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OCUFA’s Status of Women Committee studies the issues of female chief negotiators

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On March 19th the Chairs of the OCUFA Collective Bargaining and Status of Women committees co-hosted a conference call on the campus climate for female chief negotiators in our member associations.  This initiative is part of a broader listening tour undertaken by the Status of Women Committee to hear current concerns associated with gender and related equity issues on campuses around Ontario. The SWC tour will culminate in a workshop, Navigating the Academy, in Toronto on May 4th.  The Collective Bargaining Committee will take up these issues as part of its workshop, Building Member Solidarity, in Toronto on May 23rd.  If you are an Ontario faculty association member and are interested in either of these workshops, please contact your local faculty association for more information.

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

New agreement ratified at Laurier, Arbitration award at OCADU

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On March 16, 2012, the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (WLUFA) approved their new agreement with the university administration. The Laurier Board of Governors approved the deal on March 8, 2012.
 
The new contract includes a two per cent salary increase a year for three years, as well as a targeted Ontario system adjustment to bring WLUFA members in line with faculty elsewhere in Ontario.  Other changes include the establishment of professional teaching positions, provisions to allow more members to qualify for research course releases, and changes to the pension plan. WLUFA will now also carry grievances on behalf of members. For more information, please visit the WLUFA website.
 
The long awaited arbitration award by William Kaplan at OCADU for 2010 to 2013 provides wages increases to all members of 2% in each of 3 years, retroactive to the expiry of the last agreement. Improvements for tenure stream professors include additional compensation for graduate supervision, an increase to the professional expense reimbursement, and an additional step added to the grid for each rank.  Sessional faculty improvements also include a new step on the salary grid, as well as a supplemental wage increase equal to one step and an increase in pay in lieu of benefits from 6% to 7%.  New language for sessional faculty will short-list members for consideration for any course the individual has previously taught or any closely related course once they have reached the seniority threshold.

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

Reality Check: Minding the revenue gap

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Lost in the media glare around Don Drummond’s message of expenditure restraint delivered by was the other side of the equation – government revenues. Drummond’s mandate excluded consideration of tax policy, which is highly problematic by itself. But his revenue forecast left some commentators downright perplexed.
 
USW economist Erin Weir recently drew attention to the Drummond Commission’s problematic assumptions about the prospects for revenue growth. If government revenues actually keep pace with economic growth, Drummond underestimates the province’s 2017-18 income by approximately $10 billion.
 
To bridge the revenue gap further, Weir also proposes tax increases along lines similar to those outlined by CUPE’s Toby Sanger. Tax measures such as restoring the corporate income tax rate to 14 per cent, restoring the corporate capital tax, increasing the tax on personal incomes over half a million dollars, and eliminating certain business tax credits and exemptions can raise between $0.5 and $2.5 billion. With these figures in mind, Drummond’s harsh medicine of public service austerity seems harder to swallow.

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

OCUFA Meets with NDP Critic Teresa Armstrong and Premier’s Office Staff

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On March 6, 2012, OCUFA President Constance Adamson met with NDP Critic for Training, Colleges and Universities Teresa Armstrong. Adamson highlighted several issues important to Ontario’s professors and academic librarians, including the need for renewed investment in higher education. Ms. Armstrong and her staff indicated her desire to work with OCUFA and bring these issues forward in the legislature.
 
On March 7, 2012, OCUFA’s Executive Director and Government and Community Relations Policy Analyst sat down with some of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s senior staff. They provided some clarity on leaked government proposals for higher education that have been circulating in the media. Namely, these proposals – three-year degrees, year-round university programming and greater use of online learning – do not reflect official policy but are intended to provoke discussion within the sector. The Premier’s staff also indicated that the online institute is paused while the government works through its current fiscal situation. The proposal to create three new satellite campuses will be going ahead, but the timelines are unclear.
 
OCUFA will continue to meet with politicians, political staff, and civil servants over the coming weeks to ensure the faculty perspective is included in all policy discussions.

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

A confusing week for tuition policy in Ontario

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After last week, you’d be forgiven for being a little lost on what tuition policy looks like in Ontario.
 
