McMaster faculty ratify tentative agreement; Laurier conciliation continues
This past week, the tentative settlement between the faculty association and employer at McMaster University passed with 94% of member voting in favour of the agreement. The deal was reached with the assistance of arbitrator Kevin Burkett on April 7th. It provides increases to total compensation of 2.75% in 2011 and 2.75% in 2012. The parties also reached agreement on the pension and post-retirement benefit issues which they are confident will ensure the sustainability of both plans into the future.
Negotiators for contract academic staff at Wilfrid Laurier University held a third session with a provincial
conciliator last Thursday, with access to employment and compensation being the major issues under discussion. These efforts failed to reach an agreement and the Association has proposed mediation/arbitration as the best means to reach a settlement.
At the University of Western Ontario, negotiators for academic librarians and archivists presented their package of proposals to the employer last Tuesday, the first session of bargaining. Librarians and archivists at Western are the lowest-paid in Ontario, and their negotiators have asked for the university’s 1990 pay equity plan, which the university has not updated. For more on pay equity, please see the article on the Steelworkers at UofT in this issue.
At the University of Ottawa, faculty negotiators met with their administration counterparts for a first session of bargaining two weeks ago. Further sessions have been scheduled for May 11 and 12. Meantime, contract
academic staff at the university are now in a legal strike/lock out position. This unit’s collective agreement expired last August. (Ottawa’s contract faculty have their own union; the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO) represents full-time faculty).
And at Brock University, negotiators have met once, and bargaining meetings are expected to occur regularly
starting in early May.
QUFA FORUM 