FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(London, Ont.)— The union representing faculty members at Western University is calling for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Hasenfratz, saying her apology for taking a holiday trip outside Canada mid-pandemic is not good enough.

Western Board Chair Rick Konrad said in a statement Sunday that the Chancellor had been censured by the board for taking the trip against public health advice, but stopped short of asking for her resignation, calling the Chancellor’s decision to ignore directions given to the Western community a “teaching and learning moment.”

“Calling this a ‘teaching and learning moment’ is absurd,” said UWOFA President Beth MacDougall-Shackleton, “because the only lesson being conveyed is that a gross double standard exists — if you’re wealthy, you play by different rules.”

Some Western students have been threatened with discipline for breaking the university’s code of conduct following parties held in contravention of public health rules.

“The Board of Governors decision sends a terrible message to our students,” said MacDougall-Shackleton, “and will undermine Western’s reputation and credibility in the community. The decision will reinforce a stereotype that Western is a country club university where donating gets you a free pass, or where power of position entitles some to be exempt from public health guidelines.”

MacDougall-Shackleton added that the role of Chancellor is a symbolic honour, recognizing high standing in the broader community. Because of that it is important to uphold community standards for integrity, leadership, and care. The Chancellor failed to meet this standard.

The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association is a union representing about 1,500 faculty members and 50 librarians and archivists at the University of Western Ontario in London.

Contact

Vanessa Frank, Communications Officer
vbrown5@uwo.ca
519-859-4630

UWOFA’s Executive Committee is alarmed that the Ontario government is pushing through provisions of an antisemitism act that could erode academic freedom to criticize a foreign state.

Public hearings were scheduled to take place this week regarding Bill 168, the Combating Antisemitism Act. However, an Order-in-Council issued on Monday circumvented public debate by enshrining into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. UWOFA is concerned that the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism and its list of illustrative examples equates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism, thus limiting scholars’ ability to engage in legitimate criticism of a foreign state.

“UWOFA deplores antisemitism and all forms of hatred and intolerance,” said Beth MacDougall-Shackleton, president of UWOFA. “However, we are deeply troubled by the government’s bypassing of the democratic process, and the apparent lack of respect for freedom of speech and freedom of scholarship.”

Please also read a statement by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) here.

We are witnessing a defining civil rights moment in world history. UWOFA stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and we are committed to ensuring the equitable inclusion of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) individuals and communities. As a community, Western has just begun to acknowledge how race, culture, sexuality, dis/ability, and gender shape the experiences of its faculty, students, and staff in inequitable ways. It is our responsibility as UWOFA members to do better and to support the institution as it makes meaningful structural changes to counter all forms of racism on our campus and within the City of London. The knowledge we produce and the positions we hold are a direct result of socio-economic and racial disparities as well as privilege, and as such they must be used to dismantle the oppressive racial systems of violence and institutional inequalities that pervade the lives of our students, staff, and colleagues. This radical work demands courage, collaboration, and a commitment to change over the long term.

We want to gather your insights about how to begin making these fundamental changes. Please reach out to UWOFA’s Equity Committee with your suggestions, comments, and questions.

The UWOFA membership has voted to ratify the tentative faculty collective agreement reached with the university administration.

Members of the faculty bargaining unit voted 90 per cent in favour of the deal in a vote that closed Friday, November 23. Visit the private members’ area of the UWOFA website for a summary of the tentative deal.

Your negotiating team and the university administration reached a tentative agreement on Friday, November 9 after 25 bargaining meetings.

The UWOFA Board of Directors has recommended that the tentative faculty collective agreement reached with the administration on Friday November 9 be brought to the membership for ratification.

An overview of the tentative agreement will be provided at a faculty Bargaining Unit meeting on Tuesday, November 20, University College Room 3110 (Conron Hall) from 12:30-2:30 p.m.

Members can also review details of the tentative agreement by signing into the private members’ area of the UWOFA website. Sign in with your UWO username and password.

