Who are we fighting for? and how?

As time goes on, my perspective on these questions is changing. Or expanding, if that's something that a perspective can do.

Obviously we're concerned about our salary structure, our reputation among similar universities, our ability to recruit and retain exciting and dynamic colleagues, other governance issues, intellectual property, etc. No question.

In my mind, we're also fighting for our students, and their education.  The province is/was openly hostile to higher education, and education in general, saying things like programs that don't result in high rates of graduate employment in the relevant field are withotu value, and should be un(der)funded, shrunk, or eliminated outright. This is one of the 'results-based' measures they want to use to evaluate and reward or punish us via the funding model. In fact it is the only measure that anyone seems to ahve mentioned in the last five years, at least.

This attitude has already resulted in overworked (and undersupported) programs (waves at Nursing) that obviously do have recognizable specific employment outcome goals being further inundated with work. See previous posts.

As I hope I have said, what we hear from employers, and have been hearing since No Child Left Behind and the insistence on STEM education as the 'main' purpose of education, is that education should place high value on critical thinking and creative problem solving. At least as much as specific STEM achievements.

I've been seeing recently 'STEAM', science-technology-engineering-arts-mathematics, recognizing the importance and utility of arts education in the areas of critical thinking and creative problem solving. Turning the university into a glorified vocational school (no shade on vocational schools, but they're just different from universities), serves no one, least of all students and their future employers, let alone society at large.

One angle I had been vaguely aware of but only recently started to appreciate, was our role in history. Winnipeg is pretty famous for the 1919 General Strike, which was a landmark in worker rights, human rights, and labor relations law. The way Covid has of course changed everything, in big and small ways. Most courses are being offered online (which is problematic because the administration seems to think this is a nifty way to bypass class(room) size limitations).  But (as in 2016) our contract negotiations were in their way precedential. 

In 2016 negotiations, due to unlawful government interference, the admin suddenly (and at the time inexplicably) pulled a salary offer off the table. This was the province's first salvo in what ended up being the Public Sector Sustainability Act which after the Throne Speech last week was declared officially dead, thank heavens). So we were the first public-sector union to test bargaining in the then-austerity-happy climate.

What's interesting is that there are several faculty associations around Canada (I counted at least four, possibly more--I'm hoping to track down, or make, a proper list to continue in the practice of gratitude) that are also in negotiation, or about to enter negotiation, over their contracts, and they either have called or expect to call for a strike vote. So they are looking at our negotiation.

The union especially has received word from faculty associations, and other unions, for advice about not only organizing a strike, but especially organizing online or virtual picketing activity. So I thought I'd go into it a little, from the perspective of an online picketer.

First of all, most members who are striking are on regular sign-holding traffic-slowing, picketing. Owing to my Achilles tendon, I haven't been on the line this year or in 2016.  In 2016 I did my strike duty in a support position driving a van, transporting picket captains, bringing coffee and snacks to the lines, running the odd errand, etc. 

This year, some 200 of us asked to be accommodated, for physical limitations, for child care issues, for being out of the city/province, etc., by becoming 'online picketers' which is something the union made up this year.  I don't know how all it got organized, but online picketers are organized into 'clusters'.  Each cluster meets for an hour via Zoom, to talk about our activities, our challenges, our ideas, to get updates about what's going on in negotiation, or on the picket lines, or where the union would like is to concentrate some of our activity.  Then we spend the rest of our daily strike time engaged in online or offline activities in support of the strike. For me, this blog is a big part of my activity, followed by time on Facebook and Twitter, liking, sharing, retweeting, and commenting on strike related posts, and combing media outlets (the Winnipeg Free Press, the CBC, CTV and Global news coverage) for strike related information, posting or tweeting it as appropriate, and occasionally writing in to correct misinformation. Some of my colleague spend more time on TikTok or Instagram or any of the other social media outlets. I just happen to be an FB and Twitter person.

Some of my colleagues spend their strike time writing and recording songs, and making memes that people like me try to disseminate across social media.  Others spend most of their time writing or phoning the members of the administration, the board of governors, the legislative assembly, the premier's office, the news media, etc. making sure the struggle remains on their minds, trying to get our point of view across, encouraging helpful behaviour and occasionally calling people out on bad behaviour.  