On Thursday, March 8, 2012, it was reported that Ontario would be moving to standardized tuition fees, set by the Government of Ontario. This new fee structure would require some universities to raise their fees, potentially hurting students. Other universities would have to cut their fees; in the absence of compensatory government funding, this could have meant millions in lost revenue.
 
The same day, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities released a statement claiming that “no changes are being contemplated that would require all universities to set standard tuition fees for arts and science programs.” The statement also indicated that the current tuition fee policy – where fees can increase by an average of five per cent per year – would be extended for another year. Both the Canadian Federation of Students and the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance expressed their disappointment with this announcement. OCUFA also weighed in:

Ontario professors have called for a tuition freeze and an overhaul of the entire tuition system, said Constance Adamson, chair of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. Adamson welcomed news Thursday that the government will not force universities to set the same tuition as each other for arts and science programs — an idea that had been floated by the government for feedback among university presidents.

Ontario needs some clarity on the tuition issue. OCUFA’s position is that tuition fees should be frozen, with compensatory funding providing to every university to account for lost tuition fee revenue. With fees frozen, the Government of Ontario should lead a consultation with students, faculty, and administrators to determine a policy that ensures quality while keeping higher education affordable and accessible.

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

Data Check: Employment losses at universities and colleges

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National level data reported by Statistics Canada reveals that the number of people working at universities and colleges has declined over the past year, offsetting gains in employment in other parts of the public sector.

Since 2010, the average number of people employed in the postsecondary education (PSE) sector fell by 14,000. Almost all that decline occurred in Ontario – more than 12,000 jobs were lost, a seven and a half per cent reduction in the postsecondary education workforce.

Meanwhile, the number of university and college students in Ontario rose by three per cent. That represents an 11 per cent increase in the number of students for each postsecondary employee currently working. To put it into perspective, the ratio of Ontarians to every provincial public service and broader public service employee grew by only one per cent.

Viewed quarter to quarter, average salaries and wages have also suffered. Keeping up with inflation was a challenge for significant parts of the public sector, but the average compensation for employees in the PSE sector fell even before inflation. Once inflation is taken into account, the reduction in pay for PSE employees amounts to three per cent.

Source: Statistics Canada, Public Sector Employment, Fourth quarter 2011 (preliminary); The Consumer Price Index, December 2011; Quarterly Demographic Estimates, July to September 2011.
Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities; Colleges Ontario, 2011 Environmental Scan

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

What’s so bad about three year degrees, anyway?

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As with many things in public policy, the devil is in the details. Right now, many universities offer a three year option to their undergraduate students. Demand for these programs is low, and some institutions have decided to phase them out.

Three year degrees – not as an option, but as the new norm – are a key proposal of a leaked Liberal government document on higher education reform. The problem is that three year degrees are being proposed with little sense of the problem they are supposed to solve, and a poor analysis of the results it might produce.

So why three year degrees? The government thinks they will move more students through the system faster. This is true, but the leaked document provides no clues as to why this is important. Students want more flexibility in completing their degrees, not less time. Ontario has already axed the OAC year in high school; by eliminating a year of university education, our students will simply not get the preparation they need to succeed.

The Liberals also think three year degrees are a good idea, because Europe and Australia are moving in that direction. Fine, but is a European solution right for Ontario? Three year degrees are arguably more suited to Europe due to the streaming in their K-12 education system. Ontarian parents would likely be uncomfortable telling their nine-year-olds that they can – or can’t – go to university. More to the point, European countries have a higher unemployment rate than Ontario and Germany, Italy and France all have lower returns for postsecondary education. Three year degrees are hardly a silver bullet for the labour market.

The leaked paper does make one correct prediction: three year degrees will limit the ability of Ontario’s students to pursue further study in Canada and the United States. Given the globalized nature of the modern economy, one wonders why the Liberal government is keen to limit the mobility of our students. Our current four-year degrees allow our students to go anywhere, including Europe and Australia.

With all that in mind, what is the government trying to achieve with three year degrees? If they’re after quality education and student success, the evidence would suggest they’re on the wrong track.

