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College part-time support staff granted unionization vote

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On June 13, 2016, the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) ruled that part-time support staff at Ontario’s 24 public community colleges will vote on whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). According to OPSEU, this will be the largest representation vote in Canadian history.

“This is a great moment in Ontario labour history, and our union is thankful that the Board has opted to hold the vote this month,” OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas said in an OPSEU press release. “Part-time college support staff have literally waited for decades to have the chance to unionize. Their dream of being able to bargain better wages and working conditions, and create provincial standards for both, is now within reach.”

Like in Ontario’s universities, precarious work is a serious problem in the province’s community colleges. Thousands of workers – both academic and in support staff roles – are trapped in insecure positions with low pay and poor access to benefits. This can have negative consequences for individual in precarious work, their families, and their communities. The conditions of precarious work are also a threat to the quality of education offered by Ontario’s colleges and universities.

“In the course of this organizing drive, we’ve talked to workers who’ve been paid with gift cards instead of money. We’ve met people who have been doing the same job for eight years but still can’t get a sick day. College part-timers have no job security, and they seldom get the same wages as full-timers doing the same work,” said Thomas.

The representation votes will be held between June 20 and June 30, 2016. A complete schedule of the votes can be found here.

You can show your support for precarious academic workers using OCUFA’s We Teach Ontario web pledge.

Deb Matthews new Minister responsible for universities

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On Monday June 13, 2016, Premier Kathleen Wynne shuffled her cabinet and appointed Deb Matthews as the new Minister of Advanced Education and Skills. This new portfolio absorbs the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, and will play a coordinating role with skills and training programs operated within other ministries.

Minister Matthews was previously the Chair of the Treasury Board, and she remains Deputy Premier and Chair of Cabinet. In addition to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills, Minister Matthews has also been given responsibility for the new Digital Government portfolio. In a statement by the government, Matthews will use her new responsibilities to lead Ontario’s “transition to a knowledge-based economy.”

OCUFA looks forward to working with Minister Matthews as we continue our work to address key issues in the university sector, including reviewing the university funding model; addressing the rise of precarious work in our universities; developing a new higher education internationalization strategy; addressing sexual violence on campus; and working on the development of a university sector multi-employer jointly-sponsored pension plan (the University Pensions Project).

OCUFA staff is currently working on scheduling a meeting with Minister Matthews, where we hope to learn more about her priorities and goals in the university sector.

OCUFA at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities

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The Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities is Canada’s largest gathering of scholars, with more than 70 scholarly associations meeting under one umbrella event. Not surprisingly, it’s a place where university issues are raised, explored, and debated. As in past years, OCUFA was pleased to be able to attend the 85th Congress at the University of Calgary.

Academic Matters editor and OCUFA communications director Graeme Stewart was “our man in Calgary” for this year’s event. While the Canadian Society for Studies in Higher Education (CSSHE) always has relevant and interesting sessions, a variety of other associations also looked at higher ed issues like the Association for Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE), the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE) and the Canadian Association for the Study of Indigenous Education (CASIE).
If you weren’t able to make Congress this year, you can check out Graeme’s blog posts:

Next year’s Congress will be at Ryerson University, and OCUFA is planning to be there.

 

Next steps for the university funding formula review

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The next phase of Ontario’s review of the university funding formula is beginning to take shape, and OCUFA remains engaged with all aspects of the project.

On May 11, 2016, Deputy Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Sheldon Levy announced that Glenn Craney, formerly of the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT), has been appointed Expert Lead of the funding renewal project. Craney and his team are tasked with developing design options that build on the work done by Sue Herbert in 2015. The goal is to provide recommendations to government on elements of the updated funding model by Fall 2016.

