The Bargaining Team met with the Employer on three dates in August. In total, the YUFA Bargaining Team has met with the Employer sixteen times.

Agreement has been reached on the following:

housekeeping matters

revisions to Appendix Q on harassment, providing for streamlined procedures and reflecting new statutory requirements

The Employer’s current monetary offer:

across-the-board increase of 1.1%, 1.2%, and 1.3% in each year of the agreement; the Employer characterizes this as an “initial offer”; annual inflation rate as of July 2018 is 3%; see Statistics Canada numbers here

progress-through-the-ranks (PTR): no increase

professional expense reimbursement (PER): no increase

benefit improvements (e.g. improved dental, vision, mental health provision): no increase ; failure to keep up with inflation is reducing our coverage

; failure to keep up with inflation is reducing our coverage 100% sabbatical salary: no response

6-month 100% paid sabbatical after three years: no response

conference funding: no response

retiree benefits: no response

pensions: no response

LTD: no response

Appendix P: no response

On non-monetary items:

YUFA’s governance proposals: no response

YUFA’s complement proposal: no response

Recent Employer proposals:

making aggregate member data from C.V.s available “to track and analyze trends in applicable areas, e.g., research or teaching and learning” (quoting Employer proposal 8)

requiring submission of digital C.V.

reducing annual PTR for members who do not submit C.V. by the annual deadline; PTR would be prorated to the date at which the member submitted the C.V. and prorated to zero if the C.V. was not submitted in a contract year

spousal hiring; anyone to whom an offer is made would have the chance to put forward their academic spouse for a five-year CLA with the consent of hiring unit in the spouse’s area of expertise

intellectual property proposal (details provided in YUFA’s intellectual property survey at the end of July)

an additional Associate Dean for Lassonde

Items under discussion:

equal pay exercise

Indigenous hiring

pregnancy/caregiver/parental leaves

academic freedom for Post-Doctoral Visitors

Employer obligation to provide facilities such as workspace to Post-Doctoral Visitors

YUFA has submitted a second comprehensive proposal to the Employer (YUFA 2). Some proposals were dropped, and some others were scaled back. For example, YUFA moved from proposing that YUFA retirees receive the same benefits as active members to a position that would improve benefits for retirees without bringing them to the same level as active members. Despite this, the Employer has not yet given any reply to our proposal. The full text of YUFA 2, YUFA’s current proposals, is available here.

In sum, there has been little progress to date.

There are six scheduled bargaining dates in September. In addition, YUFA will hold a General Membership Meeting (GMM) to provide further updates to members and to discuss next steps. The details of the GMM are as follows:

General Membership Meeting on bargaining

Monday, September 17

10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Founders Assembly Hall

152 Founders College

The GMM will be followed by a BBQ and a social. A separate message announcing the GMM will follow this update.

We look forward to meeting with you at the GMM.

For more information, please see: