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The resignation of Dalton McGuinty: What it means for Faculty Associations

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Last night, Dalton McGuinty resigned as premier and prorogued the Ontario Legislature.  This means that all legislative business has ceased and all legislation currently being considered dies on the order paper.  When a new session of the Legislature is eventually convened, it will be a new session of parliament, accompanied by a Throne Speech.  All legislation that was previously being considered will have to be re-introduced, alongside any new legislation the government wishes to propose.

We do not know when the Legislature will meet again.    The Liberals will be preoccupied with a leadership convention, and likely do not want the legislature to be in session while they select a new leader.  A prorogued legislature will give the Liberals time to elect a new leader,  present itself as a “new and refreshed” party, present a campaign-focused budget, and gear up for an election — which could very well take place in the Spring.

In his resignation speech, the Premier also said that during the period that the legislature is prorogued, the government would like to discuss a negotiated wage freeze with its labour “partners”, and failing that, bring in wage freeze legislation with the cooperation of at least one opposition party.   As he put it:  “two tasks lay ahead —  first to negotiate wage freezes with public sectors unions; second, to work with the opposition to form a legislated plan that can pass the minority government.  When the House returns we’re going to either have negotiated agreements in hand or a legislative plan supported by the opposition.”

At this point, we do not know what this means for the government’s proposed anti-labour legislation.The draft bill was not introduced in the legislature, and could change significantly or be dropped altogether. As Premier McGuinty noted, wage restraint continues to be a priority for the government and it is likely that a new leader will still pursue some form of wage restraint (either legislated or negotiated). Any legislation will have to wait until the legislature sits again, which could be as long as six months from now. We also do not know where this leaves the government’s post-secondary education reform agenda, or its work to change public sector pensions. Again, it is likely that both initiatives will remain a priority for the government, though how this will manifest in public policy is unclear.

We will be seeking more information from our contacts in government, opposition parties and the bureaucracy on how these government initiatives may develop in the coming months. This legislative “pause” also gives OCUFA an opportunity to plan targeted interventions (with leadership candidates,  influential MPPs, and sympathetic opposition parties), a longer period to educated and mobilize our own members, and  more time to strengthen our connection and coordination with other public sector unions in order to push back against destructive anti-labour legislation, unwelcome pension changes, and unwise university reforms.

We will keep you informed as more information comes available.

OCUFA announces “Academia in the Age of Austerity” conference

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Age of Austerity Conference

Governments in Canada and elsewhere have embraced “austerity” as a necessary public policy to eliminate budgetary deficits and ensure future prosperity.  How has this “austerity agenda” affected faculty, students, administrators and institutions in Ontario, in Canada, and globally?  Is “austerity” inevitable, or are there alternatives?   And what might universities do now, and in the future, in response to the “austerity agenda” or possible alternatives?

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Association’s 2013 Conference –   “Academia in the Age of Austerity” – will seek to answer these questions and more. Join us for two days of insightful presentations and engaging discussion with speakers and participants from universities, research institutes, government, and the private sector in Canada, the United States, and Europe.  The conference will critically explore the idea of “austerity” by unpacking the meaning of the term, its implications and impact on higher education, as well as consider other possible policy directions.  Like previous OCUFA conferences, a diversity of views will be sought in each of the keynote and panel sessions.

The conference will take place on January 10-11, 2013 at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto. For more information, and to register, please visit the conference page.

Data Check: Business Expenditures on Research and Development

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In these difficult economic times, “innovation” seems to have become the mot-de-jour for the private sector; actual investment in innovation, not so much. Statistics Canada estimates that industry expenditures on research and development (R&D) in 2012 will increase by less than one per cent over 2011 levels. If economic forecasts for GDP growth are borne out, this means business investment in R&D will continue its inflation-adjusted decline.

In dollar terms, business investment in R&D peaked in 2006 and has declined steadily since. By 2010, it was 15 per cent lower than the 2006 level. That drop occurred despite an increase in R&D funding from federal and provincial governments, as well as federal tax incentives to support private R&D investment. After accounting for government funding and federal tax exemptions, business interest in research and development fell by 23 per cent over five years.

As a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), business expenditures on R&D in Canada are falling further and further behind the rest of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries. The rest of the OECD (excluding the USA) saw business investment in R&D grow from 1.39 per cent of GDP in 2006 to 1.54 per cent in 2010. Canadian business headed in the other direction: from 1.14 to 0.93 per cent over the same period, and the slide looks set to continue to 0.87 per cent in 2012.