As with the 2015 funding formula consultations, OCUFA will continue to provide research and options that will create a funding model that supports a sustainable and high-quality university sector. In the coming months, we plan on making the following areas priorities for policy development:

  1. Funding stability for universities experiencing demographic fluctuations. This of course includes institutions in the North, but also select institutions in Southwestern and Eastern Ontario. There are a few potential options for addressing this issue, including revising the existing corridor model to emphasize its function as a funding floor, as opposed to an enrolment cap. Given the social and economic value of university programming in the North and other regions, it is worth exploring how to enhance existing special purpose funding envelopes for these institutions, and perhaps expanding these funds to more institutions. These measures would also help to ensure that comprehensive programming at the undergraduate level is available across the province, and is not undermined by the government’s differentiation agenda.
  2. Ensuring accountability without resorting to punishment-based funding. We believe measurement and accountability are important, but we do not support funding regimes where money is taken away or withheld from ostensibly under-performing institutions. A sector focused on collaborative and continuous improvement, nourished by robust data, and supported by stable funding will produce the best results.
  3. An open discussion of the limitations and appropriate use of learning outcomes. The use of learning outcomes as an institutional- or system-level performance metric is a problematic idea, and it is important that a rigorous discussion on this proposal be encouraged within the sector. At the outset, it is important to recognize that learning outcomes are rigorously assessed at the course and program level. It is also important to acknowledge that existing learning outcome measures are not well suited for institutional- or system-level assessment. Development of appropriate measures will be a complex and resource-intensive process, well beyond the scope of the existing renewal project. If such measures are developed, it is important that they not be used as a punishment-based metric, or act as a pre-text for taking funding away from universities.
  4. Creation of a stakeholder-led postsecondary data system. The need for better data on Ontario’s universities is at this point uncontroversial. As noted in Sue’s report, better collection and dissemination of meaningful data will dramatically improve the transparency and accountability of the university sector. However this data system is constituted, it is essential that all stakeholders be given the ability to articulate their data needs. A data steering committee, with equal representation from all sector stakeholders including government, would be one way to accomplish this goal.
  5. Recognizing that enrolment will continue to be an important part of the funding model. In our previous submission the University Funding Model Review, we pointed out that the funding formula must, at some level, be responsive to the number of students in the sector and the program decisions made by those students. Student choice need not be the only metric for determining operating grants, but it should be a central one. We are very interested in working with you to determine how to update existing enrolment mechanisms in the funding model.

OCUFA leadership has already met with Glenn Craney, and another meeting is scheduled for June 8, 2016.  You can read our submission to the 2015 funding model review here, and read the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities’ report on the initial consultation process on the MTCU website. For the latest news on the university funding model review, be sure to check the OCUFA website and OCUFA Report.

2016 Worldviews Lecture now available online

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OCUFA and its partners are pleased to announce that a video of the 2016 Worldviews Lecture on Higher Education is now available online. The second annual lecture was delivered on April 13th, 2016 by Professor Rajani Naidoo, Chair in Higher Education Management and Director International Centre for Higher Education Management at the University of Bath.  The title of her lecture was “Beyond the Competition Fetish: Higher Education for Global Wellbeing.”

Nearly 100 in-person and online participants attended Prof. Naidoo’s engaging and insightful talk. In her view, in an educational world increasingly dominated by university rankings and performance indicators, it is important to understand the rise of the competition fetish and to formulate strategies for resistance. Such resistance involves articulating alternative conceptions, such as viewing higher education as a vehicle for promoting global wellbeing and human flourishing.

The link for streaming the archived webcast can be found at:

https://play.library.utoronto.ca/OKt4ensb7msA

More information about the Worldviews Lecture can be found at:

Worldviewsconference.com/

The annual Worldviews Lecture was organized by OCUFA and the Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, with additional sponsorship by Inside Higher Education, University World News, and the Academica Group.

Faculty at Ottawa ratify collective agreement

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On Monday, May 9, 2016 the members of the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO) ratified their new collective agreement. The new deal is for two years.

The deal passed with 96.7 per cent of voting members in favour. The leadership of APUO expressed their thanks to the membership “for the strong and continued support given to us during this round of bargaining.”

More details of the tentative agreement can be found on the APUO website.

Queen’s, Waterloo faculty members receive the OCUFA Service Award

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The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is pleased to announce this year’s recipients OCUFA Service Award: Constance Adamson from the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA), and Kate Lawson from the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW).

“The OCUFA Service Award was established to honour individuals who have done, or continue to do, exceptional work on behalf of OCUFA and its member faculty associations,” said Judy Bates, President of OCUFA. “We are thrilled to bestow this award on two such deserving individuals.

