RRUFA Monthly Meeting Minutes
October 7, 2014
LIC Centre for Dialogue
Present:
| Niels Agger-Gupta | Y | Geoff Archer | Jo Axe | Y | Brian Belcher | ||
| Geoffrey Bird | David Black | Judith Blanchette | Tony Boydell | y | |||
| Connie Carter | Kenneth Christie | Y | Robin Cox | Ann Dale | |||
| Audrey Dallimore | Matt Dodd | Juana Du | Bill Durodié | ||||
| Catherine Etmanski | Lois Fearon | Joshua Guilar | Doug Hamilton | ||||
| Brigitte Harris | Y | Rick Hinton | Julia Jahanzoosi | Ingrid Kajzer-Mitchell | |||
| Leslie King | Richard Kool | Y | Charles Krusekopf | Y | Zhenyi Li | ||
| Ron Lindstrom | Chris Ling | Y | Stephen Long | Will Low | |||
| Eva Malisius | Kathleen Manion | Y | Virginia McKendry | Will Meredith | Y | ||
| Robert Mittelman | Jonathan Moran | Jessica Mussell | Y | Mickie Noble | |||
| Eileen Piggot-Irvine | Y | Terry Power | Siomonn Pulla | Y | Michael Real | ||
| Carolin Rekar Munro | Chaseten Remillard | Wendy Rowe | Y | Erich Schellhammer | Y | ||
| Bernard Schissel | Jean Slick | Marilyn Taylor | Y | Eugene Thomlinson | Y | ||
| Mike Thompson | Phillip Vannini | George Veletsianos | Hassan Wafai | ||||
| Jennifer Walinga | Y | Rebecca Wilson Mah | Y | Michael Young | Amy Zidulka |
(Total present: 17)
CONTENTS:
[an auto ToC from headings]
- Call to order at 12: 05pm (President Ken)………………………………………………………………. 2
- Approval of September minutes:…………………………………………………………………………… 2
- New Business:……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
- Old Business:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2
- Regular Reports:…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
6.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)……………………………………………………………………………………………. 2
6.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)……………………………………………………………………………… 5
6.3 Academic Council: (Rick)……………………………………………………………………………………… 6
6.4. CUFA-BC: (Rick)……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
6.5 Website: (Will)……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
6.6 Social: (The “Two Geoffs”)…………………………………………………………………………………… 7
6.7 Grievance Report: (Ken for David)……………………………………………………………………….. 7
6.8 Health & Safety: (Jean)………………………………………………………………………………………… 7
- Other Business:……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7
- Adjournment:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
Approved by Will Meredith; seconded by Matt Dodd.
Marilyn Taylor: We need to improve faculty presence on RRU Website: creating a central visible presence
How Faculty are presented on RRU website – conversation for next meeting.
Nothing.
6.1 Bargaining: (Wendy)
Ken: Wendy and Bargaining Team have done a lot of work.
Wendy: Progress to end of July – We have had 4 days with Employer… We put our proposals on table –and they put theirs on the table… lengthy Q&A… Indicated in principle approval for Research & Scholarship leave – problem is funding… We proposed: Funded by Employer with some from faculty financial package from province. Employer opposed – money to come entirely from financial envelope within Faculty. Give up merit pay; accrued vacation; even accrued PD money…
We pointed out this would be a pay cut – but Employer wants faculty to self-fund Scholarship Leave… We pointed out that savings from replacing senior retirees to junior faculty could result in funds within envelope. Hard to determine what is in envelope.. No full analysis but not strong support from faculty for giving up pay and increases…
Faculty are in agreement on Phased Retirement; continued RRU ID and library access in retirement. We spent whole day with Employer on Professor of Teaching track – good discussion with deans, vs. VP of HR. Dialogue with HR is negotiation, not a dialogue. Shift to deans took on a different flavour. They are as committed to pursuit of academic community as faculty are… We then brought these items to survey and the World Café with faculty. Lynn Jolie was not happy with this. She saw this as irrelevant to negotiation. Deans, however, were supportive of discussion. This was a faculty issue, not an Employer problem.
You participated in Survey and most were at World Café… Results from two processes:
Survey:
47% of respondents to survey thought the Professor of Teaching Track was OK –… This was seen as potentially being attractive to (other) teaching-focused faculty, but not to them, personally.
Would the help attract new faculty? – 67% say yes – but there were comments that this would allow other faculty to step back from teaching to do research. But there were also comments that this might affect reputation of RRU – Other comments: RRU is so small; introducing this will reduce flexibility we currently have; trap new hires into teaching role with no research and opportunity for employment elsewhere. Limit who could take on admin functions; separate between admin and research.
