Last week, the provincial government announced that it is calling on university campuses across the province to halt current contract negotiations and agree to a 2-year freeze. As the article states, more than half a dozen universities are currently under contract negotiations, with McMaster being one of them.

I arranged a meeting with CUPE 3906 president Mary Ellen Campbell and staff representative Dave Hauch to discuss the current state of negotiations and what impact the announcement of the provincial government will have on the current negotiation process.

Article on Provincial Announcement

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-calls-on-universities-to-agree-to-two-year-wage-freeze/article1647938/

CUPE 3906 UNIT 2 Contract Negotiation Update

CUPE 3906 Unit 2 represents roughly 250 sessional faculty members at McMaster University. In March 2010, a ‘Letter of Intent’ was issued by CUPE 3906 to the University to negotiate a collective agreement as the existing contract expired April 30^th, 2010.

The first meeting was scheduled on April 19^th, where both parties exchanged contract package proposals. Meetings later took place on April 29^th, May 12^th, 17^th, 19^th and June 2^nd. After the June 2^nd meeting, negotiations reached a stalemate and went through conciliation at the request of the University June 22^nd and 23^rd.

(Conciliation – an alternative dispute resolution; both parties agree to utilize the service of a conciliator, who meets with each party separately and attempts to resolve stalemates or disputes in negotiations)

On June 23^rd, the university offered a ‘last package to settle’. CUPE’s Unit 2 bargaining team consulted the settlement package with its membership until July 6^th. The membership decided to reject the offer and continue bargaining.

The University responded to the decision a week later on July 13^th requesting a ‘No Board Report’.

If a No Board report is issued, it will set the date for a strike/lock out deadline (Generally 2 weeks from the day No-Board report is issued)

(No Board Report – Issuing a “no board report” means that after the conciliator is not able to resolve a dispute, the Minister of Labour does not recommend a conciliation board to be appointed)

Both parties have agreed to August 9^th, 10^th mediations days.

The university is proposing a 4-year contract with a 2-year freeze for the first 2 years of the contract. CUPE is requesting a 3-year contract.

PRIORITY ISSUES IN NEGOTIATION

The primary issues in negotiations are job security, benefits, wages and contract language.

1. Job Security

a. Currently, a First Consideration Appointment for sessional faculty members enables a member to be automatically granted a teaching appointment for a specified course, once having already taught the same course twice. They are granted the next 2 appointments of the course.

CUPE is requesting that the granted appointment be increased from 2 appointments to 4.

b. CUPE requests mandatory prior notification of Department Changes before finalized binding decisions are  made.

Currently, department changes can (and have) occurred without any obligation to notify CUPE or faculty members. CUPE stated the mandatory notification is not designed to disrupt or undermine the autonomy of university administrative decisions, but rather minimize the impact on sessional faculty members in order to avoid unexpected alterations to employment.

c. PRO-RATING SYSTEM****

The university is attempting to introduce a Pro-Rating system in the appointment of teaching positions in this contract. Essentially, what the Pro-Rating systems entails is the ability for the employer to divide the existing 3/6 unit course load into individual units, and pay their employee (professors) according to individual unit rates. The current system pays professors in 3 or 6 unit increments.

i.e. 3 unit course pays a sessional professor $6000. By introducing the Pro-Rating System, the 3-unit course is broken down into three 1-unit variables, making each unit $2000.

The ramifications of this system are immense. Ultimately, the employer (the university) will have the ability to hire up to 3 different instructors to teach one 3-unit course, appointing each instructor 1-unit of work (in a 12 week semester, that is equivalent to a new professor every 4 weeks each course).

*** CUPE has stated this as the primary issue of the current collective agreement***

2. Benefits

Currently, all sessional faculty have a $125 allowance per year to cover dental, health, etc. expenses. The benefits pool allocated for the sessional faculty members stands at $25,000.

CUPE has requested a 100% increase to a $50,000 pool.

3. Wages

The university has offered 0% increase to wages along with a 2-year freeze.

CUPE’s most recent proposal was a 2% wage increase per year for the duration of the contract.

This amount was calculated with the estimated Cost of Living Inflation for Hamilton and Toronto in 2009 (Hamilton 1.8%, Toronto 2.4%)

Impact of Provincial Government Announcement

The provincial government’s call to Ontario universities to halt contract negotiations and accept a 2-year freeze does not have an immediate and direct impact on negotiations because Ontario Labour Legislations have not been changed or modified, therefore it is non-binding and cannot be implemented.