Constance Adamson, an academic librarian at Queen’s, served as OCUFA’s president from 2011-2013, providing exemplary leadership to the organization. She also served as Chair of OCUFA’s Board of Directors from 2013 to 2014. Through it all, she has been a stalwart and tireless defender of the rights of faculty, librarians, and archivists.

Kate Lawson was the OCUFA President from 2013-2015, guiding the Confederation through a period of challenge, change, and opportunity. She has also provided critical leadership as Chair of OCUFA’s Online Education Committee with her characteristic wisdom, insight, and sensitivity.

“The recipients of this award have time and time again gone above the call of duty and provided tireless service to their colleagues at home and across the province,” said Bates. “Without their work, OCUFA could simply not achieve its dual goal of protecting the rights and interests of faculty while promoting a high-quality, accessible university system.”

OCUFA announces winners of 2016 Mandelbaum Fellowship

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The Ontario Confederation is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Henry Mandelbaum Fellowship: Chérine Stevula, from the University of Guelph, and Karen Marie Olsen Lawford from the University of Ottawa.

“The Mandelbaum Fellowship recognizes graduate students who combine exceptional scholarship with deep engagement in their communities,” said Kate Lawson, Chair of the selection committee. “Despite receiving many excellent applications, the committee was unanimous in selecting Chérine and Karen as the recipients of the 2016 Fellowship.”

At the Master’s level, Chérine Stevula was recognized for her innovative work on the educational experiences of Hispanic youth with an eye to making Canadian classrooms more inclusive and effective. Chérine, a student in Guelph’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, is also very active in her community, notably as a mentor for immigrant and employment services at the local YMCA.

At the Doctoral level, Karen Marie Olsen Lawford’s work looks at the gap in Canadian maternal health care for First Nations women who live in northern communities. A PhD candidate in Ottawa’s Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, Karen’s nominators describe her as an exemplary community member, committed activist, and a dedicated scholar.

The Mandelbaum Fellowship was established to honor Henry Mandelbaum, Executive Director of OCUFA from 1996-2011. The Fellowship is awarded to a graduate student “who has demonstrated academic excellence, shows exceptional academic promise, and has provided significant community service in his or her university career.” For more information, please visit https://ocufa.on.ca/ocufa-awards/

“Henry’s commitment to building up individuals and communities through higher education was inspirational,” said Judy Bates, President of OCUFA. “Henry sadly passed away in 2012, but we are honoured to continue his work through the Mandelbaum Fellowship.”

Faculty at Ottawa reach tentative settlement

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On April 25, 2016, the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO) reached a tentative deal with their employer. The APUO released the following statement on their website:

We are happy to report that we have been able to reach a deal with the employer. The agreement was reached at the end of the fifth full day of mediation.

We believe that we have negotiated the best deal possible in the current circumstances and we are happy to recommend its ratification. The agreement will be presented to the APUO Executive this afternoon. A Special General Assembly (SGA) and secret vote to ratify the agreement will take place before May 15, 2016. All relevant information will be forwarded to you as soon as possible.

We would like to thank all of our colleagues who contributed to the bargaining process over the last year, specifically the members of the Collective Bargaining Committee, as well as the excellent professional advice and support of OCUFA and CAUT. Furthermore, we would like to thank the independent mediator, Peter Simpson, who worked extremely hard to facilitate this deal.

Thank you again for your extraordinary support.

More details of the new agreement will be available upon ratification, and will be published on the APUO website and in OCUFA Report.

Gender wage gap consultation summary released

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On April 19, 2016, the provincial government released a summary of the Gender Wage Gap Steering Committee’s consultations. This Steering Committee was established last spring and tasked with developing recommendations for the creation of a strategy to close the gender wage gap in Ontario. A series of province wide consultations was the first step in this process. OCUFA participated in the consultation process by submitting a written brief and meeting with the Steering Committee.

The report provided a straightforward summary of the consultations, outlining where the committee traveled, how the consultation process worked, who participated, and what was heard.

In the overview of what was heard, the report highlighted several clusters of issues that were raised. It noted the effect on women’s earnings of moving in and out of the workforce to raise families. It also highlighted the persistence of a care penalty, whereby jobs in the caring professions such as nursing or midwifery tend to be undervalued. The availability of high quality and affordable public childcare was highlighted at multiple points throughout the consultation summary as a centrally important tool for addressing the gender wage gap.

