It is true that University of Manitoba pay scales are the
lowest of the U13 Canadian universities. It’s true that every contact for 30
years before the 2001 strike had salary increases that failed to keep up with
inflation. Just FYI..
It’s about protecting the quality of the University of
Manitoba. The University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) is
there to advocate for full time faculty, librarians, instructors, and head
coaches. It isn’t the Excellence Task
Force. There are limited ways for UMFA
to exert its influence on the University. And one of the ways is negotiating
salaries. And yes, that is about our ability to make mortgage payments and pay
for our children’s schooling and all that.
But that’s not all that’s on the table, and for many, probably most of
us, it isn’t the top priority.
The quality of our university is under assault. For the last several years, the Faculty of
Arts, as an example, has faced a 5% cut to its budget. Meanwhile, more Vice Presidents and Assistant
Vice Presidents are created, and their offices staffed. The Faculty of Arts budget covers payroll for
all Arts staff, including members of UMFA, members of CUPE (including part time
and sessional instructors), AESES (support staff), office supplies, upkeep, overhead,
and so on. Salaries in most positions
are collectively bargained. There aren’t
that many budget lines that the Dean can wield discretion over.
So, librarians (who cannot be protected by tenure) are laid
off, classes that could be taught by sessionals (people hired term-by-term to
teach single classes--last check about 1/3 of undergraduate hours in Arts) are
not offered; remaining class sizes increase.
Instructor workloads are increased. Dead computers aren’t replaced.
All of this harms the university, diminishes student
experience, devalues the education we can offer. So yes, it’s about money.
Without competitive salaries, the UofM cannot hope to
attract and retain quality staff. Who in
their right mind is going to choose to come to Winnipeg to make less money than
they could make elsewhere?
Research is threatened.
The creation of arbitrary ‘performance metrics’ at a central level
undermines quality research, because it forces researchers to prove their value
in page counts, in ‘impact fators’, in funders’ dollars brought in, in hours
spent at a desk or in a lab, or appearances at conferences--in short-term
tangible output, rather than long-term quality of scientific and scholarly results.
Collegial governance is threatened. Consolidating decision
making in an increasingly bloated central administration means decisions are
made by people far from the front lines, many of whom are not scholars, who don’t
have to do their own paperwork, who don’t have to budget down to the box of
paperclips. Without buy-in, let alone
input or even consultation with academic and support staff on the front lines
of their budget dollars.
Academic freedom is threatened. As we become more and more beholden to
arbitrary ‘output’ and securing funding from outside sources, we trade our
academic freedom to pursue the issues we think are important, for work that
looks good in a press release, that will attract funders’ dollars. Scholars can be threatened with less funding,
less staff support, less money for graduate students, if they don’t do sexy,
high-output, highly fundable projects.
So yes, it’s about money.
But it’s not about salaries. It’s
about building an academic institution of the highest quality possible, and in
the end that’s going to cost money. But
it also requires an environment where academics’ opinions and experience are
valued, where support staff and graduate students are valued, where
undergraduates can receive not only information they need but experiences in
critical thinking, judgment, argumentation, even grammar and writing style,
supported by academic and support staff who aren’t under constant threat.
Brian Pallister, premier of the province of Manitoba, has
imposed a mandatory one-year contract extension on ALL unionized public
employees, with a 0% increase in salaries.
If the university doesn’t comply with that order, the province can cut
funding even further. Talk about a
threat to the academy. But that also
means that salaries are off the table.
So it couldn’t be about salaries, even if we wanted it to be.
As of 1 November 2016, after being without a contract since
March, after months of negotiations and a last-ditch attempt at mediation, UMFA
has gone on strike. It’s inconvenient
for everyone. It’s frustrating for everyone. You’ve paid for a quality university
experience, and strike action is impeding that. That’s true. But it’s also the only way we have to fight for the things that
go into building that quality university you deserve. That you want. That we all need.
So, in the end, it is about money. But then everything is, just as everything, in the end, is about politics. It's about building and maintaining a quality university: excellence in instruction, in undergraduate experience, in graduate and professorial research. And in the end, quality costs money. I get that. But there's so much else on the table before we get to salaries.
#WeMakeUofMHappen #ReadyForAFairDeal #UMFAStrike2016