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

Tentative settlement reached at Laurier

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The Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (WLUFA) reached a tentative agreement with the Laurier’s administration at 3:00 a.m., March 2, 2012 after two full days of mediation. Planning is now underway for ratification meetings in Waterloo and Brantford.
 
We will publish details of the settlement once it is approved by WLUFA’s membership.

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

Reality Check: Ontario shouldn’t be complacent when it comes to university attainment

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Ontario leads the world in terms of postsecondary attainment. But as the data shows, this has more to do with college attendance than university access.
 
Statistics Canada reports that half of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 64 have a college or university education. In Ontario, 56 per cent have attained a postsecondary credential. The average across member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is 30 per cent. Of the OECD members used for comparison, Japan (44 per cent) and the United States (41 per cent) come closest to Ontario.
 
Is this an Ontario success story? While we have made significant accomplishments in access, our globe-leading performance has much to do with our community colleges. Approximately 28 per cent of Ontarians have a college diploma, compared to an OECD average of 9 per cent. There is a much less dramatic difference in the proportion of the population with a university education. In Ontario, it is 28 per cent, compared to 25 per cent in Japan and 31 per cent in the United States.
 
No question, when compared to other nations, a healthy number of Ontarians achieve a university degree. But there is more work to be done to ensure our institutions are accessible to every qualified student, while still offering a world-class education.
 
Source: Statistics Canada, Education Indicators in Canada: Fact Sheets; Education Indicators in Canada: An International Perspective 2011

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

OCUFA responds to leaked proposals for reform of Ontario’s universities

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Last week, several media outlets reported on a leaked document outlining Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Glen Murray’s plans for university reform. The report suggests that Ontario move to three-year undergraduate degrees, offer year-round university programming, and offer 60 per cent of courses online.
 
OCUFA President Constance Adamson responded to these proposals in the Toronto Star. Said Adamson, “We are already feeling the lack of the (fifth year of high school), and by taking university degrees from four years to three, you are essentially reducing the amount of education students are going to get. It’s sort of churning them through, fast-tracking them through into an uncertain labour market.”
 
OCUFA has concerns with all of the proposals. There is no student demand for three-year degrees, and these new credentials would limit the ability of students to pursue further study in other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. The year-round programming proposal ignores the significant amount of work already done at universities during the summer, and is not sensitive to the financial needs of students who must work during the summer to pay for rising tuition fees. While online education is a useful option for some students, it can never replace the face-to-face interaction with faculty. If done right, online education is also very expensive.
 
Overall, the proposals provide no clear benefits or cost-savings, and may seriously harm the quality of undergraduate education in Ontario. OCUFA will monitor these proposals closely and will ensure that the faculty perspective is strongly represented in any consultations or public debates.

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

Settlement ratified at Huron; Carleton in pre-bargaining mediation

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The tentative settlement reached by the administration and faculty association at Huron University College at Western was ratified by the membership on February 10, 2012. The three year agreement includes a 2.5 per cent salary increase for both full-time and sessional faculty in each year of the agreement. The sessional faculty are now also represented by the faculty association; this is an important breakthrough for this group as their salaries were previously frozen under the Public Sector Compensation Restraint to Protect Public Services Act, introduced as part of the 2010 Ontario Budget.  The cap on salaries for associate professors was raised by the equivalent of two grid steps.  Improvements to workload language in the agreement will clarify what constitutes a reasonable workload expectation.
 
The administration and faculty association at Carleton are in pre-bargaining mediation on several key issues in an attempt to find common ground prior to commencing negotiations on the parties’ remaining issues.  They are being assisted by mediator Julie Macfarlane, a law professor from the University of Windsor.
 
The faculty association and administration at Nipissing University have set a date of March 23rd to commence bargaining. Their agreement expires on April 30th, 2012.
 
The OCUFA Collective Bargaining Committee met in Toronto last Friday to discuss the current state of faculty bargaining, and the impact of the Drummond report.   To counter the pressure for ramped up efficiency and productivity demands coupled with attacks on compensation, the Committee decided to hold a workshop this spring focused on building member solidarity.

