Resources for Members During a Potential CUPE Strike
August 29, 2024
Our new collective agreement contains some fundamental changes to the way performance evaluations will be administered. To support members with these changes, UWOFA has compiled an outline of changes which we share below. We are also working to orient faculty representatives who are on-the-ground resources for members and as always, our Member Services Officer is available to respond to questions and assist as needed. You can reach them at: uwofamso@uwo.ca
New Process
Transition Provisions for Determining Full-Time Members’ Evaluation Year in the Initial Three-Year Cycle
Transition Provisions for Merit Pay Calculations
Transition Provisions for Committees to Revise Performance Evaluation Criteria Documents
As our outline demonstrates, the changes are substantial. However our office and leadership team are here to help guide you through. Just call on us as needed.
UWOFA and the Employer have now held five housekeeping meetings. One more is scheduled for Friday, May 5 to complete a few remaining items. We will provide the list of all items settled in housekeeping in the next update.
The parties will begin bargaining on May 15 and have meetings scheduled as follows:
You can expect brief updates after each bargaining session once these meetings have begun. More detailed information about proposals will be made available for L&A members who should keep an eye out for messages from members of the Collective Bargaining Committee about how to access these documents.
Recently UWOFA held the Fund the Front Line campaign launch, attended by a great mix of members from across campus as well as allies from OCUFA and PSAC with remarks sent by CAUT. The show of support for the launch is a crucial reminder of the power we have when we stand together to demand a better budget to support the university’s core mission of teaching, learning, and research. UWOFA members are the university; we are the core mission; we demand better.
Application for the UWOFA Contract Faculty Research and Professional Development Fund (CFRPDF) is now open.
Please complete the attached application form and email it to uwofa@uwo.ca along with the required documentation.
The total amount to be distributed is $10,000.
Deadline for submission is Friday, June 9, 2023 at 4:00pm.
You can follow this link for more background on the CFRPDF. If you have any questions, please reach out to uwofa@uwo.ca.
As you know, we are coming into a new bargaining season for the Librarians and Archivists bargaining unit. As with the Faculty negotiations last year, many of the bargaining goals we have identified reflect a common theme – the systemic underfunding of our labour across campus, due to a budget model that is fundamentally broken. This has resulted in burgeoning workloads, demoralised employees, and stagnant salaries (even before the implementation of the now defunct Bill 124).
Every time we sit down with the Employer to negotiate on behalf of members, we are told that they are constrained by a budget that demands sacrifices, as though the budget brings itself into being independently rather than reflecting the Employer’s own choices. Members have worked incredibly hard to bring Western through the worst of the pandemic and ensure it’s in better financial shape than ever before. Yet our Employer continues to fail to reinvest those gains in the frontline workers who make the university’s core mission of teaching, learning and research happen.
A better budget is possible, but only if we demand it. Let’s start now! Join your faculty, librarian and archivist colleagues in calling on Western to fund the frontline!
Fund the Frontline Campaign Launch: Grad Club on Wednesday, April 19th from 3-5pm – with catering and speakers
Last week I gave the Employer our official notice to bargain the librarian and archivist collective agreement. Our Campaign Launch also kickstarts L&A bargaining. Join your colleagues to learn more about this round of negotiations and show your solidarity.
UWOFA-LA Bargaining Update
Five housekeeping meetings have been scheduled for April. The first one was yesterday (April 11th), with more to come on the 19th, 20th, 24th, and 25th. Housekeeping meetings allow the Parties to settle issues that are relatively uncontroversial such as name changes and typos before full bargaining begins. There are many similarities between articles in the Faculty and the Librarians & Archivists collective agreements and important improvements were made to the Faculty agreement in the latest round. The Parties have agreed to apply these changes to the L&A collective agreement during housekeeping. This will maintain the parity of the agreements, achieve some of our L&A goals, and leave more space for discussion of other issues at the main table.
The Parties have also agreed on 16 bargaining dates starting in mid-May and continuing through early July.
See you at Fund the Frontline Campaign Launch at Grad Club on Wednesday, April 19th from 3-5pm to support our Librarians & Archivist colleagues!
LONDON, March 10th, 2023 – The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) is calling on the Ontario government to halt the appeals process and accept Justice Kuehnen’s ruling which struck down Bill 124 in November of last year. As UWOFA President Rachel Heydon recently stated in the London Free Press, the bill was “a constitutional overreach restricting free and fair collective bargaining.”
This appeal is only serving to add more uncertainty to the lives of working people hard hit by inflation, while also costing money that could be better spent reinvesting in the public sectors which desperately need it. This attack on workers must stop and free collective bargaining must be allowed to resume.
Queen’s University Faculty Association and University of Toronto CUPE 3902 Sessional Instructors have recently settled deals without a Bill 124 moderation period, indicating that some academic employers in this province have taken the court decision seriously and have decided not to continue to arbitrarily enforce salary-capping legislation that is no longer in effect.
UWOFA is optimistic that the ruling will be upheld, despite the government’s efforts to overturn it. Recent arbitration decisions acknowledge that Bill 124 is no longer in effect. UWOFA urges the Ford government to work together with public service employees instead of maintaining this unnecessarily adversarial position which wastes time, energy, and money that could be put to much more productive use.
UWOFA represents over 1600 Full-Time and Part-Time Faculty, Academic Librarians and Archivists.
