Bargaining Update + Emergency Townhalls

Dear Members,

Happy New Year! We are very disappointed to have to report to you that after some promising meetings in December, that bargaining is not going well. After a deeply frustrating and demoralizing day at the bargaining table yesterday, the administration’s team, led by Pamela Richards and Helga Hallgrimsdottir, sent out a very misleading email regarding bargaining which includes statements about their monetary package and the information that they have filed for mediation. We will address all of these matters in this email.

Monetary Package Described in “Bargaining Bulletin”

The University’s information regarding their monetary package is misleading.

It is correct that the 3% per-year increase secured by the BCGEU will apply across the public sector, including to UVic FA. What the admin team has done, however, is deliberately inflate what this actually means for you by folding in CPI and PPI in a way that is neither honest nor representative. Because of CPI drop-offs, many members do not receive CPI at all. And PPI is awarded to only about 30-40% of faculty. Presenting these as if they were guaranteed salary for everyone is simply not accurate.

In addition, they did not mention the fact that, as I have noted previously to members, the UVic FA is waiting, as are all other public sector unions, to see whether the larger unions (BCTF, CUPE etc) can achieve the same deal as the BCGEU, which includes an additional 0.5 percent per year for four years (as opposed to the current offer of only 0.2 percent in two years), which, for the UVic FA, is the difference between $740,000 and almost four million dollars over four years. This would make a significant difference to our members. It would be irresponsible of us, as your union negotiating team, to accept a proposal before determining whether more money will be available to our members and to other public sector unions. It is also irresponsible for the admin negotiators to reach an agreement before determining whether more money will be available to our members to better support their working conditions.

Further, the University only tabled their monetary package yesterday and gave the negotiating team no opportunity to respond or table its own monetary package. Instead, they have opted to file for mediation on the same day. This is an aggressive move that is an insult to both the negotiating team and to all members, as it indicates that the University has little interest in negotiating directly with us.

Deeply Frustrating Day at the Bargaining Table

While we wait for the provincial mandate to become clear, we have continued to bargain hard on the issues that affect your daily working lives. Unfortunately, yesterday’s bargaining session made it unmistakably clear that the administration’s lack of serious commitment to meaningful negotiation. Instead of engaging with our proposals, they are simply rejecting them.

Technological Change

They rejected our thoughtfully prepared proposal regarding required consultation and agreement with the FA before any major technological changes are imposed on faculty. With AI and other digital systems transforming our work, consultation is not optional – it is essential. Many other Faculty Associations already have such language in their Collective Agreements. UVic’s administration wants to maintain the unilateral power to impose any technological change it wishes, in the name of “operational needs” and “efficiency,” regardless of the impact on your workload, job security or professional autonomy.
In this instance, and on many other occasions throughout bargaining, the administration has claimed “managerial rights” over the very real issues that negatively impact the working conditions of our members.

Childcare

They also rejected our childcare proposal outright. This would have cost the University nothing; it simply required UVic to apply for existing generous federal and provincial funding to expand childcare spaces. UVic has not added infant spaces since 2000 and has barely increased toddler spaces in over two decades. Childcare has been successfully bargained at universities across Canada since the 1980s. Yet, we were told flatly that childcare is “not a term and condition of employment” and that the University is “not prepared to negotiate childcare with the union.” For members who cannot work without reliable childcare, this position is indefensible. It also exposes the hollowness of UVic’s Equity Action Plan, which promised expanded childcare but has delivered nothing – clearly, no University commitment there.

BPOC issues

This lack of commitment was also revealed clearly in the admin’s out of hand rejection of another important proposal that the FA developed in consultation with the FA’s BPOC (Black and Persons of Colour) Caucus. This proposal was conceived as a compromise because of the admin’s rejection of earlier proposals in support of BPOC faculty. This proposal would have provided a BPOC Advocate in each faculty, to parallel the development of Associate Deans Indigenous, (accepted in the last Collective Agreement). But despite the very real and legitimate concerns of Black members and members of colour at UVic, their concerns were not considered worthy of support by this administration. This rejection is even more concerning in that the BPOC Advocates would also have served as mentors for early and mid-career BPOC members.