Ratification Vote

You may cast your ratification ballot at the following locations:

• Thursday, November 22, 9:00 a.m. – 7 p.m., Social Science Centre 2nd floor lobby

• Friday, November 23, 9:00 a.m. – 4 p.m., Middlesex College main lobby

Please bring your university ID card or another piece of photo identification with you to the polls.

Electronic Voting

E-voting will also be available for those who will be away from the university and away from London during the ratification vote. Rest assured that the online voting system is secure and that your vote will remain anonymous. To participate in this electronic vote, you must contact the UWOFA office (uwofa@uwo.ca) before 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 20 with the following information:

1. your name and faculty/department;
2. your employee number;
3. the email address you are currently using; and
4. the nature of your leave and the reason(s) you are unable to vote on campus.

Those who are placed on the e-vote list will be removed from the paper voters list. They will not be able to cast their ballot in person. These members will receive an email on Wednesday, November 21 with detailed e-vote instructions.

The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) is pleased to announce that a tentative faculty collective agreement has been reached with the university administration.

“I’m so proud of our negotiating team for all their hard work and really thankful to the membership for their support of the team,” said UWOFA president Dan Belliveau.

The deal was reached early Friday morning, Nov. 9, after 25 bargaining sessions.

Further details will be made available in the coming days. A date for the ratification vote has yet to be determined.

UWOFA was pushing for more job security for contract faculty and compensation for all faculty members.

The 1,600 unionized full- and part-time faculty members at Western have been without a contract since June 30, 2018.

Yesterday, at this late stage in bargaining, the employer asked your negotiating team for concessions in our existing health benefits package – concessions that had not been proposed in their previous offers at the table. The employer offered a small salary increase that does not begin to close the wage gap that exists between Western and its comparator institutions (Guelph, McMaster, Waterloo and Queens). In fact it will only widen that gap over the period of the contract. What is being offered is still below many other recent settlements at Ontario universities. To add insult to injury, the employer has failed to offer anything significant to improve job security for our contract faculty members.

As detailed in previous Bargaining Bulletins, Western’s financial position is extremely strong, and yet the Board of Governors and administration consistently choose not to reinvest in the university’s core mission of quality education, teaching and research. Our examination of the university’s budget reveals the university has accumulated close to $700 million in surplus over the past 9 years. And a recent fund-raising campaign raised over $800 million. All this while student tuition has risen steadily over the past 5 years. It’s no wonder that Western enjoys a strong AA credit rating from Standard and Poor’s. Western can easily afford to reinvest in the university’s core mission, and it’s time they did.

Western’s financial position is extremely strong, and yet the Board of Governors and administration consistently choose not to reinvest in the core mission of quality education, teaching and research. As our examination of the university’s budget reveals, the university has accumulated close to $700 million in surplus over the past 9 years. It recently completed a fund-raising campaign that raised over $800 million. Student tuition has been rising steadily over the past 5 years. In February of 2018, Standard and Poor’s affirmed Western’s AA credit rating, noting the university’s “high levels of cash and available financial resources.” According to the rating agency, Western’s “financial assets are sufficient such that it would likely not default on its obligations under a provincial stress scenario in which all government funding was temporarily disrupted”.

Western can easily afford to reinvest in the university’s core mission, but they have repeatedly failed to do so. Instead, the administration has regularly imposed budget cuts on all faculties over the past decade (3% cuts are being demanded again this year). These cuts have degraded the quality of education and research at Western, increased class sizes, and reduced the amount of support staff and resources. Contract faculty have lost their jobs, while many others still lack any kind of meaningful job security. As a recent report by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) indicates, precarious employment disproportionately affects women and racialized faculty. In addition, full-time faculty members’ salaries and benefits have steadily deteriorated; Western is ranked 11^th in the province for average full-time compensation.