Any form of arbitrary legislative implementation based on the declaration of a single provincial Ministry would be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – specifically Section 31 – ‘Nothing in this Charter extends the legislative powers of any body or authority’ – particularly designed for federal and provincial governments.

Hi everyone;

Sorry for the delays in getting this SRA meeting update out, mcats and work and all.
SRA 10D Summary:

1280:

Rob Gaunlett, the new Food and Beverage Manager at 1280 gave a delegation from the floor about the new ideas that will be coming to 1280 and gave the SRA an update on progress:
- The new kitchen manager has been hired
- The new service manager is in the process of being hired
- There will be changes to bring more local entertainment to 1280
- There will be more menu items which use local produce
- More non-alcoholic drinks (milkshakes, smoothies, etc.)

A new and exciting component will be the proposed ‘feature’ section of the menu which will offer several specialty items that will change/rotate each month.

An overall notion of focusing on both the quality and speed of food and service were also stressed by Rob.

EB:

Matthew Dillon-Leitch gave a report of the most recent EB meetings which have discussed topics such as Chip Wagon, integration of MSU and Desire 2 Leqarn, and the continuing E-mail project (the new system that will soon come to replace the muss email system)

For the EB report, please click here . For the minutes of the mentionned EB meetings, click here .

MSU Inc.:

Up to $6000 was allocated and expended for purchases by Avtek/Campus Events to expand their capital. (They previously had to continuously rent pipe and drape for their events and customers’ events which they will now purchase, reducing their costs)

Up to $2500 was allocated and expended for the purchase of new patio furniture for 1280

Other Items:

Huzaifa Saeed won a seat on the Information Systems Committee

Executive Board was approved to change bylaws 10 and 10/A until the next SRA meeting to allow for bylaws to permit testing of the new online voting system being implemented by the MSU later this yea.

Operating Policy 2.2 - Employment Wages was ammended to adjust hours for the Campus events Assistant Director, see here.
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SRAToday.com:

Just a quick note to anyone interested, I’ll be closing down SRAtoday.com.

Initially started as a location for quick instant information on the SRA, this year’s SRA has been significantly better in keeping their constituents informed through a variety of media and as such I won’t be keeping SRAtoday.com up anymore.

Instead, the main MSU site will be my avenue for SRAtoday.com-like tasks such as meeting updates, etc. and of course macinsider posts.

- Richard

Hey guys,

Unfortunately my main avenue of updating SRAToday.com is on the fritz right now, so the highlights and updates of the latest SRA meeting will be posted below like usual but there will be no follow up on SRAToday.com until a later time, nonetheless, enjoy:

SRA 10C Highlights:

Mary Koziol gave a delegation from the floor about the upcoming restructuring and renovations to the MSU site (http://www.msumcmaster.ca/home.htm). Among restructuring the site to make it more user friendly and easier to navigate, new modules will also be installed to increase the site’s functionality and use to students. One of the upcoming features would be MacID integration allowing students to use their MacID to login

An MSU Inc. meeting was held in which:

1) the new Board of directors were confirmed as Officers of the corporation
2) The selection of next year’s auditors for MSU was postponed to a later meeting.
3) Julianne Simpson was appoint secretary to the Corporation for 2010-2011
4) Amendments to Corporate Bylaw 3 (see here) were aproved
5) A variety of items were allocated for and then expended, this includes the work to be done on the site by Orbis communication and UTS, several computers and network storage solutions in a variety of areas and services in the MSU. see here for full details

What happened in the general SRA meeting:

1) Bylaw 5 - Financial affairs (see here) and Operating Policy 2 - Employment (see here) were amended.
2) The 2010-2011 MSU Clubs were ratified (see the clubs here)
3) Board of Director year plans were approved (see them: Mary Koziol (President), John McIntyre (VP Admin), Nick Shorton (VP Finance), Joe Finkle (VP Ed)

Interesting Information that came up:

- The new system replace ELM will be called A(venue) to Learn and will be accessed at: http://avenue.mcmaster.ca/

- The new Campus Events Manager, 1280 Manager, and Diveristy Services coordinator have all been hired

- The OUSA Campus coordinator and Teaching Awards Coordinator have been hired

- Online voting is on track to be tested earlier in the year in preparation for the major MSU elections later in the year. It will be through the MacVote system and use MacID logins.

www.SRAToday.com info tidbit of the year:
************************************************** *******

MUGSI has a limit of 500 students that can access it at once

SOLAR has a limit of 250 students that can access it at once

(talk about the maximum allowable number of users….)