Faculty Mentorship

That rejection of the BPOC proposal connects directly to the administration’s abandonment of faculty mentorship for early and mid-career faculty more broadly. As you were informed in the fall, last spring VPAC cancelled the successful joint FA-Admin mentorship program, which was comprised of five faculty mentors, including a mentor for BPOC faculty and one for Indigenous faculty. When the FA proposed that the admin at least fund the FA to run its own mentorship program, that too was rejected yesterday. Instead, the administration has told us that Chairs and other senior faculty members will need to “do more mentorship,” despite already unsustainable workloads.

Workload and Mediation

As I noted in December, we had just begun to engage with the administration in a good faith effort to come to some agreement regarding the excessive workloads faced by many of our members. We did this cautiously, since the admin team seems more concerned about increasing the workload of those members they consider to not be “pulling their weight,” rather than addressing very real workload problems. Yet, we were hopeful that with goodwill, clear communication and careful bargaining, we could come to some agreement that would benefit our members.

However, as you saw in the admin team’s “Bargaining Bulletin #9” yesterday, they have just “applied to the BC Labour Board for mediation to support expeditious resolution of collective bargaining. Unfortunately, they did not engage us in a conversation about this exceedingly important matter at the bargaining table yesterday, nor did they inform us of their plan to apply for mediation. In fact, we were informed of their application to the BC Labour Board less than three hours after bargaining had concluded, and less than 15 minutes before they sent this information to members.

We still have more than 30 bargaining proposals awaiting responses from the administration. Just yesterday morning, both teams committed to putting in considerable time over January to try and develop a collaborative agreement over workload issues. Workload issues cannot be resolved in mediation without first doing the hard work in bargaining. In the last round of bargaining, mediation worked because both sides agreed to it at the right time. Forcing it now—while withholding responses to proposals and while the provincial funding pattern is unresolved—is not responsible bargaining. It is an attempt to pressure the union into premature settlement. It clearly demonstrates the administration’s lack of serious commitment to the bargaining process, the FA’s team, and to our members.

It’s also important to note that entering mediation with so many articles still open and far from agreement will amount to a substantial increase in the cost of mediation to both the University and the Faculty Association. At a time of so-called fiscal responsibility on the part of the University and threats of further budget cuts, we believe the decision to move to mediation at this point is frankly irresponsible.

We trust that the admin bargaining team’s efforts to seduce you with misleading information will have no impact on your commitment to our reaching a reasonable deal for all. We know the administration hopes that dangling inflated salary numbers will divide members from their bargaining team. We want you to get raises as soon as possible too—and we want them to be real, not smoke and mirrors. Settling early would cost you money and cost you rights in your workplace. The administration has not even allowed us to present our salary proposals, which include extending CPI eligibility and increasing CPI amounts, before pushing us toward mediation. That is not just disrespectful to your bargaining team—it is disrespectful to you.

Next Steps

While the Negotiating Team is dismayed by the actions of the University, we remain, as ever, proud to work alongside all of faculty and librarians at UVic. Our members are innovators, problem solvers, and creative forces. We wish we weren’t facing these issues from the administration, but we are confident that we will overcome these challenges together.

We will be holding two emergency townhalls on bargaining over Zoom next week, hosted by myself as Lead Negotiator and Adam Con, FA President, to provide further information and to answer your questions:

• Monday, January 12th. 1pm-2:30pm. Zoom link https://uvic.zoom.us/j/82361043935
• Wednesday, January 14th, 1pm-2:30pm. Zoom link. https://uvic.zoom.us/j/86968220457

We will also host an in person drop in session at the Fireside Lounge in the University Club from 10 to 11:30 on Tuesday, January 13th, if you want to drop by with any questions or suggestions for the bargaining team.

There is work to be done for all of us, and these meetings will be the start of it. Stay tuned for further ways to make your voice heard.

Thanks for all you do to make UVic what it is. As university faculty and librarians, given our essential roles and contributions to this University, we should reasonably expect to be treated better by our employer, with respect and professional regard.

 

Wishing you all the very best,
Lynne

Lynne Marks, Lead Negotiator, on behalf of the UVIC FA Bargaining team.