So we're fortunate that there are enough of us that we can keep all the live picketing zones live for the hours they're scheduled (something like 7am to 7pm, or maybe it's 4 or 5pm now, for them to have settled on three hour picketing shifts, daily. For us online picketers, our three hours includes our daily cluster meeting, and (at least) two additional hours engaged in whatever activity we can that doesn't involve walking in a circle, off and on, for three hours.

I have to say, the daily cluster meetings are a high-point of my day. I get to see (and meet) new colleagues, we get to support each other through our doubts and bad moods and discouragements. We get to hear more about what's going on in negotiations than our live picketers, share ideas and activities, frustrations and achievements.  

So I hope we're also inspiring our fellow union-members and fellow unions, as well as helping to pave the online way for conducting a strike during Covid.

Day 28

 Well, Happy Monday. Also Happy Hanukkah, for those who partake. I had a good weekend. Slept about 12 hours Friday night-Saturday noonish, and seven hours each last night and the night before, in the case of yesterday accompanied by about five hours lazing in bed, watching videos and catching up on the curling trials.

So before we get into strike stuff, many congratulations to Team Jones and Team Gushue, who yesterday won the women's and men's team curling trials and became the first Canadian athletes named to Team Canada for the 2022 winter Olympic games in Beijing. Apparently. I'm not sure how most sports work in most countries, but I know there are a few teams who were selected to represent their countries at the Olympics some time ago. In a similar vein that some countries put all their eggs in one team basket for the European Championships.  Which, by the way, were also decided this weekend, with Team Muirhead and Team Mouat, both of Scotland, one the women's and men's championships respectively. First time both winning teams represented one country. But back to Olympic curling talk. Jones won gold in curling in 2014 in Sochi. Gushue one his gold medal in Torino in 2006. So this is gonna be fun.

Bargaining update: Intensive bargaining happened this weekend, which is interesting because the mediator issued a report repeating his recommendation of binding arbitration and promptly resigned.  I don't know how many weeks or months this mediator had been engaged, and I know nothing about mediation, but it seems to me to be bad form to resign before the parties agree to move to the next step.  Reportedly, some progress (tiny steps) was made this weekend. 

UMFA is willing to arbitrate money (i.e. salaries, grids, scales), but wants governance language locked down. The mediator, in his recommendation, tried to assure us that the arbitrator, whoever it ends up being, would not be (or feel) bound by provincial mandate or fear of provincial reprisals, and that they would give fair hearing to outstanding issues of governance.

However, UMFA has reason to believe that the arbitrator, whoever it is, might well be swayed by provinicial mandate, and might choose to ignore the outstanding governance issues.  Issues of contractual language guaranteeing, for instance, time away from the classroom to research and retool courses, are famously not something that get arbitrated. Arbitrators tend not to mess with language.  If it's in the contract, and you're trying to change it, is one thing. Adding new language to a contract, for instance a guarantee that faculty cannot be forced to teach online or at distance (absent public emergency), is not something that arbitrators like to do. Which makes total sense.

But of course, we've been on the losing end of arbitration before. We care about these issues, and taking the advice of previous administrating bargaining teams, we're staying on strike to make sure we get these things settled. Or at least heard.  If these issues aren't included in the contract now, they will just get argued again in the future.

And I am skeptical of assurances that 'we don't need language like that in the contract' since we've never needed it before, and anyone everybody wants the best for everyone.  This may be true, but we can't grieve something that isn't in the contract.  So if some future administration or administrator chooses to ignore established extra-contractual 'understandings', we have no recourse.

This, as I understand it, is the power of the many 'letters of understanding' that seem to accompany collective bargaining. For the duration of the contract, one side assures the other that something will hold. (In the past, this has included things like the administration pledging to keep the number of UMFA members constant, or to replace X out of Y positions, or whatever--so if someone retires or resigns, the administration can't, or at least promises to not, replace all those positions with temporary, sessional positions, but with permanent, tenure-track positions. Or that the admin cannot simply close or eliminate programs, or do so without preserving the positions in question.  Or whatever the issue is.