************************************************** *******

Brought to you by: *****www.SRAToday.com*****

Hey Engineers,

I am currently working with Mary Koziol and Joe Finkle to keep the JHE computer labs open — as of right now UTS is planning to close it, as well as BSB and KTH labs, on weekends. If you have any questions, send them my way!

- Matt Wright

SRA Health Sci Vlog 2

Enjoy, leave some comments/feedback and let us know how we’re doing. As always feel free to contact us if you have any questions at:

george.farjou@learnlink.mcmaster.ca

theresa.tang@learnlink.mcmaster.ca

Operations Committee 2009/2010

Committee Membership

For those who had not heard, the Art History program has not been phased out.

At the Senate meeting on Wednesday April 14th, 2010 the motion to phase out the Art History program failed. The Faculty of Humanities then brought forth the motion to reconsider the phase out of Art History at the Wednesday May 12th 2010 meeting, which also failed. Any attempt to phase out the Art History program will not be able to occur until the fall and it is important to let you know what this means.  At both of these meetings the issue of a lack of student involvement was mentioned, both in being informed of the process and also in having any say over it whatsoever.

The vote breakdown of the April 14th meeting was:
15 in favour
10 against
8 abstentions

Link for summary of April 14th Meeting.

In the senate abstentions count as No votes, and as a result the motion failed by a combined total of 15 Yes to 18 No. Following this vote, many believed that any attempt to close the program would not occur until the fall.
This was not the case, however, and the Faculty of Humanities brought forth the motion to close the program once again at the next senate meeting May 12th, 2010.  The motion brought forth was a motion to reconsider and it required a 2/3rds in favour vote in order for the senate to actually even vote on closing the program of Art History.

The vote breakdown of the May 12th meeting was:
27 in favour of reconsideration
14 against reconsideration
2 abstentions

Link for summary of May 12th Meeting.

In order to reconsider the motion 30 votes in favour were required and once again the program of Art History narrowly escaped being closed.

At both of these meetings a lack of student consultation was alluded to, and the MSU explained that following the April 14th meeting the Faculty of Humanities had not consulted the MSU nor informed it of its decision to reconsider the motion to phase out the Art History program. Instead it was highlighted that the MSU learned of this through the Hamilton Spectator rather than being contacted by the Faculty itself.
So, what does this mean? Well, this means that communication will take on a bigger role in the event of a program closure, and that the MSU should ensure proper communication occurs. If I have learned anything from this experience (and I have been involved in this since February) it is that as an organization the MSU can affect decisions made by the university, but only if it is well planned and strategic. There is an opportunity here to ensure that students are involved in the decisions that directly affect them but as a body we must be coordinated and unified.

Matthew Dillon-Leitch | SRA University Affairs Commissioner

What is the MSU Advocacy Think Tank?

The MSU Advocacy Think Tank is an “unofficial” re-branding of the SRA External Affairs Committee. Apart from its regular year end goals the idea is to incorporate and guide interested members into contributing to committee projects as well as potentially new and independent research into post secondary education & Hamilton Community.

It is open for membership to any and all interested McMaster Undergraduate students; we especially welcome people from all sorts of diverse backgrounds to promote Interdisciplinary collaboration and creativity.

Henceforth the External Affairs committee would be expanded into three subcommittees:

Federal Affairs: Covering the MSU’s relationship with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations ( http://www.casa-acae.com/)

-Provincial Affairs: Covering the MSU’s relationship with Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance ( http://www.ousa.ca)

-Community Relations: Will deal with the relationship of McMaster students with the Hamilton community and municipal affairs.

Each subcommittee would be headed by one or two empowered External Affairs Committee members who would in turn utilize any potential volunteers.

“How do I sign up and join?”

Easy! Send an email to the commissioner at sraexternal@msu.mcmaster.ca with your:

-Name

-Email address

-Program/year

-Why you want to get involved with the MSU Advocacy Think Tank.

If possible, please also specify which one of the three subcommittees: Federal Affairs, Provincial Affairs or Community Relations interest you the most.

More information can be found here.

Join the facebook group here.

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Huzaifa Saeed

SRA Social Sciences ‘10/11

External Affairs Commissioner ‘10/11