THE
AUFA PRESIDENT COMMUNICATES
It has been a very busy and interesting introduction to life as Association President. I attended a New Presidents Workshop in Ottawa in early June. The workshop was put on by CAUT which largely covered the costs of attending. I found it to be a very worthwhile experience, meeting people from across the country and listening and discussing the issue with them.
Your Executive has had a busy summer and early fall running various workshops and planning for the upcoming year.
In August we ran a Renewal, Tenure and Promotion Workshop that was intended to give members who were in the process of preparing dossiers some insight into the workings of the URC. We had a panel of former URC members composed of Barry Moody, Phil Taylor and John Sumarah. In addition, Karmen Bleile and Mary MacLeod offered their expertise so that we could address issues of concern for all of our members. The discussion was very lively and informative and it is our intention to make this an annual event. A hearty thanks to all the panelists.
In late September we offered a New Faculty Orientation Session. We attempted to run through what we felt were the most important sections of the contract. I fear it was a little bit like asking them to drink from a fire-hose! Nevertheless, we were able to cover a lot of ground and I hope they found it useful. Once again, I think it is a good idea to offer this on an on-going annual basis. Thanks to Janice Best for her support and guidance in the preparation and delivery of the Workshop.
Renewal, Tenure and Promotion season is rapidly approaching, with DRC work right around the corner. I strongly encourage all people involved in the process, whether as applicants or members of either a DRC or the URC, to carefully review and adhere to the procedures as they are laid out in Article 12.
As I am sure all of you are aware, we are in the final year of the 11th Collective Agreement. As such, we must begin the preparations required to successfully negotiate the 12th Collective Agreement. The Appointment and Working Conditions, Financial Benefits, and Legal and Technical Committees have been struck and have begun the necessary research required to establish where we are relative to national standards. They will be issuing their reports in late October. Throughout November, we will be holding Town Hall meetings to get input from the membership with respect to priorities and any other issues which you feel need to be addressed in negotiations. With that input, they will then prepare proposals in Contract Language. These will be circulated in early February and discussed and hopefully finalized at our February General Meeting. It is absolutely essential that we get your input throughout the process of developing our negotiating position and I encourage each and every one of you to participate fully in that process.
Our Negotiating Team has also been hard at work preparing for negotiations. They attended a CAUT sponsored Advanced Collective Bargaining Course in the spring as part of their preparations. I am confident that we have a group of experienced and well-prepared negotiators on the team. We need to work together to give them a clear indication of the Associations objectives for the 12th Collective Agreement.
Following the modifications to the Association’s Constitution that were approved at the Annual General Meeting last year, we have implemented our new Grievance procedures. An Association Grievance Committee has been created and has begun its work. CAUT came to campus and offered a grievance handling workshop that the Committee attended. Our Chief Grievance Officer will be writing an article for the Communicator to explain what these new procedures are.
Finally, I would like to wish you all the best for a productive academic year and I look forward to meeting and speaking with you over the course of the year.
Peter Williams