THE
POINT ON BARGAINING AT UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL
After almost two years of negotiations an agreement was reached at the bargaining table on Saturday November 10th. This agreement will now be submitted to proper instances by both sides.
The negotiations were much more than a simple wrestling match between the
Employer and the Union. They involved the very future of “Université
Laval” and the place of professors in our institution. Four major issues
emerged: 1) Role of professors at the University, 2) Protection of Faculty, 3)
Workload and 4) Overall compensation.
First, on the role of professors, the University
wished to exploit professors as mere executors. SPUL
finally succeeded in defending the principles of collegiality, reinforcing the
central role of professors within the University and ensuring their
independence and autonomy.
On the issue of Faculty protection, the University
proposed still fewer professors to accomplish more work. They were asking us to
withdraw from our collective agreement all clauses covering the protection of
professorial staff. Our future collective agreement includes a minimum employee
level, a minimum that could be better but is acceptable when considering the
financial conditions of universities in Québec. Our main gains are the
mechanisms put in place to guarantee and improve this minimum.
On the workload issue, had the Employer’s
draft been implemented, the head of a department could have imposed a change in professors’
workload at any time without their agreement or that of the departmental
assembly. But this clause, and others in the same vein, were withdrawn in the
new agreement. The principles of collegiality in assigning workloads are
maintained.
Regarding overall compensation, the University
was “offering” us … a pay cut. Due to the University’s financial difficulties, the
Employer was seeking another premium holiday from our pension fund. This
holiday would have been equivalent to a net cut to professors’ pay of 8.5
percent per year over five years. The Employer also wanted to back out of our
collective contingency programs and thus further reduce professors’ pay. The
Employer finally withdrew these demands. Moreover the increases in salary from
1999 to 2003 will be those of the public sector in Québec, which is 9 %
overall.
A general meeting
of the union is called for Friday November 23rd.
Claude Banville, President
Laval University
Professors’ Union