RRUFA minutes – June 2014

RRUFA Monthly Meeting Minutes

June 17, 2014

Mews 109

Present:

Niels Agger-Gupta Geoff Archer Jo Axe Brian Belcher
Geoffrey Bird David Black ✔ Judith Blanchette Tony Boydell
Connie Carter Kenneth Christie ✔ Robin Cox Ann Dale
Audrey Dallimore Matt Dodd ✔ Juana Du Bill Durodié
Catherine Etmanski ✔ Lois Fearon Joshua Guilar Doug Hamilton
Brigitte Harris ✔ Laura Hebert Rick Hinton Ingrid Kajzer-Mitchell
Leslie King Richard Kool ✔ Charles Krusekopf Zhenyi Li
Ron Lindstrom Chris Ling ✔ Stephen Long Will Low
Eva Malisius Kathleen Manion ✔ Virginia McKendry Will Meredith ✔
Robert Mittelman Alison Moran Jonathan Moran Jessica Mussell ✔
Mickie Noble Eileen Piggot-Irvine ✔ Terry Power Siomonn Pulla ✔
Michael Real ✔ Carolin Rekar Munro Wendy Rowe Erich Schellhammer ✔
Bernard Schissel Jean Slick Marilyn Taylor Eugene Thomlinson ✔
Mike Thompson Phillip Vannini George Veletsianos Hassan Wafai
Jennifer Walinga Brian White Rebecca Wilson Mah Michael Young
Amy Zidulka

(Total present: 15)

 

CONTENTS:

[an auto ToC from headings]

  1. Call to order at 12:14 (President Ken)…………………………………………………………………………. 2
  2. Approval of May minutes…………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
  3. New Business:………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

3.1……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2

  1. Old Business:……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2
  2. Regular Reports:……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

5.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)…………………………………………………………………………………. 2

  1. 3 Academic Council (Rick) (not here)…………………………………………………………………………….. 2

5.4. CUFA-BC – (Rick)……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

5.5 Website (Will)………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2

5.6 Social (Geoff)……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

5.7 Grievance Report (David)……………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

5.8 Health & Safety – (Allison)…………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

  1. Other Business:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
  2. Adjournment:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3

 

 

 

 

1.      Call to order at 12:14pm (President Ken)

2.      Approval of May minutes

Moved: Matt Dodd; 2nd: Rick Kool

All approved.

3.      New Business:

Ken received two “estoppel”[1] letters from Lynn Joly; one regarding payout of professional development funds, and one regarding vacation time usage.

The gist of both letters is as follows:

  1. Vacation – Employer plans to enforce the current language of Article 29.1(e) upon the conclusion of this round of bargaining. In particular, faculty members will be required to take his/her allotted vacation time as part of the annual work planning process.
  2. Personal development funds – Employer plans to enforce the current language of Article 27.3 and stop the practice of paying out unused funds to the member upon resignation or retirement.

 

To our knowledge, this is the first time that estoppel letters have ever been used, and the thinking around this is that the Employer is attempting to circumvent the regular bargaining process.

Ken consulted with Jeff McKeil at CAUT and the RRUFA executive on how to respond. The recommendation was to not engage with the Employer (so as to not usurp the bargaining process), but to simply state that RRUFA is not in agreement with their interpretation of the articles.

 

Ken passed around a copy of the letters he received from the employers, and opened the floor for discussion/questions.

 

David: Insofar as we have a conversation with them in the context of the estoppel, we’re taking away the bargaining team’s ability to do their job and trust in the bargaining process.

Michael: On the PD issue, they’re not going to save money. If people are retiring and know they have this money to spend, they’ll spend it before they retire.

Rick: The initial understanding is that this money is faculty money.

Eugene: Our response to future estoppel-type letters (should there be any) will be similar, bringing it back to the bargaining process.

4.      Old Business:

5.      Regular Reports:

5.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)

Eugene for Wendy: Next Tuesday and Wednesday are being set aside for negotiations, then a bunch of dates in July and August. It’s looking like bargaining will occur every other week. The bargaining team is meeting later this week to go over final thoughts. We’ll try and keep everyone as informed as we can.

Ken: In my monthly meeting with Steve Grundy, he said the employer’s side was nervous coming to the table. Maybe this estoppel thing is an indication of their nervousness. It’s a funny comment to make as everyone on their team has bargained before.

