The Nipissing University Faculty Association (NUFA) is pleased to announce that the tentative agreement reached between the Full-Time Academic Bargaining Unit (FASBU) and the Employer on November 26, 2015, has been ratified by the bargaining unit with 93 per cent voting in favour of the deal.
“From the outset we knew that this was going to be a really tough negotiation, said NUFA President Susan Srigley. “The most important factor in fighting against clawbacks and making some gains was the unity of our Members. They gave us the strength to get the Employer back to the table to make a fair deal.”
Some of the highlights of the four-year agreement include:
- The creation of a special commission on Governance to examine Nipissing University’s governance structures in relationship to the best practices at other Canadian universities. This joint commission will include Board, Faculty and Student representation.
- 12 additional weeks of maternity leave top-up for birth mothers.
- Improved tenure and promotion language, privacy language, health and safety language.
- Improved benefits for retirees, including an increase to their health care spending accounts.
- A phased-in retirement plan.
- Preservation of language that protects the terms and conditions of limited term contract faculty
- Increases to salary over four years of 0%, 1.5%, 1.75% and 1.75%
- Two steps added to the ceiling of the salary grid across all ranks
“All NUFA Members can be proud of this deal. It puts us on the path to fix some of the structural problems at Nipissing, to resist the growth of casualized labour, and to start bridging the gap in our Members’ salaries relative to other faculty across the province. The real work starts now to ensure that faculty voices are heard,” said Hilary Earl, FASBU Chief Negotiator.
The university’s Board of Governors ratified the deal on November 27, 2015.