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- A Letter to Principal Woolf by Barbara Meneley 2011/08/15
- Minority Report by Card-Carrying 2011/08/11
- Comments for “Minority Report” 2011/08/15
- Open Letter to Graduate Students from 8 Cultural Studies Faculty 2011/07/28
- “Official” Queen’s News by Steve Iscoe 2011/07/26
- Labour relations and responsible engagement, by Jackie Davies 2011/07/23
- Strike Vote, by Karen Dubinsky 2011/07/13
- Message from a Term Adjunct 2011/07/13
- Wednesday’s Strike Vote, by Kathleen Lahey 2011/07/12
- Administrative Irrationality by Eleanor MacDonald 2011/07/01
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Seems the executive is in a tough position at the moment (Monday the 15th). There is an honorable way to resolve the issue.
Bring it to the members.
Before you take away our livelihoods, let us see the administration’s offer and we’ll decide.
Referring the package to the Executive is normal collective bargaining practice. It is a challenge for any Executive but one that has been dealt with successfully by every Executive since certification.
The Negotiating Team has a package and before they can say to the employer, “we agree” they refer it to the Executive. This has been done with every collective agreement since the first one in 1996. The reason you may not be aware of this process is that we have not been pushed into such a dramatic situation before. No other administration has taken the steps of conciliation and no-board that bring us to the point of a possible lockout or strike.
The Negotiation Team must do this because the Executive directs the Negotiating Team (see Collective Bargaining Protocol http://www.qufa.ca/governance/protocol.php). The Executive meets with the Negotiating Team and discusses the proposed package. The Executive may decide any of the following:
–accept the package and recommend it to the membership for approval
–reject the package and send the team back to the table to get a better deal
–reject the package but decide to send it to the membership with a recommendation to the membership that the membership reject the package, too.
The Executive has the livelihood of members in mind whenever it makes this decision. This is why the QUFA collective agreements have been strong and fair. You will have the opportunity to vote on the agreement when it is at the point of being a tentative agreement. We are not at that point yet.
Before Members vote, there will be a general meeting where the tentative agreement is presented. You will have documentation to study. The meeting will be long enough to accommodate all questions. Then there will be the vote. Notice that in the process, this can be some time after the tentative agreement is reached. CUPE reached agreement on August 7 but is not voting until August 18. Remember, we do not yet have a tentative agreement.
Also, please remember, that it is the administration that has been reckless in bringing us to the edge of a lockout or strike, not QUFA. QUFA has always been at the table and willing to bargain.
I think I do understand the process.
But Paul Young’s comment that there will be “no picketing today” suggests that there might be picketing tomorrow – i.e. that a fourth option is for the executive to reject the offer and call a strike, without informing us about what the offer contains. I believe that is what it means to have a strike mandate.
My point is simply that before I lose my livelihood I would rather see the offer first, and have the right to vote on it. (I believe the executive could also reject the package but decide to send it to the membership with no recommendation to the membership either way.)
Not a misunderstanding – just a request.
I’m not sure your last point is relevant or correct, but at this point let’s just agree to disagree.
Yes, a vote of the bargaining unit on the latest Queen’s offer would be the minimum required before turning it down. And how about more effort at communication from the QUFA negotiating team and/or the executive? We are getting better and more timely information from the Queen’s site, better even from the JAC. When is the executive meeting, please? There has been nothing since 5.30am.
See reply to Lorne Carmichael describing the details of the approval process.
An official message from Paul Young was distributed on qufacomm at 7:56 a.m. today. It has been posted on Job Action Readiness and the QUFA website since 8 a.m. Paul Young, as President, is the spokesperson for the Executive and QUFA. That is why the official messages are signed by him and why he is the one you see and hear in the media.
The Executive meets this afternoon. The Executive will follow the QUFA constitution and report to you as it is required to do. All of these things take time and patience on everyone’s part. None of it happens quickly. But because the Executive is careful in its directions to the Negotiating Team and in its consideration of the needs of our members, you can be confident that the report you will receive has been thoughtfully considered and is well-reasoned.
I would like to add my voice to the QUFA members congratulating and thanking the negotiating team, executive, and job action committee for their excellent work on behalf of all faculty, librarians, and archivists at Queen’s.
It is clear to me that QUFA is the party that is standing up for excellence at Queen’s in these negotiations, and for that I am grateful.
The statement doesn’t sound good. It seems like the executive has admitted it doesn’t have the stomach for a fight and so has let the admin. know that it can push us around and we won’t take the necessary measures. Before negotiations started the executive had a long list of items it would not concede: I look forward to comparing the offer to that list. Whatever the outcome, maybe we can move on to ensuring Principal Woolf doesn’t have a second term.
I agree heartily with Anon.’s last comment above. Someone has to take the blame for the administration’s approach to these negotiations, and Woolf is the clear candidate.
I’ll skip Lorne’s post and take this opportunity to thank our bargaining team as well as the Executive for working pretty much tirelessly during these last few months to bring this negotiation to a fair conclusion. Thanks so much colleagues! I am looking forward to seeing the proposal as well as to reading your evaluation of the deal that is on the table.
Hear, hear. Thank you negotiating team for taking on an arduous and difficult task.
It’s a great pleasure – a delight – to recommend that everyone skip my last post.
Yahoo!
I would also like to thank the bargaining team and Executive for their hard work and patience. We may have to hold our nose and accept this offer but at least it will give us time to rebuild Queen’s image. I think we all know how to do this.
Queen’s has shown that it has no real care for my happiness or job fulfillment, that it does not think I am worth as much as faculty at comparable universities or even that I am not worth my current pay, and that it believes I am part of the university’s problems. I will give my students’ my best, but I now have no loyalty or emotional connection to Queen’s as a whole, at least while the bulk of the current administration is in place. I’m not sure Queen’s image deserves rebuilding at the moment.
Apologies: two errors crept in from previous drafts. Read: “I am worth my current pay” and “my students my best.”
If I remember correctly, an early version on the Queen’s news site of the announcement that the QUFA executive had accepted an offer quoted Paul Young’s comment that he had “deep reservations about some aspects of this proposal.” The latest version quotes Woolf and Bradshaw but no one from QUFA (http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/university-faculty-reach-tentative-agreement) and again makes it sound like the administration was constructive and cooperative. Barf.
I’m concerned that it is now almost noon on Tuesday, the information meeting is tomorrow afternoon, and we haven’t yet received a summary of the deal. That does not give us much time to read and analyze it and prepare questions for the meeting.