Business and industry certainly benefit from university research and development. So when will they start paying to support it?

Sources: Statistics Canada, Industrial Research and Development: Intentions 2012
Government of Canada, Tax Expenditures and Evaluations 2011
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD StatExtracts
September and October forecasts, Canadian financial institutions, Policy and Economic Analysis Program

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

When it comes to students, let’s not play with the truth

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On October 9, 2012, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities made troubling comments on faculty in an article that appeared in the Peterborough Examiner. Here is OCUFA President Constance Adamson’s response.

This past Wednesday, October 10, 2012 the Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray, in an interview with the Peterborough Examiner, made this statement on the Government of Ontario’s proposed anti-public sector legislation:

“We will legislate and we have, as you know, with teachers. We don’t want to shove things down people’s throats, including collective bargaining, but we do have to manage within the means of the ability of people in Ontario to pay for public services. We do negotiate tough because we have a public interest. The price of restraint can’t be kicking students out of (universities) because we are going to be paying faculty more.”

First of all, when the government starts talking about kicking anybody out of anything, Ontarians should start to worry. But the Minister’s statement is also misleading. He is attempting to suggest that the citizens of our province must choose between anti-public sector legislation that strips away the fundamental rights of professors, academic librarians, and others in the Broader Public Sector, and “kicking students out” of universities.  I believe that every student, parent, faculty member, and voter in Ontario would be surprised and alarmed by both options.

The Minister knows that there is absolutely no danger, present or future, of any student being kicked out of university due to budget restraint. Universities budget for the number of students they enroll.  If the government wants to start kicking students out of university to save money, then that is a policy they would need to impose on our institutions.

Such a policy would be political suicide, and for good reason. The Minister knows this as well. So, why would he present such an alarming and false choice to Ontarians? One answer is that the Liberal government has decided to use the politics of fear and the politics of division in an attempt to build support for a unpopular and unconstitutional piece of legislation. Ontario’s professors and academic librarians hope this is not the case. We need more than just finger pointing and “straw men” to meet the challenges facing our universities.

OCUFA releases analysis of the government’s proposed anti-labour legislation

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A comprehensive summary and analysis of the Ontario government’s draft anti-labour legislation has been prepared for OCUFA by the legal team at Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell.  It focuses in particular on Schedule 2, titled Respecting Collective Bargaining Act (Public Sector), 2012.
 
According to the legal analysis, the proposed legislation as currently drafted “goes far beyond simply implementing a wage freeze for workers in the broader public sector; rather it would give the Government unprecedented control over collective bargaining, the right to strike, interest arbitration (in the case of essential services), and the content of every term and condition of every collective agreement.”  If passed, the anti-labour legislation will profoundly affect every university faculty association in the province, certified or not.  As the legal analysis concludes, “while purporting to respect collective bargaining (to quote the Orwellian pretense of its title), the Respecting Collective Bargaining Act (Public Sector), 2012 would actually eviscerate it.”
 
Over the next few weeks you will hear more about the various communication, education and mobilization initiatives OCUFA plans to undertake in response to this unprecedented attack on collective bargaining in the broader public sector.  There will also be a special session of the October 27-28 OCUFA Board meeting to discuss a plan going forward.
 
The complete analysis can be access on the OCUFA website by registered users.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA meets with Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities about reform Agenda

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On October 3, 2012, the OCUFA Executive met with Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities Glen Murray to discuss our submission in response to the government’s recent discussion paper.
 
Members of the Executive highlighted OCUFA’s concerns with the assumptions and proposals contained within the discussion paper. We believe that, taken to their logical conclusion, they would lead to an unprecedented government intrusion into academic decision-making. While professors and academic librarians are always open to positive reform, it is important that this process be truly collaborative and account for on-the-ground realities (such as Ontario’s abysmal level of per-student public funding, currently the lowest in Canada).
 
The Executive also pressed the Minister on the government’s next steps. It appears that MTCU will release a summary of the consultation in the next few months, and will proceed with a few pilot projects at select universities. The Minister emphasized that he now sees the reform agenda as a long-term process.
 
