to buoy us through the summer. It is the spirit that we want to carry with us into the new academic year.
We built this University together 55 years ago. Together, as a community of passionate educators, we can continue to build (and rebuild) the University.
In solidarity,
Job Action Committee