I've never understood why these things aren't included in the contract, but now I get it. Eventually, it may turn out that the historically significant program in basket-weaving is just of no interest to students, and maybe it should be eliminated, or folded into fine arts or architecture or something.  It's easier to do away with or rewrite letters of understanding than to bargain these things in the contract.  So I get it.

So propaganda to the contrary UMFA has not rejected arbitration.  We have just rejected unconditional arbitration on non-salary related governance. There is no reason for the strike to continue, except that UMFA and the administration cannot agree on what will be put before the arbitrator and what will be settled through bargaining. And UMFA has put forward comprehensive proposals (which may or may not have been communicated properly to the administration--whole other can of worms), but the ball really is in admin's court, to come up with a counter proposal.

And word from the weekend is that bargaining has not reached a standstill. So I'm less anxious than I was that a resolution is possible in the near term. Although my acid stomach from last week hasn't subsided. Nor, actually, has the headache. But maybe another good night's sleep will sort that all out.

Long strike, long recovery

As we sort of wrap up Week 4, we're all looking with trepidation at the state of bargaining and what will happen to the rest of the school year as a result. Senate has approved a number of 'scenarios', if the strike ends by such-and-such a date then this will happen, if not then by such-and-such a date this other thing will happen. Basically we've already passed a couple of scenarios, and in another week or so we get into serious trouble. If we managed to go back before the 30th, interrupted classes will continue until December 23 and begin again on the 5th of January, and continue to January 12th. Classes that were not interrupted will finish on time, December 10th, and have their final exam period December 11-23. While interrupted classes are continuing. Under this scenario, Winter term begins on schedule on January 17th.

If we managed to return to work before December 7th, then interrupted classes will continue to the 23rd and resume on  January 5th, as above.  The last day of instruction will continue until January 19th, with its exam period shrunk to three days and Winter term would run Jan 24 to Apr 20. The winter mid-term break will be reduced to two days from five (accommodating the Louis Riel Day holiday on Feb 21, and the following day, instead of being that whole week. Various internal deadlines (fees, appeals, voluntary withdrawal, etc.) will also change mutatis mutandis. Which is a Latin expression which I never thought I would have occasion to use, meaning 'changing as changed' or roughly 'with concomitant changes as appropriate', Yay scholar-robh!

There are further scenarios that get successively more dire, that I don't even want to consider. Aside from the burden, on us and on our students, of making up the dates, managing one exam period while some classes are continuing, and having to forego the mental health breaks many of us have come to depend on, or at least try to get the most out of, there's the domino-effect of delays that, after December 7th, would not only effect Spring and Summer, but potentially next Fall as well.

In other words, no one can wait until the end of December, when the 60-day threshold hits and we (and they) can be forced into binding arbitration. The rumor I heard that was circulating, that the admin was just digging in until then, appears to a) be false, and b) would have truly dire repercussions for months, perhaps years to come, and everyone--whether from 'inside' the university or not--seems to be aware of it.  As it is, I'm not sure the university can take the reputation hit that would result.

What's more, many programs, for instance in health and rehab sciences, are required to offer some number of days of instruction per term as part of their certification programs. As it is, the university has to balance the general schedule with the needs of specific programs: certain programs in agriculture, dentistry, dental hygiene, education, and I don't know what all else have to be coordinated with outside schedules (for instances, student teachers have to be ready and available for placements during the regular primary and secondary school years). And of course everything was fouled up by Covid to begin with.

In other news, yesterday I got a personal response from the president to my open letter from the other day. It didn't actually say anything unexpected, but it didn't have the same anti-union narrative that the official communications are having. So I sent back a short note thanking him and hoping we could all resume normal working relationships.  Which I figured was the appropriate thing to do.

I'm exhausted. Everyone is, on all sides. I understand the mediator, having recommended arbitration, has officially resigned. Nonetheless, this weekend will see some pretty intense, un-mediated, bargaining, hopefully to iron out some of the outstanding governance issues that we feel shouldn't be arbitrated. For a change (if you have been paying attention to previous blogs or other sources about the 2013 debacle, or the 2020 near-debacle. Which as far as I'm concerned was pretty debacular*).

*It may not have been a 'word' before, but it is one now. An example of how language is a 'living' thing that changes constantly and adapts to speaker need.

