Dear Colleagues,
In this update:
-
A Bargaining Update
-
UTFA is Seeking Member Input on Strengthening our Governance
-
UTFA’s Leadership Pushes the UPP Leadership to Engage on Divestment
-
Defending Members’ Rights and Knowing Your Rights
-
UTFA’s Membership Committee Welcomes New Members
___________________________________________________________________________
Bargaining Update
Bargaining successes and ongoing negotiations: As UTFA’s co-lead negotiators reported in July, your UTFA Negotiating Team secured, through arbitration, across-the-board (ATB) salary increases of 3.5% effective July 2023 and 2.5% effective July 2024, as well as increases to PERA funds and Long-Term Disability benefits. The Team is continuing to work on your behalf, preparing for arbitration hearings in November before Arbitrator Eli Gedalof, who will determine our salary increases for the 2025 academic year (UTFA’s briefs available here). On November 18th, the UTFA Team will continue to pursue a very reasonable 4% ATB increase for all members' salaries, in contrast to the University Administration’s argument that a paltry 1.5% wage increase is fairer and more appropriate. UTFA’s Team will update members with more details as they receive the Administration’s arbitration briefs and UTFA finalizes its replies.
Beyond ATB increases, UTFA’s Team is pressing for improvements to the Child Care Benefit. As the UTFA Child Care Survey made clear, increasing the eligible age of dependents for the benefit is a top priority for our members. Unfortunately, throughout this round, the Administration has refused to negotiate an increased investment in the benefit. Given this limitation, and given the cumbersome claims reimbursement process, UTFA is pursuing a cost-neutral, more inclusive and more streamlined process that would be in effect for this year. Stay tuned for more details.
ATB Implementation Dispute: Many UTFA members have heard from our junior colleagues that the University Administration has unfairly excluded them from the 2023 and 2024 wage increases secured by UTFA’s Negotiating Team. Most former and recently hired faculty and librarians have been excluded from the wage increases during their first year of employment. The Administration has failed to address UTFA’s extensive legal and political arguments from bargaining, nor have they addressed the issues articulated by junior faculty in their excellent petition. The UTFA bargaining team did not accept this inequitable practice and argued at arbitration on November 6th that the Administration did not implement the wage increase appropriately. We now wait for the decision by the Arbitrator on this issue, as well as his ruling on ATB for 2025-2026.
If you have questions about this, see our FAQ on the ATB implementation, as well as current salary, benefits, and workload bargaining.
UTFA is Seeking Member Input on Strengthening our Governance
UTFA’s senior leadership is seeking members’ feedback on how to make the Association more democratic, efficient, and effective, and has engaged the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to review UTFA’s governance and structures. To date, CAUT has outlined an initial benchmarking exercise and provided an initial report comparing UTFA to other Faculty Associations at comparable institutions. An integral part of the review will be hearing from faculty members and librarians via an all-member survey, coming soon.
UTFA Leadership Pushes UPP Leadership to Engage on Divestment
As you likely know from UTFA’s May e-blast, the membership passed a motion on May 8th, 2025, regarding the University Pension Plan (UPP). The motion calls on the UPP to divest from the manufacture of weapons used to commit or facilitate war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and elsewhere. Following this result, the UTFA President and Executive, alongside the UTFA representative on the UPP’s Employee Sponsor Committee, have worked to engage the UPP senior leadership (the President/CEO and the Chair of the Board of Trustees) to discuss the implementation of UTFA’s motion. The UPP’s senior leadership has failed to address UTFA's questions adequately and, despite repeated requests for meetings, has not yet agreed to discuss the issues directly. UTFA’s senior leadership will continue to work to fulfill the motion’s mandate and will update you as these discussions unfold.
Defending Members’ Rights and Knowing Your Rights
In addition to UTFA’s work to expand members’ rights through bargaining, UTFA defends the existing rights of faculty and librarians through Association grievances, individual advice and grievances, and education. After UTFA’s bargaining team successfully secured meaningful amendments to the grievance and arbitration procedure (Article 7) in the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA), UTFA leadership has been pushing the Administration to schedule arbitration dates for Association grievances within the negotiated timelines. These grievances hold the University Administration accountable to uphold their existing obligations under the MoA. Recent grievances concern significant infringement of our members rights, such as academic freedom, program closures, and unit workload policies.
Your Council Representatives have relayed to the UTFA Executive that members want to better understand their rights and what they themselves can do to enforce them. UTFA is excited to announce the first two Know Your Rights documents in a series under development by the Grievance Committee: one related to UTFA members being called in for disciplinary meetings, and another about medical accommodations. You can visit UTFA’s Know Your Rights webpage to learn more and see this work as it develops.
UTFA’s Membership Committee Welcomes New Members
UTFA’s Membership Committee is working to engage grassroots organizers and hear and address issues that arise in members’ departments, faculties, and campuses. If you are interested in supporting these efforts and learning from members across units regarding the issues they are facing, please join the Membership Committee. Reach out to dancer@utfa.org for more information.
Sincerely,
Thom Dancer