OCUFA will continue to monitor the government’s reform agenda and report on any new developments. On October 27, 2012, Minister Murray will meet with OCUFA’s Board of Directors to discuss these issues further.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Reality Check: Faculty compensation is not the problem

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Those who claim that faculty compensation is eating up university funding just don’t know the facts – or are trying to prevent Ontarians from learning the truth.
 
Right now, as a proportion of total expenses, province-wide full-time and part-time faculty represent barely 19 per cent of Ontario universities’ annual expenditures. When looking only at operating expenses, it is still less than a third – 29 per cent.
 
After declining as a proportion of expenses, faculty compensation did recover slightly when provincial government operating funding improved. But it was a short term phenomenon. The percentage of expenses represented by academic salaries only stabilized in 2008-09, before the provincial government’s fiscal restraint measures. While current data is not yet available, it appears that faculty compensation as a proportion of university expenses is again trending down.
 
The Liberal government says a wage freeze is needed to save money and pay down the deficit.  It is hard to know exactly where savings from full-time faculty are supposed to come from when they account for less than a fifth of total expenditures, and a less than a third of operating expenses.

 

Source: Council of Finance Officers – Universities of Ontario, Financial Report of Ontario Universities

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

Anti-labour legislation update: What OCUFA is doing

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As we reported last week, the Liberal government has unveiled anti-labour legislation that strips public sector employees of their bargaining rights – including professors and academic librarians. OCUFA is moving aggressively to fight back against this legislation. Since the announcement, we have:

  • Attended a meeting a senior public sector union leaders to coordinate strategy, and participated in the press conference that followed the meeting (Sept. 26).
  • Analyzed the new legislation with help from our legal team at Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell, and provided a technical briefing to faculty association representatives. Both the briefing and a set of Q&As are available to registered OCUFA members.
  • Challenged the proposed legislation in a widely read press release and through social media channels.

We will continue to work with our union partners over the coming weeks, and we will also be coordinating resistance with our friends in the student movement. We also plan to stay visible in the media through Op-eds, letters to the editor, and by coordinating the communications of our members at the local level. This legislation is an unprecedented assault on the bargaining rights of public sector employees, and we will oppose it in every possible venue.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA releases response to MTCU discussion paper

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This week, OCUFA released its response to the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge. Our submission, titled Growing Ontario’s Universities for the Future, was officially launched at a press conference this morning alongside responses from the Canadian Federation of Students, The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

The OCUFA response highlights our concerns with the assumptions that underpin the MTCU discussion paper, and critically evaluates the policy proposals put forward by the government. Overall, OCUFA believes that, taken to their furthest extreme, the ideas, concepts, and proposals contained within the discussion paper would lead to an unprecedented government intrusion into academic decision-making and would seriously impair academic freedom within Ontario’s universities. Such an intrusion would be unacceptable, and would seriously damage the sector. Instead, OCUFA is urging the government to take a step back from the discussion paper. In collaboration with stakeholders, MTCU should reframe the assumptions contained within the existing document and begin a long-term co-operative project to improve quality, enhance student success, and ensure the viability of our institutions for decades to come. While we do not believe that the higher education sector can be re-designed in a few short months, we do believe that a vibrant, well-funded university sector can be grown through careful research, realistic goals, and meaningful partnership.

Read the full submission.

Urgent Message on bargaining impasse and potential work stoppage for faculty and librarians at the University of St. Michael’s College

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The following message is an urgent call for assistance from Scott Prudham, President of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA).

Dear colleagues,

I am writing to alert you concerning the breakdown in negotiations for a first contract for faculty and librarians at the University of St. Michael’s College (USMC), a certified unit of the University of Toronto Faculty Association.

After approximately nine months of bargaining, in the face of an impending provincial wage freeze, and with a legal strike/lockout deadline of October 8 looming, the employer responded to the union’s comprehensive offer to settle by abruptly walking away from the table with no commitment to return. We are now preparing for a possible work stoppage and are calling on colleagues to help us in this fight.

The core issues outstanding are almost entirely non-monetary and concern the basic and fundamental principles that define a university, namely, academic freedom, tenure for faculty and permanent status for librarians, and collegial and shared governance. To give you a taste of the employer’s position on these issues, one section of their proposal on exigency and program redundancy reads:

“The process and criteria used for identifying individuals to be declared redundant, once either a financial exigency is declared or a program redundancy decision has been made, are the sole prerogative of the Dean.”

I am not sure how much more you need to know than that.