So as I head into my weekend, my plan is to do what I can to rest and recharge, possibly isolate myself from the strike-related social-media cycle a little.  Hope you have a good weekend.  To my colleagues stay #umfaStrong. To my students, thanks for your support, patience, and resilience. It really can't go on much longer.

Gratitude, continued

A few days ago I posted a list of all the organizations that (seem to have) tweeted support for our strike action.  Today, a union leaflet names quite a few more. So below is the current list. Again I apologize for any oversights or errors, and would be happy to include any corrections.

The original list was compiled by me, as described earlier.  The additions (below in white) are from today's leaflet. I took some time to look up the official name of each organization (where I could*) and figuring out if they had a Twitter presence. First I looked for a Twitter handle, a 'find us on social media' or a twitter badge or something on their landing page, about us page, of their contact page.** If I didn't find one I did a search within Twitter for keywords from the organization name, obvious abbreviations, and so on. I have included the Twitter handles where I could find them. Organizations that seemed to have no social media (by which I mean Twitter and FB) presence are marked with (?)

*In one case, marked (FB), the website indicated a Facebook presence, but I could not find Twitter presence. 

**Ryerson University is undergoing a name change, so its faculty association will be renamed at some point as well. The name change is an interesting story. The tl;dr version is that Ryerson is/was named for the principal architect of the residential schools program, and especially with the discovery of hundreds of unmarked children's graves on former residential school sites, it seems at best inappropriate to name a university after him.

Please be grateful to these organizations with me.

• Academic Teaching Staff, University of Alberta (@ATS_UofA)
• Acadia University Faculty Association (@Acadia Faculty)
• Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculties Association (?)

• Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 (@ATU1505)
• Association des bibliothécaires, professeures et professeurs de l’Université de Moncton (?)
• Association des professeurs et des professeurs de l’universit »e de Hearst
• Association des professeurs, professeures et bibliothécaires de l’Université Sainte-Anne (@appbusa)
• Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta (@TheAASUA)
• Association of Employees Supporting Education Services (@AESES_AESSE)
• Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers (@ANSUT_Tweets)
• Association of University of New Brunswick Teachers (@AUNBTweeter)
• Brandon University Faculty Association (?)
• British Colombia Institute of Technology Faculty and Staff Association (@BCITFSA)
• Brock University Faculty Assocation (@BUFABrock)
• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba Office (@CCPA-MB)
• Canadian Federation of Students – Manitoba (@CFSMB)
• Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario (@CFSON)
• Canadian Federation of Students / Fédération canadienne des étudiantes et étudiants (@CFSFCEE)
• Canadian Military Colleges Faculty Association (?)
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers (@cupw)
• Canadian Union of Public Employees - Manitoba (@CUPEMB)
• Canadian Union of Public Employees 3912 (?)
• Cape Breton University Faculty Association (@cbufa)
• Carlton University Academic Staff Association (@cuasa)
• College Faculty (member of the Ontario Pubic Sector Employees’ union (?)
• Community Not Cuts (@CNC_Manitoba)
• Concordia University Faculty Association (?)
• Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (@cafaab)
• Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (@CUFABC)
• Dalhousie University Faculty Association (@dalfacultyassoc)
• Faculty Association at Simon Fraser University (@SFU_FA)
• Faculty Association of the University of Calgary (?)
• Faculty Union of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (@funscad)
• Grant MacEwan University Faculty Association (@GMUFA)
• Kings University College Faculty Association (?)
• l’Association des professeures et professionnel.le.s d l’Université de Saint-Boniface (?)
• Lakehead university faculty association (@LakeheadLufa)
• Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (@MAHCP_MB)
• Manitoba Federation of Labour (@MFLabour)
• Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union (@MGEUnion)
• Manitoba Nurses Union (@ManitobaNurses)
• Manitoba Organization of Faculty Associations (@MOFA_FAPUM)
• Manitoba Teachers' Society (@mbteachers)
• Memorial University Faculty Association (@MUN Faculty)
• Mount Allison Faculty Association (?)
• Mount Royal University Faculty Association
• Mount Saint Vincent University Faculty Association (?)
• Northern Ontario School of Medicine Faculty and Staff Association (member of the Ontario Public Sector Employees’ Union)
• Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (@OCUFA)

