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

• The key change is that Annual Performance Evaluation is now called Performance Evaluation and Members are no longer required to undergo assessment annually (except in circumstances described below).
• Annual Performance Evaluation for Full-Time Members has changed to Performance Evaluation where each Full-Time Member is evaluated once in a three-year cycle. The initial three-year Performance Evaluation cycle will run from the 2023-24 Academic Year to the 2025-26 Academic Year.
• Annual Performance Evaluation for Part-Time Members has changed to Performance Evaluation and is now optional. By October 1st every year, Part-Time Members shall indicate to their Chair, Director or Dean if they wish to participate during that year.
• The reporting period for each Member’s Performance Evaluation is still the preceding three Academic Years.
• Performance-Linked Career Progress (merit pay) will still be distributed every year, but the Basic Salary Points will be the same for each year in the three-year period between Performance Evaluations.
• Members will still determine whether evaluations will be conducted by a Committee, or by the Chair, Director or Dean, but this decision will be made once per three-year cycle and remain in effect throughout. Performance Evaluation Committees will therefore be constituted for a three-year term. This determination will now be made by May 31st in the final year of a three-year cycle for the next three-year cycle.
• Even if it is determined that the Performance Evaluation is not done by Committee, Units must still elect a Performance Evaluation Committee for each three-year cycle because this Committee must establish the procedures and criteria to be used in the next cycle by December 1 of the final year of the current three-year cycle.
• Units may choose to elect the Performance Evaluation Committee at the same time as they determine who will carry out the evaluations for the next cycle (i.e., May 31st in the final year of a three-year cycle) or at a time thereafter, but which leaves sufficient time to meet the deadline of reviewing the criteria by December 1 of the final year of the cycle.
• In Units where Members with Limited Duties or Standing Appointment may be evaluated, the Committee should include a Part-Time Member with Standing Appointment, who will serve a one-year term, renewable twice.
• If a Member’s performance is categorized as below acceptable in any of the three areas of Academic Responsibilities, the Member is required to have their performance evaluated annually until they receive an assessment of acceptable or higher in all three areas.

Transition Provisions for Determining Full-Time Members’ Evaluation Year in the Initial Three-Year Cycle

• By June 30th, 2023, all Full-Time Members shall indicate to their Chair, Director or Dean the order of preference for the year in which their performance is to be assessed (i.e., first choice: 2024-25; second choice: 2025-26; third choice: 2023-24). In determining preferences, Members should take their last Evaluation scores into account – those with lower scores may opt to go forward as soon as possible, while those with higher scores may prefer to wait. Performance in areas of Academic Responsibility is another consideration – those with a recent significant output, achievement or effort in Teaching, Research or Service might like to have it evaluated sooner.
• The Chair, Director, or Dean shall review Member preferences and, where possible, allocate Members to their preferred year. If this allocation results in unequal distributions, the Chair, Director, or Dean shall make efforts through consultation with Members to achieve an approximately equal distribution each year. The Chair, Director, or Dean can make a final allocation if consultations are unsuccessful. This process must be completed by September 1, 2023.
• For this initial three-year cycle, Full-Time Members can elect to be evaluated more than once. They shall communicate their election to participate to their Chair, Director, or Dean in writing by October 1st of the applicable evaluation year. This election can be withdrawn in writing up to November 15th of the applicable year.

Transition Provisions for Merit Pay Calculations

• For Members who will not be required to participate in Performance Evaluation until the second or third year of the three-year cycle, the Basic Salary Points for Performance-Linked Career Progress (merit pay) will be based on the 2022-23 Performance Evaluation or the average of the previous three years’ assessments, whichever is greater.

Transition Provisions for Committees to Revise Performance Evaluation Criteria Documents

• If a Unit has not already done so, it must elect a Performance Evaluation Committee to carry out the work of revising the Performance Evaluation Criteria Documents.
• By May 31st, 2023 the Committee, together with the Dean or designated Associate Dean shall identify in writing the procedures and criteria for the assessment of performance of Full- and Part-Time Members in the Unit to occur during the three-year Performance Evaluation cycle.
• These procedures and criteria shall be ratified by June 30th, 2023 according to clause 5 and 5.1 of the Performance Evaluation article.

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:

• May 15: 2-4
• May 16: 1-4
• May 19: 9-12
• June 6: 9-12
• June 12: 9-4
• June 20: 9-4
• June 21: 9-12
• June 22: 10-4
• June 23: 9-4
• June 26: 9-4
• June 27: 11-4
• June 28: 9-4
• July 5: 9-4
• July 6: 10-4
• July 7: 9-4
  

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:

• Phone: 416-325-1941
• Email: premier@ontario.ca
• Social media: @OntarioPCparty and @fordnation on Twitter; https://www.facebook.com/ONgov

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:

• Phone: 416-325-1941
• Email: premier@ontario.ca
• Social media: @OntarioPCparty and @fordnation on Twitter; https://www.facebook.com/ONgov 

UWOFA will be releasing a full statement on Friday clarifying the potential impact of this court decision for each of our bargaining units.

UWOFA is pleased to see the Employer commit to supporting such important teaching and learning opportunities.