Increasing the transparency in pay within organizations was suggested as a potential way of making the salary negotiation process more equitable. Protection from workplace discrimination was raised as a potential issue of concern, and there was recognition of the particular challenges faced by racialized women, low income women, and women with disabilities when it comes to pay equity.

The consultation summary also highlighted that some employers did not want to see additional legislation or regulations to close the gender wage gap. Instead, it was suggested that government should establish incentives for addressing pay equity.
Changes to labour and employment law were outside the scope of these consultations and will be referred to the Changing Workplaces Review process.

The summary of what was heard provides a preview of the kinds of policy solutions the Steering Committee will eventually propose, but at this stage no recommendations were made. Recommendations to the Minister of Labour on how to address the gender wage gap in Ontario will be outlined in the Steering Committee’s final report, which is expected to be released sometime in June.

 

Faculty, staff, and grad students vote “No Confidence” in Carleton Board of Governors

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On April 11, 2016, the Carleton University Academic Staff Association (CUASA) passed a motion of non-confidence in Carleton’s Board of Governors. The CUASA motion was joined by similar votes by grad students and administrative staff, and follows attempts by the Board to stifle discussion and criticism through restrictive new bylaws and attacks on critical members.

CUASA and its allies released the following statement:

Over the past week, unions representing faculty, librarians, administrative staff, and graduate students at Carleton University have unanimously passed motions of non-confidence in the Board of Governors. These motions express the sincere concerns of students and workers, who believe that the Board of Governors does not have the best interests of the community or the public good at heart. They raise the question of whether the Board can be trusted to make important decisions about the operations and future of Carleton University.

These non-confidence motions follow mounting frustration on campus surrounding the state of academic governance at Carleton University, and the introduction of controversial new bylaws which were passed by the Board on March 21st. The new bylaws make the Board less open, less accountable, and centralize power within the Executive Committee of the Board. The changes also entrench the highly contentious Code of Conduct into the bylaws, imposing a lifetime gag order on elected governors and restricting them from communicating back to their constituencies.

Carleton University has faced heightened scrutiny over the last few months over its secretive, exclusionary, and regressive approach to governance. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has threatened to blacklist the institution for violating the academic freedom of Dr. Root Gorelick, who is a faculty representative on the Board.
These motions come as new revelations demonstrate the extent to which Carleton University is prepared to violate academic freedom in order to silence dissent. In a feature article (link) published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in the Spring 2016 issue of Our Schools/Our Selves, Dr. Gorelick writes in detail about how Carleton University has violated his academic freedom in its retaliation against his blogging about open sessions of the Board. In addition to the threats of removal from the Board, his employment has also been threatened with disciplinary action by Carleton University Human Resources, and the university has locked him out of his teaching and research website.

The non-confidence motions were unanimously passed by the Council of the Graduate Students’ Association on April 8, the Carleton University Academic Staff Association at their Annual General Meeting on April 11, and the Executive Board of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 2424 on April 14.

An article on the Carleton controversy written by Root Gorelick will be featured in the upcoming issue of Academic Matters, out in May.

OCUFA co-hosts second annual Worldviews Lecture

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On April 13, 2016, OCUFA was very pleased to co-host the second annual Worldviews Lecture with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. This year’s lecture featured Rajani Naidoo, Chair in Higher Education Management and Director International Centre for Higher Education Management at the University of Bath.

Professor Naidoo delivered a lecture exploring what she calls the “competition fetish” in higher education. She argued that the obsession with competition on the part of governments and institutions is shaping universities in very particular ways, and obscuring other ways of thinking about university education. In her view, a “global wellbeing” frame may be a much more positive way of conceptualizing the relationship between universities and broader society.

Nearly 100 in-person and online participants attended Prof. Naidoo’s lecture. An archived version of the webcast will be available here.

The annual Worldviews Lecture is a spinoff of the popular Worldviews Conferences on Media and Higher Education, which have been organized by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, OISE/University of Toronto, the Washington-based Inside Higher Ed and the London-based University World News. This year, Worldviews was pleased to welcome Academica Group as a sponsor.