There is a clear pattern here. During each round of contract negotiations over the past decade, the administration tells UWOFA that it can’t afford to pay or support its faculty, librarians and archivists fairly. It’s the same story this year. The priorities and choices set by Western’s annual budget have already ensured that there is no money available to meet our compensation and job security proposals. It doesn’t have to be this way. Every budget, especially a budget during times of surplus, is a choice.

Compensation and Benefits

Faculty members across the university have been more than patient with Western’s administration. Under the guise of ‘austerity’ or ‘political uncertainty’, we have seen our wages stagnate and decline, with yearly scale increases falling below the rate of inflation. As of 2016, based on the latest available University and College Academic Staff System (UCASS) data, Western sits at 11th place in the province in terms of average full-time salary for its professors.

The administration is now offering a 1.25% scale increase for all faculty– part-time and full-time— over 4 years; well below the average rate of inflation of 2%., and well behind recent settlements at other universities (1.5% at Guelph, 1.7% at McMaster, 1.75% at Queen’s, and 2.6% at Waterloo). If we accept the administration’s offer, Western’s salaries are certain to fall even further behind our comparators’ in the years ahead. UWOFA estimates that beginning to close the gap would have a negligible impact on the enormous surpluses accumulated by the university. For the health of the university, however, the impact of reinvestment in faculty compensation would be huge; it would boost morale and deter faculty from seeking jobs elsewhere.

It’s difficult to imagine that Western would find an 11^th place ranking acceptable in any other sphere of university operations. When it comes to faculty compensation however, they are fine with being far less than ‘extraordinary’.

Job security for contract academic staff

Approximately 30% of UWOFA academic staff currently have no meaningful job security. This lack of security not only negatively affects our contract colleagues, it affects all of us. It makes curricular planning and development difficult and increases the service and supervisory load for probationary and tenured faculty. It also means these colleagues lack academic freedom, which has serious implications for their pedagogical decision-making and for the future of academic freedom in general.

While there has been some small movement at the table recently, the administration remains reluctant to engage substantively with UWOFA’s proposals to improve job security for contract academic staff –colleagues with limited-duties (LD) and limited-term (LT) appointments.

There is no doubt that Western is flush with cash.  Similarly, there is no doubt that the university’s financial well-being is, at least partially, built upon the hard work, low compensation and lack of job security of UWOFA members.

It’s well past time to re-invest in Western’s core mission of teaching and research. Our students and faculty deserve better, and the resources are there to make it happen. Western’s Board of Governors and administration simply have to choose to make it so.

No one wants a strike at Western. Please rest assured that UWOFA, your professors’ association, is working as hard as we can to avoid one. A strike deadline of November 9, 2018 has been set, but UWOFA and Western Admin are still negotiating and will be doing so right up to the deadline or a settlement is reached. If a deal seems likely, the deadline can also be deferred or delayed.

We know talk of a strike causes students a lot of anxiety, so we’ve prepared a set of answers to frequently asked questions here.

Remember: Western administration does not ‘own’ the university. Students, librarians and archivists, staff, and faculty comprise the heart of Western.

Q: What are the issues?

We are working on two main issues this round of bargaining: job security for contract faculty members and compensation that keeps pace with the rate of inflation.

Q: How do these issues affect students?

The quality of your education is deeply connected to the working conditions of your professors. We work to protect and enhance our working conditions at Western but doing this protects and enhances your learning conditions.

• Have you ever had trouble contacting a professor whose class you wished to take, or who you wanted to ask for a letter of reference? Have you noticed that some of the classes you sign up for do not have a faculty member’s name attached to them until the very last minute? Well over 30% of teachers at Western are paid per course, work on short-term contracts, and have no job security, benefits or pensions. Many of these professors are barely scraping by because Western’s administration is addicted to this cheap, just-in-time model of employment. Improving job security and compensation for these contract faculty members is a major issue for UWOFA in this round of bargaining.
• Did you know that Western has accumulated over half a billion dollars in operating surpluses over the last 6 years? All this while the university continues to impose budget cuts on faculties, which will inevitably result in expanded class sizes, job losses and strains on resources. Western is ranked 11th in the province in terms of average full-time faculty compensation and its compensation for contract faculty is similarly low. Low levels of compensation can mean higher rates of faculty attrition; some faculty will simply leave Western for better-paying jobs elsewhere. Fair compensation that keeps pace with the rate of inflation for all faculty members is another goal for us.

