Brandon University Faculty Association held its ratification vote yesterday, October 30. 90% voted in favour of ratification of the three-year agreement.

The new deal includes salary increases of 3% per year and Employer-funded improvements in the pension plan. The key non-salary issue, the administration’s “Respectful Environment” policy (which would have given the administration unlimited power to discipline faculty members for any kind of conduct it deemed inappropriate), was resolved with the inclusion of language that “ensures the protection of the academic freedom of BUFA members in the application of any Employer workplace policy having disciplinary provisions” and with the promise to submit the policy to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission for review.

BUFA was on strike for 17 days.

There will be a “Rally for Fairness” at 12 noon on Sunday, February 8 at Centre Square in Kentville in support of the 187 recently laid-off workers at Eastern Protein Foods who are being denied severance and vacation pay.

The Canadian Auto Workers’ national President Ken Lewenza will be in attendance and will address the group. The laid-off workers are members of CAW Local 2216.

CAW Local 2216 member Dean Tupper says it is bad enough that 187 workers lost their jobs, but to not get money owing to them is devastating. “Last Fall, the Nova Scotia Government gave ACA Co-operative a $3.5 million working capital loan and we are now asking the government to put pressure on the company to honour its commitment to its workers and pay them money owed to them.”

“The CEO of ACA was quoted as saying the company would do everything they can financially to help the employees and now it is time to do that,” said Tupper. Other speakers include: Nova Scotia Federation of Labour President Rick Clarke; Canadian Labour Congress Atlantic Representative Tony Tracy and Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council President Kyle Buott.

The Annapolis Valley Labour Council is organizing a Day of Mourning service at Centre Square in Kentville on Tuesday, April 28 at 7:00pm.

Workers around the world officially recognize April 28 as the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed and Injured on the Job. The Canadian Labour Congress initiated the Day of Mourning in 1984; it was officially acknowledged by the government of Canada in 1991, and has been adopted by more than 80 countries around the world.

Last week’s announcement from the MacDonald government that it wants to spend an additional $256 million on Nova Scotia universities is an attempt to mislead Nova Scotians, says CUPE Local 3912 President and Acadia University Sociology Professor Barb Moore. “This money is not additional money. In fact, 80% of it is already accounted for as the provincial grant to universities for the fiscal year 2009-10. It is simply a reflection of the funding levels agreed to in the three-year memorandum of understanding between the universities and the provincial government.”

“Finance Minister Jamie Muir is not being straight with Nova Scotians when he characterizes this as ‘extra’ money for the sector,” says Moore. “This is not new money and should not be characterized as such. For them to try and use this as some kind of political wedge with the opposition parties is a sign of a government that is in its dying days.”

CUPE Local 3912 represents part-time academic staff at Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent and St. Mary’s universities.

The New Brunswick government has imposed a two-year wage freeze on base salaries for all management and non-unionized employees from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2011. As for unionized employees, all signed collective agreements will be honoured, but upon expiration will be renegotiated for two-year terms with no increases during that period.

Finance Minister Victor Boudreau is calling on universities, which ““receive significant financial support from New Brunswick taxpayers,” to “take the appropriate steps to manage their wage bills in a manner similar to the province.” He has warned that “grants to universities and municipalities will be adjusted in future years to reflect this expectation” and that his government is prepared to “introduce legislation limiting the wage increases that can be obtained through collective bargaining negotiation to zero per cent.”

Diane Barnim, a hotel worker in St. Catharines, Ontario with a clean five-year record of employment, was fired last August shortly after beginning a union drive at her place of employment. In October, the Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered her employer to rehire her. She has since been “harassed, isolated and intimidated” by her employer, and UNITE HERE, the union representing Niagara region hotel, restaurant and casino employees, claims that other employees were also intimidated to the point that the unionization vote failed 35:1.

UNITE HERE has recently launched “Will you stand with Diane?”, a campaign of support for Diane and for all workers’ rights to unionize. The website is www.istandwithdiane.ca. Apart from this article in the St. Catharines Standard, this story does not appear to have been covered by print news media or by bloggers.

A snippet from a recent article in the Montréal Gazette:

“Crying poor, these publicly funded bodies routinely say they don’t have enough money to compete, to balance their budgets, hire and keep the best professors and provide their students with the best facilities, scholarships or libraries…Meanwhile, the people in the top offices have embraced a corporate business model that promises generous compensation on a par with what they believe they could pull in the private sector – deals that persist even if they don’t live up to their advance billing or, indeed, turn out to be liabilities.”

The full story is here.

CUPE Local 3903 voted against the York University administration’s offer in a forced ratification vote held Monday and Tuesday. 69% of members voted, and 63% of those voted to reject the offer.

Ontario labour law allows the employer to bypass the negotiating process in this manner by allowing one, and only one, forced ratification vote in which the employer presents a contract directly to the membership.

Today marks the beginning of the 12th week of the strike.

There is an interesting and very timely article in yesterday’s Globe & Mail about university presidents. It suggests that unversities might do well to consider candidates who do not have a traditional academic background.

The article cites the University of Ottawa, which recently selected Allan Rock as its president, and observes that “an evolution in the role of university president is opening the door to new candidates. Presidents are expected to take a greater role off campus, especially when it comes to fundraising. Universities have become huge corporations with complex partnerships with business; large research facilities; sometimes tricky labour relations; and big real-estate portfolios. A career in academia is unlikely to prepare a person for such responsibilities.”

The full article is available here.