We have taken a strike vote and the members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if it becomes necessary. But we are also committed to negotiating a fair settlement and thereby avoiding a work stoppage if at all possible.

We are asking for help by getting the word out and by putting pressure on the USMC Administration to return to the table immediately, recognize the core principles that underpin collegial governance and academic excellence in the university, and negotiate a fair first contract that respects our colleagues.

You may write to USMC President Anne Anderson at usmc.presidentsoffice@utoronto.ca. Please also cc. UTFA in your correspondence at faculty@utfa.org.

Thank you,
Scott

Scott Prudham
Professor, University of Toronto
President, University of Toronto Faculty Association

Reality Check: No decline in the amount of teaching done by Ontario professors

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Despite the claims of some observers, Ontario’s professors are teaching as many students as they did a decade ago, and face mounting workload pressure.
 
Claims that faculty members are teaching less – made by a small collection of policy merchants — are based more on anecdote than observation. More to the point, they are misdirected. The only publicly available information on the number of courses taught by full-time faculty is found in collective agreements which stipulate the number of courses considered to be the “normal” teaching load. It is no coincidence that before the double cohort almost none of the university faculty association agreements identified a specific number of courses. It was much more typical for course assignment to be based on the norms of the respective academic units, taking into account such factors as class size, the level and type of the courses, etc.
 
To be sure, faculty members may seek to teach fewer courses because they have a more research-intensive workload, but it is important to acknowledge how much course load reductions can be understood as a reaction to government decisions and their effects on faculty workload. The double cohort increased the number of undergraduate students. The subsequent expansion of graduate studies not only increased (and continues to increase) the number of students, but affects the type and intensity of engagement between students and faculty. The increase in undergraduate and graduate students has outstripped growth in the number of full-time faculty; no wonder, then, that workload has increased.  A recent OCUFA poll found that 73 per cent of faculty believed their workload had increased. Whether through the adoption of language stipulating course load maximums or the application of teaching load norms, the simplest way to cope with this workload pressure is to manage the number of courses taught.
 
But the number of courses taught does not directly correspond to the number of students taught. We know that class sizes have been steadily increasing; the decision to teach fewer courses (with more students) allows a professor to accommodate more students – and the increase in workload that comes with them – by reducing the time needed to prepare for additional courses.
 
There are no publicly available data from which to infer class sizes with any precision, but we can use student-faculty ratios as a proxy to illustrate what happens when class sizes increase and the number of courses taught by a faculty member is reduced. The following table shows how many students a faculty member might teach if they were to teach 4, 5 or 6 half courses. If someone was teaching six courses in 2000-01 and five courses in 2005-06, they are teaching approximately the same number of students, and even more in 2010-11. The picture is much the same for someone who moves from teaching five courses to four.

Ontario currently has the worst student-to-faculty ratio in Canada, at 28-1. This means larger courses, fewer course choices, and less face-to-face contact between professors and their students. The solution is simple: allow universities to higher more full-time faculty through renewed government investment.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

McGuinty breaks his promise to respect rights. Again.

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Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are disappointed that Dalton McGuinty has once again broken his promise to respect collective bargaining by imposing legislation on the province’s broader public sector workers that attacks their constitutional rights.

“A year ago, Premier McGuinty said he would respect the rights of hard-working Ontarians,” said Constance Adamson, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). “First, he broke his promise to our teachers. Today, he is breaking his promise to professors, academic librarians, and the broader public sector. I guess we know now what a McGuinty promise is worth.”

Ontario’s professors and academic librarians have a long tradition of responsible bargaining sensitive to the needs of citizens and government. Today’s announcement takes away their ability to reach fair agreements, and will deliver few real benefits to government.

“McGuinty’s own advisor – Don Drummond – made it clear that wage freezes provide no long-term savings to government,” said Adamson. “One wonders why the government spent all that money on Drummond if they were just going to ignore his advice.”

University faculty are also asking why the government would choose to strip away the rights of professors and librarians while also trying to push through a series of controversial university reforms.

“On one hand, the government is asking faculty to be partners in changing our universities. On the other, they are willing to bully away our fundamental rights. From minute to minute, it’s hard to know which version of the government we’re talking to,” said Adamson.

“Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are more than just dedicated educators who help students succeed while building a more vibrant and prosperous province. We are parents. We are members of the community. And when the government plays politics with our constitutional rights, they hurt our families, our communities, and our students.”