Brigitte: Lynn’s been announcing at various meetings that the vacation policy is a done deal for staff.

Rick: Maybe we should ask for the vacation usage data to understand what their issue is.

Chris: Supposedly there’s a liability of $2,000,000.00 on banked vacation sitting in the ledgers.

Eileen: I think we need to investigate what people actually do on vacation. Does it overload colleagues when another’s away?

Chris: There seems to be this view by admin that faculty can’t be bothered taking vacation.

5.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)

Charles is absent, no update at this time.

5.3 Academic Council (Rick)

There have been some changes in academic council as a few people have left and some new people have joined.

5.4. CUFA-BC – (Rick)

There was a council meeting in April but otherwise they’re going through a bit of a quiet phase. CUFA is looking at having a conference next spring. Potential topics will likely include governance.

 

On Rick’s watch, all of the faculty associations have unionized. They now have to reconstruct their respective collective agreements. Rick wrote a letter to the university presidents about working together with CUFA build better relationships. He’s hoping in the Fall that CUFA can begin some sort of dialogue that might take the tensions away from what occurs on campus.

 

5.5 Website (Will)

A security issue was discovered with WordPress. While the actual web pages are secure, documents attached to those pages (e.g. MS Word or various media files) are not. The meeting minutes have been taken down until some resolution is found. Siomonn has a solution and will work with Will to remedy this.

5.6 Social (Geoff)

Just a reminder that the London Chef event is this Friday (June 20th) at 6pm! Ken has organized this for 15 Members (http://thelondonchef.com/). The theme is tapas.

5.7 Grievance Report (David)

It’s been very quiet. We had an “almost grievance” that was remedied.

5.8 Health & Safety – (Allison)

Allison’s contract is up shortly so we’re looking for a new Health & Safety person. Any volunteers?

6.      Other Business:

Public School Strike: (Micheal R.) Maybe not take an official position but perhaps show some support in some way?

Motion to draft a “letter of support” to Jim Iker and the BC Teachers union:

Moved by: Jessica; Seconded: Ken

Carried

 

Special guest: Dr. Doug Baer (Past president of UVic faculty association)

Topic: UVic FA certification process

 

What’s going on at UVic?

The certification campaign occurred in the fall. It was a bit contentious at times. For example, a wife of one of the deans managed to post something on the faculty listserv that was an anti-union message, which dominated the ongoing debate. However, this bolstered mobilization and a higher voter turnout (63%).

 

What brought on the need to unionize?

  1. The tenure process

At UVic, what needed to happen was a change in tenure procedures because there had been three cases in previous years where tenure was denied based on questionable procedural issues. Faculty were very upset by this. (e.g. The tenure committee may give the dean a unanimous recommendation for tenure, but the dean will decide not to give it.)

 

  1. Salary

Salary is a “big deal” right now. Where once UVic was #3 in the country with regards to pay, they’re now somewhere at the bottom (based on Canada wide numbers). Doug would like to see faculty associations in BC get together and resist the 5-yr deal from PSEC. He’d like them to aim for a 2-3 year deal when hopefully a new government will be in power.

 

During the last round of bargaining at UVic, administration used PSEC parameters as a crutch. This round the sense is that administration is trying to work around PSEC.

 

How is their first collective agreement developing?

We don’t have much yet. We’re just completing a faculty survey to find out what they want, but a full exchange of packages expected on August 25th. We’re using a lot of existing language in the framework agreement, so not everything will be from scratch.

 

David: Congrats to Doug and his colleagues on a successful unionization!

7.      Adjournment:

Moved: Jessica

Adjournment at 1:50 PM

 

Note that next meeting will be on July 16.

Special Guest/ Topic: TBD

 

Recorder: Jessica

[1] Estoppel – “… there is a window of time during which employers may serve notice to a union that they no longer intend to follow a practice which is not required or not consistent with the collective agreement. This window occurs at the time the parties are re-negotiating a collective agreement, as this gives the other party an opportunity to negotiate collective agreement provisions to legally provide what had previously been enjoyed through practice.” Definition taken from: http://www.bcpsea.bc.ca/documents/20140327_113642800_20110316_040240264_00-CW-Bargaining%20Bulletin%20No%202-LB-Estoppel%20Notice%20and%20Toolkit.pdf