For more information contact: UWOFA Communications Officer, Maram Hijazi, 519-661-3016, uwofaco@uwo.ca
UWOFA is concerned that Western has abruptly terminated its mask mandate in instructional spaces. This sudden disruption to classrooms, without providing the campus community with any warning or time to prepare, raises serious issues for equity, inclusion, and accessibility that need to be addressed by the administration. We are particularly worried about the most vulnerable members of our campus community (and vulnerable loved ones), for whom COVID-19 and other respiratory infections may have serious consequences. This timing seems particularly ill-advised as students and professors are gearing up for midterm exams.
UWOFA’s position is informed through consultation with experts from the membership. We urge the university administration to reconsider its hasty decision and strongly encourage faculty and students to continue masking within instructional spaces, in order to protect each other from COVID-19.
We welcome your comments and feedback as we continue to carefully monitor the situation, consult with experts, and remain engaged with our membership and Western leadership to ensure that measures are in place to promote a truly healthy and inclusive teaching, learning and research environment for all.
Take care and stay safe.
Thank you to everyone who shared our recent message about the short window of opportunity to act on fair compensation for Western faculty while Bill 124 is no longer in effect.
Shortly after we wrote to you last Thursday, the Employer proposed to UWOFA’s chief negotiator that the parties add this matter to the agenda of a meeting scheduled for Tuesday December 20th. While we are pleased that the Employer has responded to our request, this does not guarantee that they will agree to our proposal for fair and appropriate pay increases.
We call on members to take action and join UWOFA in urging the Employer to agree to higher compensation before the Provincial government attempts to reinstate Bill 124.
Please find an email template that you can send to President Shepard, Vice-President Strzelczyk, Board Chair Gibbons and Vice-Chair Shortreed on the Take Action page of our website and share the letter widely on social media.
We can now report that the Faculty collective agreement 2022-26 is fully ratified. We appreciate the hard work and support of the many Members who contributed to this outcome.
Given the Ford government’s stated intention to appeal the Ontario Court decision which struck down Bill 124 as unconstitutional, there is considerable uncertainty about whether, how and when the court decision will affect pay increases for our bargaining units.
UWOFA leadership is currently consulting with sibling associations, OCUFA and labour experts on what the ruling means for the public sector workers in Ontario, the higher education sector and the faculty, librarians and archivists at Western specifically.
Everyone agrees that this is an unprecedented ruling given the number of unions and workers implicated and we need to take the time to choose the best course of action. Please be patient and we hope to be able to say more soon.
Take Action
Members can contact the Ontario government directly with their concerns and urge them not to appeal this decision:
UWOFA applauds the Ontario Court decision to strike down Bill 124, a law that limited wage increases for public sector employees.
As a party involved in the Charter challenge, we call on the Ford government to do the right thing and let the ruling stand. An appeal will only serve to add more uncertainty to the lives of working people, while also costing money that could be better spent reinvesting in the public sectors that desperately need it. This attack on workers must stop and free collective bargaining must be allowed to resume.
Members should contact the Ontario government directly with their concerns:
UWOFA will be releasing a full statement on Friday clarifying the potential impact of this court decision for each of our bargaining units.
What is Experiential Learning?
Experiential learning is an engaged learning process whereby students “learn by doing.”
Activities can include study abroad, internships, hands-on laboratory experiments, field exercises, undergraduate research and studio performances.
Experiential learning is a key component of Western’s strategic plan, and they promote these learning experiences to prospective students, alumni and donors. UWOFA proposes that the Employer guarantee support for such courses, by recognizing that a new metric for experiential workload is needed, and ensuring that members teaching these courses are adequately resourced.
One Western experiential learning enthusiast is professor Aleksandra Zecevic, Ph. D.
She spoke to UWOFA about why these courses are important to Western’s Strategic Plan and why they need more funding.
Students find great value in working beyond academic walls in preparation for their careers.
The future of university is in experiential learning. Knowledge acquisition courses are already transitioning online, and University will be expected to deliver more opportunities for application of the knowledge in practice.
However, for a faculty member, preparation for an experiential learning course is very different from an in-class course. If you have never delivered one, it is unlikely you can understand what it takes to do it.
Preparation goes on for months, and in some cases the whole year. Partners beyond the institution have different priorities, requirements, and worldviews, and as a leader, you must create a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Workload, preparation and delivery of a community-based and faculty-led abroad course is much greater for a faculty member. It might include student recruitment, review of applications, allocation of funding, collaborative online learning (COIL), organization of the logistics of travel, coordination of staff and academic advisors, and more.
At Western, we receive great support from the Experiential Learning office and Western International, and enthusiasts, like myself, are willing to volunteer extra time and effort. But, the University cannot achieve important strategic goals without adequate workload assignment for faculty members.
I am very excited about the future of experiential learning in higher education and would be happy to support any administration in understanding and equitably allocating faculty workload to match the required effort.
Aleksandra Zecevic, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
2020 Recipient of: 3M National Fellowship in Teaching and Learning
School of Health Studies
Faculty of Health Sciences
Western University
** Update from bargaining: The employer has agreed to the proposal to introduce terms governing how teaching work in the form of field trips, field courses, experiential learning courses and study abroad, is counted in a Member’s Workload and to adequately resource such courses.
UWOFA is pleased to see the Employer commit to supporting such important teaching and learning opportunities.