World Cafe: series of questions in 4 rounds –
1st round – focus on roles and any barriers
2nd round – look at CA and see what issues on promotion and opportunity for advancement
3rd round – employer’s proposal;
4th round – summary and proposals
1st round: lot of conversations on appreciation for different roles. Even admin and service functions were seen as useful. Admin could take up more time than people wanted. No rejection of admin/service functions; embraced model of doing everything.
2nd round: consensus that CA has inconsistency – research and scholarship and admin; describes RRU as ‘different kind of academia’ but problem in promotion paragraph that is not consistent with other parts of CA. Interpretation by different Promotion Committees of different pathways – not always rewarded. In 2005 faculty were rewarded full professor status on basis of contribution to university. Individuals who were concerned about differences – embrace all of these roles; not enough research and scholarship accomplishment; hurts RRU as place of research excellence; lack of opportunity to participate in research and scholarship; over-emphasis on administration makes it difficult to do more R&S; confusion of CA led to problems of not know what is rewarded. R&S should be encouraged and promoted here. Should be opportunities to do R/S here;
3rd round: looking at Employer’s proposal – good try but won’t addre3ss problem; setting up excellence of pedagogy but work distribution – too much emphasis on admin; would not help those on admin lines… (primary admin functions). Problem for most faculty members is amount of time in administration. A teaching track won’t relieve the admin burden…
4th round: yes there is a problem: Most call for revising collective agreement to address inconsistencies; more time for all faculty for research and whatever the focus for faculty was. Status quo not workable; and Professor of Teaching also not workable.
Ken: There is ambiguity with Promotions from Associate to Full professor. RRU has long-term faculty who are unable to get this…
Q: what is % of professoriate at full professor in Canada?
Q: are salaries capped with rank?
A: if you hit top of band you don’t get merit increases.. for 2% increases, everyone get these but there is no additional merit
Will: Stats Can – says there are about 15K full professor; 14K associate professor; 10K Assistant Professors in Canada. We would have about 18 full professors for our size if we adhered to Stats Can proportions – we do not have this many…
Comment: We should celebrate these milestones… We don’t list or celebrate faculty who receive a promotion – we could do a better job of that. Better review of process… Interest of university to not clarify…
Comment: We are not a traditional university – research still essential for full professor but not clear how much this means with what kinds of publications…
Q: RRU seemingly has no other sources of funding?
Wendy: R&S leave must come from provincial envelope – but there seems to be moving goalposts – and there is constant demand to give up merit pay… difficult to negotiate since there is an agenda for reduction in compensation. Differential of increases between faculty and staff is increasing and they wish to get rid of this… about $100K annually in merit pay. They want to get away from that.
Q: so they don’t want to pay staff more? Maybe they are embarrassed?
Wendy: at UVic – the merit pay that everyone gets is separate from negotiation with province… UBC also has something similar. Why RRU is going after this is not clear… PSEC – is going to give 5.5% over 5 years…
No R/S leave if we did not give them this Professor of Teaching track and give up merit pay. Ultimatums from Employer…
The difficulties some faculty have had will not be addressed under the Professor of Teaching track – but do put traps for faculty into way – quantity of research and opportunity could be restricted. This track will result in the creation of the full set of faculty options in the work plan limited to a reduced and specific cadre of faculty… this does away with flexibility of faculty to adjust workload… Why is this so important to Employer that they are giving us an ultimatum around this?
We are trying to get new dates to get back to table – nothing since July…
Ken: Employer now wants something from us. As time goes on they will be more anxious to resolve this…
Wendy: Lynn follows bargaining rules – we have good conversation – but at table she strictly follows the mandate and Employer marching orders.
Chris: Worth noting there is no formal counter proposal to remove – the Employer seems to simply want us to give up voluntarily.
Wendy: nothing is stated but they do keep asking this of us. They also clearly want to eliminate banked vacation time… They have already done this with staff – who have been given an ultimatum to use or lose accumulated vacation. No alternatives were considered… Employer saying the Province is concerned;
We have asked other institutions – Typically, faculty have time off in summer – provided they meet contractual requirements… Some places with vacation days do banking – 1 year not uncommon.
Chris: They are saying that current accumulated amount could not be donated to R/S leave.
Wendy: They said PSEC could not allow this.
Q: can people carrying excess to cash out?
