CAUT
COUNCIL REPORT
Equity was discussed and it was pointed out that there is some good info on the CLC website about this issue. Linda Rumelski from CAUT reminded member associations to have their relevant committees interact with her.
Occupational Health hand Safety – there is a workshop coming up at Mount Allison on this issue and we should send some delegates. I also spoke to Laura Lozanski about raising OHSC awareness on campus. She has developed some course on this and most recently has one familiarising people with the relevant legislation and learning how to pursue grievance on these issue.
There is also a course on ergonomics.
NUCAUT Budget – of the $126,000 of total revenues, $106,000 goes to CLC.
Benefits – I reported on the efforts of our employer through the Joint Benefits survey to steer us in the direction of flexible benefits. The group reacted with general dismay to this news. Please see more discussion on this issue below in the general Council Report.
Bullying – A very interesting presentation by Angelo Soares on bullying. He offered a definition from Caroll Brodsky (1976) of bullying.
Bullying consists of the repeated and obstinate attempts of one person to torment, frustrate, or attempt to break the resistance of another person, an attempt to get a wanted reaction from them. It is a form of treatment that, applied with persistence, provokes, pressures, frightens, intimidates and inconveniences the victim.
For those who are interested in learning more, there is an upcoming international conference June 4-6, 2008 at UQAM – see http://www.bullying2008.uqam.ca/en/mot_du_president.asp for more details.
Civil Liberties – As always, the issue of civil liberties was discussed at Council as this is an essential element in societies that provides the foundation of academic freedom. Various factors were cited as contributors to this erosion:
1) Casualization of the Academic Workforce – in 1975 in the US, approximately 57% of university faculty were either tenured or on the tenure track. By 2005, that had dropped to 32%.
2) Separation of Instructor from Content – faculty who are hired to play previously prepared video lectures in class and then answer questions.
3) Loss of Intellectual Property rights – this is what permits 2) to occur
4) Control of Records and Means of Communication – Universities have begun to assert their right to access any material we have created, including emails, office files, etc.
5) Greater funder/university linkages – while there are some benefits to engaging in research that is of mutual interest to industry and researchers, one must guard against some pitfalls that can occur, such as the Nancy Olivieri case where the industry funding the research took extraordinary measures to suppress the results of her clinical trials of their drug.
6) Changes to research granting agency practices – in the latest federal budget, all new SSHRC and NSERC funding was targeted funding.
Canada Research Chairs Human Rights Complaint Settlement – a complaint was filed against the CRC program in May 2003, alleging that the Canada Research Chairs Program discriminates against women, aboriginal people, people with disability, visible minorities and other equity-seeking groups contrary to section 5 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. A tribunal was created and a settlement was reached - http://www.caut.ca/uploads/Settlement-signed2nov06.pdf. Apparently there has been little progress made towards implementing the settlement. A document was circulated outlining steps associations may take to assist this process.
Irish Federation of University Teachers – We were privileged to have Mike Jennings, the General Secretary of this organization address Council and outline some of the challenges they are facing in Ireland. Many of the issues they are dealing with were all too familiar. I was particularly struck by a remark he made with respect to the practice of using performance indicators – “Can’t count what is valuable, so value what is countable.”
CAUT National Benefit Trust – Mike Sanford of the Canadian Benefit Consulting Group addressed Council on the idea of forming a National Benefit Trust within CAUT to administer benefits plans on behalf of Faculty Associations. Mr. Sanford has been working with the Saint Mary’s Faculty Union to establish a benefit trust there.
Vic Catano from Saint Mary’s also participated in the discussion and he reported that the experience they had had in doing this was very positive. He reported that although it had required a considerable effort to set the trust up, in the end it resulted in lower costs and better benefit coverage for the members of SMUFU.
Recently you were asked to complete a benefits survey by our Triennial Review Committee. On that survey, we were asked to indicate our level of interest in flexible benefits. Mr. Sanford indicated in his presentation that when an employer starts to discuss flexible benefits, it signals that they are looking to either fix or reduce their benefits costs. Naturally, this is attractive to the employer. The SMUFU experience would seem to suggest that it is possible to achieve an enhancement of benefits at a fixed cost, and presumably there could be a cost reduction without sacrificing the level of benefits we currently enjoy.
Since the employer share of benefits coverage typically run from about 2-8%, and employee shares are in the same range, benefits are clearly a significant part of our compensation structure and ensuring that we are optimizing our benefits spending should be a priority. It is also important to remember that the employer share of the benefits package really is “your” money, as we have accepted reduced monetary compensation in order to have a benefits plan.
Professor Catano has agreed to visit Acadia to outline the SMUFU experience for us and I think it would be very worthwhile to examine closely what they have done there and consider whether it is a direction we would like to explore further.
CAUT Elections – Elections were held for various positions within the CAUT, the results of which were:
First Nations University of Canada – Council debated whether to begin the process of censuring First Nations University of Canada. Censure is imposed by Council according to the following procedure. If persuaded that a censure is justified, the Council will pass a motion giving notice to the administration concerned that unless the dispute is resolved, censure will be imposed at its next meeting. This action will be publicized within the Canadian academic community. The Association will undertake renewed efforts to settle the dispute, and report progress to the Council. On the basis of that report the Council may decide to impose censure, which will remain in effect until the Council is satisfied that the matter has been satisfactorily resolved. The situation at First Nations University of Canada was reported on in the September 2005 Issue of the CAUT Bulletin http://www.cautbulletin.ca/default.asp?vol=6&no=118. At the council meeting last November, delegates voted that CAUT officials should meet with the FNUC president and board chair to discuss concerns over governance, academic freedom and the failure to implement the academic staff’s collective agreement. There has been no reply to CAUT’s requests for a meeting.
Censure is an extremely important sanction that must be used carefully and I have described its consequences in my article on the Ad Hoc investigation into the dismissal of Professor Wightman.
The motion was ultimately passed after some discussion. I felt that the motion should be modified to make it clear that Council was notifying the Board of the University, as opposed to the entire University, of their preparedness to invoke censure and several other speakers echoed that sentiment. However, we were unsuccessful in getting the amendment approved by council. I ultimately abstained from voting on the motion.
This matter is more than simply of passing interest for us at Acadia as I indicated in my article describing the CAUT Ad Hoc Investigation into the termination of Professor Wightman.
Summary – All in all, a very interesting and stimulating council meeting where we once again were reminded of important issues that have been simmering for some time and got a glimpse into the emerging issues that will be challenging us in the near future.
Peter Williams