Ontario faculty throw weight behind day of action for $15 & Fairness

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University professors and academic librarians are joining in a day of action for $15 & Fairness across Ontario today. Workers from a range of workplaces and sectors will be taking part – all of whom are facing common challenges such as unpredictable scheduling, job insecurity, poor access to benefits, and unfair pay.

“The idea that a PhD is a golden ticket to a good job is increasingly inaccurate,” said Fran Cachon a contract professor at the University of Windsor. “Today, young scholars – who are increasingly women and people of colour – are struggling to find footing in the academy. It is our frustration with this reality motivating us to demand fairness alongside other workers in our communities.”

Contract professors must struggle with unfair pay, poor access to benefits, and must often string together multiple contracts at different universities just to make a living. The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) estimates the number of courses taught by contract faculty teaching at Ontario universities has doubled since 2000. But a recent poll showed that Ontarians believe universities should be moving in the other direction, with 94 per cent saying that universities should be model employers and support good jobs in their communities.

With the Ontario government currently reviewing employment and labour law to address the rise of precarious work, the timing is right to consider change. OCUFA has made recommendations to the Changing Workplaces Review on how to raise standards for contract faculty and to update labour law to ensure all workers can organize collectively in a union. The proposals include requiring equal pay for work of equal value and equal access to benefits for contract workers, and requiring that all workers receive reasonable notice of their schedules.

“We’re standing up today to say contract workers in all sectors deserve better,” said OCUFA President Judy Bates. “Faculty working conditions are the learning conditions in our classrooms, labs, and libraries. When we ensure that every academic job is a good job, we create a quality learning experience for students.”

OCUFA is one of over 50 community and labour organizations that is part of the Fight for $15 & Fairness across Ontario. Supporters of fairness for contract faculty can sign a pledge that was launched by OCUFA’s We Teach Ontario campaign.

New study shows how punishment-based funding hurts low-income students

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A new study published in the Journal of Education Finance suggests that public two- and four-year higher education institutions might be reducing enrolment of low-income students due to punishment-based funding (PBF) regimes, where money is tied to specific performance indicators. This paper joins the growing body of research that demonstrates the ineffectiveness of PBF in improving student outcomes.

Using data on all public American institutions in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the authors find that there in states with PBF regimes, there is a decline in Pell Grant revenue at both two- and four-year institutions. Pell Grants are needs-tested non-repayable financial aid available to low-income undergraduates; the level of institutional Pell Grants is therefore a useful proxy for the number of students from low-income backgrounds enrolled at an institution. According to the authors, the decline of Pell Grant revenue in PBF states could indicate that institutions are favouring higher-income students in their enrolment strategies. Higher-income students have higher retention and graduation rates, both key performance metrics in most PBF regimes. Reducing the number of low-income students – while socially indefensible – helps universities maximize their success at securing funding linked to performance

In our submission to Ontario’s University Funding Model Review, OCUFA argued against the adoption of punishment-based funding in the higher education sector. Not only is there no clear evidence that such systems are effective, there is growing evidence to suggest that PBF hurts students and educational quality. Moreover, these kinds of market-oriented funding models can’t help but create institutional winners and losers, and are at odds with the values of a public education system.

Faculty at UOIT ratify new collective agreement

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On March 22, 2016, the members of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Faculty Association (UOITFA) ratified their new collective agreement with the employer. Here is the UOITFA statement on the deal.

Last week on the final scheduled day of mediation prior to the UOITFA strike deadline, the UOITFA and UOIT reached a tentative agreement on a new 3-year Collective Agreement for Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty.

Today, the tentative agreement for three years was ratified by UOITFA members with a vote of 96% in favour.

The agreement includes provision for across the board salary increases in each year of the agreement, modest gains in benefits, significant improvements in progress through the ranks processes, and improved provision for leaves.

UOIT and UOITFA also agree to work together on joint undertakings concerning employment equity in hiring, intellectual property rights, and the evaluation of teaching.

“This agreement signals a productive new phase in UOITFA’s rapidly evolving relationship with the UOIT administration and imbues our members with a collective sense of purpose and pride in our accomplishments at the table,” said Gary Genosko, President of UOITFA.

For more information, please visit the UOITFA website.