Wendy: No – some with excesses can never cash out nor can this be donated…
Chris: Accumulation is frozen at todays rate – but can’t use…
Wendy: some with 50-60 days will never get this…
Chris: those with over 2 years accumulation – it is not clear whether they will be able to cash out.
Wendy: those with over 200 days in excess – have been told they can only cash out up to 30 days – and the university absorbs rest… They wish to eliminate what shows up as a liability on books. They must keep cash reserve to address this…. currently about $1.2M –
Q: Does BC Labour law cover some of these irregularities?
Wendy: Employer has ordered manager to schedule staff for vacation days – they are then told to go home…
“One man’s suspension is another man’s vacation”
Ken: asked for a round of applause for Wendy and Bargaining Team…
A round of sustained applause broke out in support of the work of Wendy, Chris, and Will.
6.2 Board of Governors: (Charles)
Charles: The Province is very serious about not running a deficit but does not believe they micromanage RRU…
RRU has run a profit every year since founding – guidance for 5% profit every year. To date exceeding this; expenses below plan and revenues above plan;
The big issue at the Board: The business plan – RRU’s strategic direction has been refreshed… now only growing by 25% with 19 new programs; From new programs there will be new student numbers. 70% of expenses are in HR… Objective is to hold HR numbers down; HR numbers go up by 15% even though student numbers go up by 25%… Project equal increases – all other areas are held flat… 49% growth in international numbers; A clear direction is that anything faculty has that staff do not, they want to eliminate;
Wendy: Perhaps this could simply be an Aggresso accounting problem that there is no second line?
Charles: fund-raising coordinator has left university; wrapping a number of things under banner of 75th Anniversary in 2016. This is being led by Debra Irvine; who is now back at RRU; There will be a series of things in April…
Homecoming next year – will be a big event – nothing so far on program piece – The University had not thus far considered faculty involvement… There are continuing challenges in the fund-raising area… We still have no strategy for fund-raising; Board Chair interested; saying personnel not in place…
There was apparently an issue with sending out letters to alums. Fund-raising was to be school by school; but will now go into a general pool [lost funding opportunities for schools?]
Board members for one year: Kathleen Burney – re-appointed for another year. Rest will be set…
Q: about Cultural Values Assessment – 27% entropy showed up on the last survey. Normal allowance is for 15% – we are therefore wasting 12-15% of salaries. Has there been a discussion at the board about money we are wasting through entropy? Business would not stand for more than 10%…
Wendy: we do have HR ratios that are way out of whack – turn-over of some staff; amount of staff on sick leave way over normal’; not a healthy environment for staff; indicators that are used – RRU in extreme on some of these indicators; salaries are low but benefits are good. Sick leave is used extensively; high turn-over –
Comment: We don’t have a lot of devolved accountability and responsibility at RRU.
Charles: Dan Tulip (VP Finance) believes we have a decentralized model…
Q: if we take 12% (CVA entropy) of $32M (faculty component of budget) that is a lot of money;
Charles: BoG only hears from the Executive – “everything is going well”; “we are about to have a donation”; “We are not running a deficit”; “We are above numbers”; etc… Problems are mainly attributed to underfunding from province; otherwise we are doing well. To present alternate viewpoint – we need documentation to prove the alternate perspective;
6.3 Academic Council: (Rick)
. Academic Council: meets tomorrow
6.4. CUFA-BC: (Rick)
Rick: hiring new ED; long-list process – 5 people; interviewing next week; by end of year new leadership…
Ken: salary is an issue for CUFA-BC – part of interviews and council; how does CUFA-BC relate to members in FAs – Many members have no relationship with CUFA-BC… reach out to FAs – have been aloof;
6.5 Website: (Will)
Nothing to report.
6.6 Social: (The “Two Geoffs”)
Nothing to report. (Two Geoffs are absent )- Should there be a seasonal event in Dec?
Ken: yes – would like to re-constitute new committee
Wendy: a mingle event including spouses would be good…
Ken: best one was cooking event – where people interact…
Rick: Khalil Aktar – does a good indian cooking thing…
6.7 Grievance Report: (Ken for David)
David absent, but Ken reports it’s been quite a busy summer. 2 cases over summer – have been completely resolved since last Friday – were a headache; everything now fine…
Unless CA is modified or challenged – all confidential; CA was not invoked…lots of negotiation and outcomes to all involved good…
6.8 Health & Safety: (Jean)
Nothing to report.
None
Move to adjourn: 12:30 pm. Approved by Marilyn; seconded by Brigitte.
Recorder: Niels Agger-Gupta