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

Reality Check: The Drummond Report is a cut any way you slice it

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The Drummond Report claims that it “protects annual growth in postsecondary funding at a time when many other public services will be rationalized.” True, it does recommend that postsecondary expenditures continue to increase by 1.5 per cent per year. But a quick look at the data reveals the truth: Drummond actually recommending a severe cut to the operating budgets of our institutions.

On the commission’s own assumptions and proposals – 1.7 per cent annual enrolment growth, 1.9 per cent annual inflation, and 1.5 per cent annual increases in postsecondary funding – per student funding will decline by 12 per cent between now and 2017-18.

If university funding is allocated according to the enrolment balance of college, undergraduate and graduate students who are eligible for funding, inflation-adjusted provincial funding per college student could fall by $790, and per undergraduate student could decline by almost $940. For graduate students, the reduction could be $2,280.

You can call a cut an increase, Mr. Drummond, but you can’t hide the data.

Source: Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities for enrolment data; Ministry of Finance for Expenditure Estimates.

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

OCUFA analysis of the Drummond Report: all cuts, no substance

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After reviewing the final report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, faculty and academic librarians are unimpressed. Drummond has provided Ontario with a poor plan for ‘transforming’ our public services, and is essentially a plan for huge cuts to public spending hiding behind a screen of poorly costed and ill-considered recommendations for change. In particular, the report:
 

  1. Is based on a variety of questionable economic assumptions, predictions and forecasts;
  2. Is first and foremost a plan for significant cuts to spending, including university funding;
  3. Sets the stage for hard-bargaining throughout the broader public service;
  4. Proposes a funding framework for higher education that does not keep pace with inflation or enrolment, and as the paper admits, will lead to a decline in quality;
  5. Provides recommendations for generating efficiency and savings in the higher education sector, with no evidence of how this will happen or how much it will save;
  6. Proposes shifting educational cost onto the backs of students and their families; and
  7. Relies on third-party policy entrepreneurs for research, much of which is incorrect.

 
In short, this is not the way forward for Ontario. The downturn-as-justification-for-cuts scenario is an old one, and it has been rejected by the public before. It is now critical that the Government of Ontario pursue an alternative strategy that takes into account the needs and concerns of Ontarians – a strategy that protects education, promotes effective economic and social development,  and rejects the logic of austerity.

Download the full OCUFA Analysis
 

No Board issued at WLU; Toronto in mediation

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The faculty association and administration at Wilfrid Laurier University have received a “no Board“ from the Ministry of Labour; this means the parties will be in a position to strike or lock-out at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, March 3. However, the parties will make an attempt to reach an agreement in mediation with Greg Long on February 29th and March 1st.
 
The faculty association and administration at the University of Toronto are in mediation with Kevin Burkett.

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

Data Check – Women make the biggest gains in university education

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A recent Statistics Canada look at women and education shows that postsecondary attainment amongst Canadian women and men has increased markedly since 1990. The increase in the proportion of people with a postsecondary diploma or certificate was roughly the same for women and men. When it comes to university degrees, however, women’s attainment rates grew much faster than for men.
 
In 1990, slightly fewer than 14 per cent of women aged 25-54 had university degree, compared to 17 per cent of men. By 2009, women’s attainment rate had doubled to 28 per cent. In contrast, men’s university attainment rose to 25 per cent.
 
It is no surprise then that 60 per cent of university graduates now are women. They tend to be concentrated in the humanities, social sciences and education. Men are disproportionately represented in fields like engineering, mathematics and computer sciences.
 

Percentage of Women among University Graduates2008
Total – Instructional programs60.0
Architecture, engineering & related services22.2
Mathematics, computer & information sciences30.4
Personal, protective & transportation services44.9
Business, management & public administration53.0
Agriculture, natural resources & conservation55.9
Physical & life sciences, & technologies57.3
Humanities64.3
Visual & performing arts & communication technology66.5
Social & behavioural sciences, law67.0
Other instructional programs69.4
Education76.1
Health, parks, recreation & fitness77.

Source: Statistics Canada, Women and Education

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