Bargaining is heating up around the province in May, with multiple days of bargaining scheduled at Carleton, Nipissing and Brescia. York anticipates having days scheduled by mid-May. Complex negotiations are also underway at the Canadian Military Colleges Faculty Association (CMCFA), which represents faculty at the Royal Military College, to deal with Federal Budget’s demand that a substantial number of academic positions be cut from the military college system.
During the April 20, 2012 OCUFA Collective Bargaining Committee meeting, faculty association chief negotiators met and discussed current bargaining issues. Chief negotiators were pleased to hear that Minister of Labour Linda Jeffrey confirmed, in a meeting with OCUFA President Constance Adamson, that bargaining will occur “as usual” in 2012-13. Faculty associations across Ontario intend to proceed with responsible local bargaining sensitive to the current provincial fiscal situation, as demonstrated by the settlement pattern for faculty over the past two years. At the meeting, negotiators also participated in skill building workshops on how to utilize university financial statements in bargaining, and how to properly cost faculty career progress.
This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.