Reality Check – Salary grids are budget neutral; freezing them is not

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An established salary grid that provides for an annual salary increase is budget neutral.

This may seem counter-intuitive to claim, but it is a fact. The reason for the difference between intuition and reality is because the amount of money tied up in an established salary grid is constant, and it is only individual positions relative to one another that change as they move through the grid.

The following table is a very simple version of a salary schedule. It provides for a salary uplift for each year of a person’s service until they reach the top of the ladder. In this model, there is a zero per cent increase to the salary schedule itself, but individuals move one step up the ladder. They also move off and on: if one person retires (or otherwise departs) and another is hired, total salary does not change.

 As every single employee does eventually leave (either through retirement or some time earlier), over time the number of entrants is matched by the number of exiting employees. Therefore the total salary remains constant over time with slight fluctuations from one year to the next. Note that the total amount of money expended in grid payments each year is a function of the average of the length of service of all individuals currently employed— i.e. those with little service as well as those with a number of years of seniority. This is clearly a more stable statistic than simply counting annual departures and hires, and therefore the fluctuations in total grid payments are much less marked than annual changes in employment flows, if there are such changes.

The salary schedule could have many more steps, but the result will still be the same. Other factors may change the total amount of salary paid – an improvement in the student-to-educator ratio, for example – but the change is a result of staffing policy, not the existence of a salary grid.

So, when politicians seek to freeze the grid, they do save money because they are paying less than they were previously paying to the same workforce. In other words, a freeze is actually a payroll cut. Grids are cost neutral, and freezes to the grid are a means to cut payroll.  This hurts the individuals – and their families – who have their salaries frozen. It’s bad policy, and it plays politics with the income of hard working Ontarians.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA ready to fight any compensation freeze

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In the wake of the McGuinty government’s imposition of a salary freeze on Ontario’s elementary and secondary teachers, the government has now indicated that it will extend this freeze to the broader public sector. Such a freeze would apply to university sector, including professors and academic librarians.
 
Yesterday, the Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan announced a freeze of executive salaries in the broader public sector. During his press conference, Minister Duncan indicated that “further measures” would be announced “soon”. It is likely that this means an across-the-board compensation freeze. It is still unclear when exactly broader public sector compensation legislation will be introduced, but OCUFA will be ready to fight back when it does.
 
Premier McGuinty had promised that the Liberal government would respect collective agreements and the bargaining process. However, the teacher legislation shows that McGuinty is willing to break his promise when convenient.
 
Over the coming weeks, we will be meeting with MPPs to register our opposition to a wage freeze bill that strips employees of their collective bargaining rights. We will help our members challenge the legislation directly. OCUFA will also be active in the public eye, taking our case to the media and Ontarians, as well as working with other unions and associations.
 
Should McGuinty break his promise, OCUFA will respond wherever and however we can.  Legislated compensation freezes are actually payroll cuts that hurt individuals, their families, and their communities.  Worse, they don’t even work; as the Premier’s own advisors have pointed out, freezes deliver little real savings in the long term.

This article originally appeared in the OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week in your inbox, please subscribe.

OCUFA announces 2011-2012 Teaching and Academic Librarianship Award Winners

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OCUFA is pleased to announce the winners of its prestigious Teaching and Academic Librarianship Awards. Since 1973, these awards have recognized exceptional contributions to the quality of higher education in Ontario.

“The teaching awards honour the outstanding teaching accomplishments of this year’s five worthy recipients,” said OCUFA President Constance Adamson. “ As in past years, the large number of excellent nominations received, made our Awards Committee’s decision extremely difficult.”

The 2011-2012 Teaching Award recipients are:

  • Judy Bornais, Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, University of Windsor
  • Andrew P. Dicks, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, St. George Campus
  • Steve Joordens, Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus
  • Stephen MacNeil, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Wilfrid Laurier University
  • Eileen Wood, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University

“Academic librarianship is an essential part of our universities,” said Adamson. “This year’s winners of OCUFA’s Academic Librarianship have made truly impressive contributions to their institutions and the students who study there.”

The 2011-2012 Academic Librarianship Award recipients are:

  • Jim Brett,  User Service Librarian, University of Guelph
  • Don Kinder, Librarian, Information and Learning Commons Team, Ryerson University

The 39th annual awards ceremony will take place at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto on October 27, 2012.