At its November 28-30 meetings, CAUT Council voted on two motions of censure.

The first was to impose censure on First Nations University of Canada for its failure to address the serious governance problems that have led to the dismissal or resignation of the president, two vice-presidents, two deans, nearly half of the academic staff and about half of the administrative, professional and technical staff. The motion passed unanimously.

The second was to begin the censure process against Acadia University for its termination, without apparent just cause or due process, of a tenured Full Professor in 2007. The text of the motion is as follows:

“THAT CAUT give notice to the Administration and Board of Acadia University that, unless Professor Colin Wightman is restored to his position as a Full Professor at the University, with suitable redress for the actions the Administration and Board took against him, censure will be imposed at the April 2009 CAUT Council meeting.”

The motion passed without dissent.

As of 12:01am today, CUPE Local 3903 at York University is on strike.

CUPE 3903 represents 3,400 teaching assistants, contract faculty, and graduate assistants at York.  Many will remember when 3903 went on strike in 2000/2001; lasting over 10 weeks, it was one of the longest strikes at a Canadian university. That strike ended after members rejected a forced ratification vote and the York administration caved on all key demands.

At a general membership meeting on Wednesday, November 5, attended by over 700 members, the membership recommended overwhelmingly to the Executive and bargaining team to reject York’s final offer. Following the will of voting members, the Executive and bargaining team decided unanimously to take the union out on strike.

Key demands are: wage increases and the inclusion of a COLA (cost-of-living-allowance) clause; indexation of bursaries and funds to match massive membership growth (over 20% since the last contract); job security for long-serving contract faculty; and a two-year contract so that bargaining can be coordinated across the sector in 2010.

The strike has the support of the YFS (York Federation of Students) representing undergraduates. Pickets began at 7:00 this morning.

Up-to-date information is available at http://www.3903strike.ca.

Wal-Mart has shut down its only unionized shop in North America. The Tire & Lube Express at the Gatineau, Québec location employed five workers. A collective agreement — the first ever in Wal-Mart’s history — had been imposed by a provincial arbitrator only two months before last Thursday’s shut-down. The agreement raised the minimum hourly rate from $8.50 (the provincial minimum wage rate) to $11.54, with a maximum rate of $15.25.

In 2005, Wal-Mart shut down its Jonquière, Québec location just days before a first contract was to be imposed by arbitration.

Read The Globe & Mail’s Report on Business article here.

The Association of Atlantic Universities (AAU) has released the preliminary enrolment statistics for the Atlantic provinces as of October 1, 2008. Some highlights:

Full-time Undergraduate & Graduate Enrolment
Cape Breton	+7.8%
Ste-Anne	+7.0%
AST	+5.7%
NSCAD	+2.4%
NSAC	+1.8%
Dal	+0.7%
St.FX	-0.1%
Acadia	-2.4%
King’s	-2.7%
SMU	-3.8%
MSVU	-6.0%
Nova Scotia total	-0.4%
Maritime total	-0.8%
Atlantic total	-1.1%

 

Visa students
Cape Breton	+48.1%
NSAC	+47.2%
Ste-Anne	+37%
MSVU	+23.2%
NSCAD	+14.5%
St.FX	+11.5%
SMU	+7.2%
AST	+/-0%
Dal	-2%
Acadia	-15%
King’s	-17.1
Nova Scotia total	+8.3%
Maritime total	+5.9%
Atlantic total	+4.7%

 

The good news is that our part-time graduate enrolment is up by 31.7%.

Classes resumed at the University of Windsor on Monday after an 18-day strike. There was a 91% ratification vote for the proposed collective agreement, which includes a 20% increase in the per-course rate for part-time faculty, health and dental benefits for long-serving part-time faculty, and 3% increases per year for full-time faculty. WUFA was also successful in resisting the administration’s attempt to claw back “Progress Through the Ranks” (PTR) increments.

Talks are stalled again at Brandon University, and BUFA is on day 9 of its legal strike.

The Brandon University Faculty Association (BUFA) began a legal strike this morning. Among the outstanding issues in negotiations are salaries, workload, and pension contributions.

This is the first time in recent memory that two faculty associations have been on strike at the same time. WUFA resumed negotiations today with the assistance of a mediator, but there is no word of any resolution yet.

Laurentian University Faculty Association (the main union, not its University of Sudbury group) reached a tentative agreement last night.

The situation at the University of Windsor is worsening after the administration placed a full-page advertisement in the Windsor Star. For updates, see WUFA’s website (which is now hosted by CAUT instead of the University of Windsor) or search Google News Canada for windsor faculty.

The AUFA Executive has launched this blog as an additional means of communication with our members, the Acadia community at large, and anyone else who cares to read what we post here. This blog is publicly accessible: anyone can read it. We will continue to reserve our e-mail distribution list for high-priority messages to the membership, and to share news and opinions in our quarterly newsletter, the AUFA Communicator.

This blog is intended as a venue where we can share news items from around the world that are relevant to AUFA’s objectives, some of which are:

• to promote the independence and freedom of teaching, of thought and of research within the University;
• to promote the interests and welfare of Employees, the interests and welfare of AUFA and, insofar as these interests coincide, to promote the interest of CAUT;
• to express member opinion on matters pertaining to their professional and material status and the betterment of higher education and the University, to perform such actions as may be consistent with this objective, and to seek to maintain high academic standards within the University

If you have an item that you would like to be considered for posting on this blog, please send it to our union officer Jane Longley at jane.longley@acadiau.ca.