Job security for contract faculty and fair compensation for all faculty members can only improve the quality of your education at Western.

Q: What is UWOFA fighting for?

UWOFA is alarmed that Western has abandoned its core mission of high-quality teaching and research and failed to reinvest in its front line people.  We are fighting for job security for contract faculty and appropriate compensation for all faculty members.

Q: How will the strike affect me?

Classes will almost certainly be cancelled in the event of a strike. Your professors will not be coming on to campus for office hours and will likely not be available on email or on OWL. Although UWOFA regrets the very real disruption in your academic year that a strike may entail, all of this is done in the long-term interests of improving the quality of education at Western.

Q: What will it involve?

You will see pickets lines at university main entrances. These picket lines will not prevent access to the university grounds. Please feel free to stop and chat with professors on the picket lines. If you want, you can even join us!

Q: How long will it last?

The length of the possible strike will be determined by progress at the bargaining table. This necessarily involves both our Employer (UWO administration) and UWOFA.

Q: Who makes the decision about my exams and academic year?

All issues to do with academic accommodation for missed classes and exams will be determined by the administration. Please contact the president and provost directly.

Graduate students will most certainly have other unanswered questions.

• I’m a TA – will I still receive my pay?

Most likely, but please check with your union, PSAC 610, for clarification.

• If there is a strike, will graduate classes and supervisions continue?

No. According to the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (SGPS), graduate classes will be cancelled and supervision of graduate students by faculty members will be interrupted.

• What happens if my thesis exam is postponed into the next semester?

If thesis exams are postponed into the next term as a result of a strike, students will not be required to pay tuition for that term.

• Will I still receive my funding?

Yes. According to SGPS, graduate students will continue to receive their funding during a faculty strike.

• Will I still have access to my lab, office and library?

Yes.

• What about the deadlines for my thesis progression? 

Student accommodations have been made during strikes at other Canadian universities for such things as grant deadlines and other program milestones. However, these questions can only be answered by the senior UWO administration, including SGPS, Deans and Associate Deans. We recommend you ask them directly.

Q: Is there anything I can do?

Tell the Administration that you are concerned about the erosion of quality of education at Western, and support UWOFA by going here to send an email to President Amit Chakma, Chair of the Board of Governors Paul Jenkins, and the Provost Andy Hrymak.

If you wish to express a more personal message or ask further questions, you can reach them at President Chakma: achakma@uwo.ca, Paul Jenkins: pjenkin3@uwo.ca , Andy Hrymak: ahrymak@uwo.ca

You may also want to contact your student leaders.

Q: How can I stay updated on the status of contract negotiations?

Check out uwofa.ca, and our Bargaining Bulletins: www.uwofa.ca/news/bargaining-bulletins-faculty

Facebook: UWOFA
Twitter: @UWOFA

A “No Board” Report has been filed with the Ontario Ministry of Labour by provincially appointed conciliator Greg Long. The UWOFA faculty bargaining unit will be in a legal strike position on Friday November 9 at 12:01 a.m., and UWOFA’s Executive Committee has established this date as our firm strike deadline.

Talks with the employer are continuing, however. Our bargaining team heads back to the table this week, with eight negotiating sessions, five of them full day sessions, scheduled between October 30 and November 8. We remain hopeful that a deal can be reached at the table before the deadline.

While we are doing everything we can to avert a strike, we must prepare for one nonetheless. We recognize that members will have questions about the possibility of a strike. Please click here for answers to some of those questions.