Bargaining Update & FA Member Social Tomorrow, Nov 4!
Dear Members,
I hope that all is well with you at this busy time of the term. On behalf of your negotiating team, I am writing to update you on bargaining.
As you may have heard in the news, the BCGEU has accepted a tentative settlement with the government, although this settlement still needs to be ratified by their membership. If it is ratified, it is likely to have a positive impact on our bargaining progress, as it should result in a provincial financial mandate for the broader public sector, including the universities. Assuming that the provincial mandate reflects the BCGEU settlement (as has been the case in recent years), that would mean we would be working towards a four year agreement with the University, with more money on the table than was reflected in earlier government offers to the BCGEU. I caution that these details are not finalized until the BCGEU ratifies their agreement, and the government puts out their financial mandate to the broader public sector, but it is positive news.
As we have been reporting, and as we saw again in bargaining this week, the administration is thus far unwilling to make anything but extremely minimal progress at the table, even on matters that have no financial implications, and so are not impacted by the provincial mandate. We hope that this will change when the mandate is finalized. Since the mandate is unlikely to be officially finalized until mid-to-late November, and since we have been unable to make any meaningful progress thus far on any of our key bargaining goals, it seems very likely that bargaining will not conclude until sometime in the new year. This is not what we want, but the survey results were clear that this negotiation needs to be about more than salary increases, as important as they are. We want to get you the best possible improvements in your salary (both retroactive and moving forward) as soon as possible, but we cannot allow the Admin team to ignore the need for substantial changes to the working conditions of our Members. Since this will most likely be a four-year agreement, it is absolutely crucial that we negotiate a strong agreement that addresses your key concerns, particularly related to workload, collegial governance, academic freedom and control over your work, equity, salary and benefits.
Before providing more information about recent bargaining sessions, I will note briefly that many of you have told us that you are not pleased with receiving bargaining bulletins from the Admin’s team. We share your frustration, but unless the administration shares bargaining information with you, our members, before they share this information with your bargaining team at the table, there is nothing we can legally do to stop them. We have informed them that we and our Members do not appreciate their bulletins, but they have so far disregarded this feedback.
I wish we had better news from the bargaining table. We met Thursday with the Admin’s team for a full day of bargaining. At the bargaining session, the Admin’s team responded to our second proposal on workload (from Article 13). Once again, they rejected all of our new, well-developed workload proposals. These proposals were based on the feedback from the workload survey completed by almost 340 of our members, further consultation with Chairs and other members, and research into workload language in the collective agreements of other FAs. Our proposals focused on providing Members with methods of having all aspects of teaching-related workload recognized and accounted for during workload assignments. They accepted only one sentence, rejecting everything consequential in our six proposals regarding workload. Their position is that reducing your workload is already within your control, which we know to be patently untrue. The problems you face with increasing workload will not be resolved without strong Collective Agreement provisions to prevent inequitable workloads, protections against the continued increases in class sizes, and the continued chipping away of accommodation supports.
On the latter topic, we were glad to see that the Provost is providing additional one time TA supports to assist instructors with moving towards more accessible learning options. We recognize that this can be a positive development, and we welcome VPAC’s recognition that changing teaching approaches requires financial supports. At the same time, we caution you that whatever new teaching approaches you develop with these funds need to be self-sustaining moving forward. These funds are only one-time funds. You do not want to be in the position when these funds end, of being committed to new approaches that require additional TA support that will not continue to be available. We also remain concerned that the Provost continues to say that OREM is only a temporary solution, as we realize that removing OREM supports would create significant additional work for many members.
On the bargaining front, we are also disturbed about the University’s very different approach to support for Indigenous and BPoC members. In the last round of bargaining the University proposed language in the preamble to the Collective Agreement that embedded support for upholding their responsibilities under British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) pertaining to post-secondary institutions. The preamble also acknowledges the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The University signed the Scarborough Charter in 2021, which commits the University to work towards Black inclusion and Black flourishing in institutions of higher education. But despite the serious concerns we have been hearing about the lack of inclusion facing many Black faculty at UVic, the University rejected our proposal to embed the University’s commitment to the Scarborough Charter in the preamble to the Collective Agreement. We believe that there is significant work still to be done to support BPoC and Indigenous members, which we see clearly in the bargaining survey responses that we received. We are very disappointed that there has been no willingness from the Admin to engage positively with any of our other proposals related to equity.
I’m sorry not to have more positive news from the bargaining table. At the same time, the BCGEU tentative settlement is a positive development. The Admin team did tell us yesterday that they will be meeting soon to discuss any new language they might consider in the context that we are now most likely dealing with a four year mandate, as opposed to the two year mandate we were previously expecting. We hope that this statement, and the finalization of a provincial mandate, means that the administration will begin working actively and productively with your FA bargaining team to develop a strong Collective Agreement that will fully protect your health, work-life balance and your rights in the workplace.
I hope to see you at our FA member social, tomorrow, Tuesday, November 4 from 3 to 5 pm in the Michele Pujol Room in the SUB. Light refreshments will be provided, and the Membership Engagement Committee has planned a photo booth. We’ll be providing a more detailed bargaining update at the social, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
All the very best,
Lynne, on behalf of your Negotiating Team
Lynne Marks
Lead Negotiator, UVic Faculty Association
Professor, Department of History, UVic
