Staff still on strike, still going without income
Dear colleagues:
Our colleagues at MoveUP remain on strike. Despite having resolved the main reason for walking out, the employer now insists on including a clause in the "return to work" agreement that gives them the right to discipline and punish staff for actions during the strike.
Mr. Bharadwa, in a bulletin to the University community on July 6th, suggests the employer will address unlawful activity only, but he omits that the clause would give the employer sole discretion over determining what is or is not lawful (imagine how outlandish this proposal would be in normal work times!), and the power to judge, try, and punish staff accordingly. MoveUP wants to leave questions of lawfulness to the appropriate independent authorities: the courts, Labour Relations Board, or arbitrators. As with the bargaining issue that led to the strike in the first place, the administration wants to make the decisions with no independent oversight. The employer states, “Our proposal … goes above the labour code and ethical standards.” Unfortunately, we have to agree. Far, far above!
Respecting MoveUP work
We have received some reports on the picket line of faculty doing MoveUP work. If true, this would be a serious violation of both of our collective agreements. Just as staff are not contractually able to complete faculty work, we must respect the boundaries created by the MoveUp collective agreement. Our Picket Pass from MoveUp allowed faculty to return to work. However, if staff work is being completed by faculty members in their absence, it remains the right of MoveUp to revoke the Picket Pass. This is something none of us would like to see happen. Please take care not to do any work that is ordinarily done by MoveUP staff. We recommend area coordinators take a moment to help clarify to employees in each functional area the defining lines between faculty and staff work. Within the academic context and faculty decision-making processes, there is a point where the staff execution of those faculty decisions (usually staff work completed within FAMIS or BANNER or through emails and paperwork) begins.
Summer work
If you taught summer term 1 courses, you should not do any further work on those courses after 30 June unless the employer is paying you to do this. That advice applies to non-regular faculty and regular faculty alike. The employer cannot expect us to do work in July or August that we would have done in June, unless it pays us to do this work. Period.
For regular faculty: We have seen HR and some deans suggest that you can do summer term 1 course work during your vacation, and "reschedule" the lost vacation for some time in the future. We advise against agreeing to do this, since the vacation time will likely just evaporate. As we have seen this summer, many regular faculty do not even get their two months of vacation time as it is. The right to continuous and predictable blocks of time off is something we need to protect in the coming year.
Leaving aside course work, if you are a regular faculty member on vacation, you are on vacation and are not required to look at or respond to CapU emails. Likewise, you are not required to comply with "requests" from deans for you to explain how you have adjusted your Summer term 1 course. (It is difficult to see how these requests are reasonable, given that the administration took control of your courses following the enactment of the “Academic Disruption” policy -- including changing grading criteria and deadlines -- and most faculty had only three days at the end of June to look at their courses after grade day.) Our advice is to take your vacation as it is intended to be taken: a block of time in which you do not need to work, and in which you have the right not to read your CapU email. Set up your away message to emphasize this. Administrators cannot ask you to do work during the Summer.
If you feel that you absolutely must reply to an email or communication from your Dean, please contact CFA Summer Steward Brian Ganter (bganter@capilanou.ca) who has assembled templates for simple responses based on the recommendations above.
Pay questions
We know that many faculty still have questions about their pay. We can’t respond accurately to the questions until we have seen the adjustments made in July. Due to the volume of problems and miscalculations we have asked a group of volunteer faculty with payroll, accounting or finance expertise to work with HR to figure out how pay is being adjusted. We are preparing a "pay FAQ" to explain what we have been able to understand so far. In a bulletin later this month, we will share that FAQ and provide a dedicated “pay FAQ” e-mail address to which you can send questions after you receive your July pay stub. We will also use your questions and the information you share to help us prepare for the grievance or grievances that will be filed about the administration’s pay calculations and unprecedented pay withholdings in June, and its refusal to honour scheduled vacation.
Evaluations
If you are being evaluated this year, you have the right to request an extension in the evaluation procedure. We will support requests for extensions so you don't need to include evaluations questionnaires from the summer term (term 1, 2, or full-summer) in your file.
In solidarity,
CFA Job Action Committee