• Professors Association of St Paul University (?)
• Public Service Alliance of Canada - Prairie Region (@psacprairies)
• Queen’s University Faculty Association (@CUFAtweet)
• Raven Law (@RavenLawOttawa)
• Renison Association of Academic Staff (?)
• Royal Roads University Faculty Association (?)
• Ryerson University Faculty Association (?)
• St Francis Xavier University Association of University Teachers (?)
• St Mary’s University Faculty Union SMUFU (@SMU FacultyUnion)
• St Thomas More University Faculty Union (FB)
• Students Supporting UMFA (@supportingumfa)
• Trent University Faculty Association (@trentfaculty)
• University of British Columbia Faculty Association (@ FacultyUbc)
• University of Lethbridge Faculty Association (@ULFAssociation)
• University of Manitoba Graduate Student Association (@UofM_GSA)
• University of Manitoba Students’ Union (@MyUMSU)
• University of Manitoba Undergraduate Microbiology Student’s Club (@UofmMicroclub)
• University of Northern British Columbia Faculty Association (@UNBCFA)***
• University of Ottawa faculty association APUOFA
• University of Prince Edward Island Faculty Association (@UPEIFA)

• University of Regina Faculty Association (@UofRFA)
• University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association (?)
• University of Toronto Faculty Association (@utfaculty)
• University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (@UWOFA)
• University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (@UWOFA)
• University of Winnipeg Faculty Associations (@theuwfa)
• Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association (@WLUFA)
• Winnipeg Teachers' Association (@WinnipegTA)
• York University Faculty Association (?)

***In the first list, I accidentally listed UBC's Twitter handle as belonging to UNBC. Sorry.

"Bonus" post (2)

Just wanted to hop in to say that I was going to post something yesterday, as usual, but my internet went down yesterday evening, and didn't come back until I did something miraculous that didn't involve rebooting the computer, the router/modem, or anything else, at 11am. Don't ask me what I did, and I still haven't checked to see if the TV is working, but I hope to spend the afternoon perusing the news, Facbook, and the Twitterverse for more strike/union-related news and opinion. 

But first, I have posted the open letter to the Premier that I started  yesterday after the Throne Speech* (I get a kick out of everyone who posted about the "Speech from the Thrown"). I purposely left out the dig at her for not meeting, or really acknowledging, the strike. I paired that down to the line about dialogue and engagement being necessary for negotiation.

*For my USAian readers, the Speech From the Throne is read by the Sovereign, in our case the Lieutenant Governor, at the federal level the Governor General, at the beginning of each parliamentary session. It's provided by the leader of the government (Premier or Prime Minister, as the case may be) and, sort of like the State of the Union address, lays out the priorities and goals for the legislative session.  And without a ton of posturing, introduction of 'honored' guests and so on.

So, cautious optimism that Premier Stefanson is a critical thinker and a creative problem solver, and will see that some of her goals will require some investment. At least, as far as I know, she doesn't spend five months of the year in Costa Rica.**

**Overstruck the dig at the previous Premier, who for various reasons Shall Not Be Named(tm) and anyway Who Doesn't Matter Anymore(tm). Also, Costa Rica sounds like a beautiful country (not least because I have beautiful friends there), and there are worse places to spend 5 months of the year.  But between are most recent mayor, who would spend inordinate time at his property in Arizona, and he who Shall Not Be Named's penchant for disappearing to Costa Rica for weeks at a time, I'm pretty done with elected officials who spend so much of their time non-locally.  Have a vacation for a week or two. Even a weekend or two a month. But please.

A second open letter to the Premier

 Dear Premier Stefanson, 

When I wrote to you last, the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) was ending the first week of the 2021 strike. As we now start our fourth week, I and my colleagues are hopeful that recent events signal a change in the Province’s, and with it the University administration’s, approach to bargaining. Until now, and especially in the last week, the administration has moved very little when they moved at all. “Meaningful dialogue and engagement” are indeed necessary for truth and reconciliation, but they are also necessary in negotiation. Most recently, the administration rejected and refused to counter UMFA’s latest offer electing instead to propose unconditional binding arbitration

This option is frankly unacceptable.  In the past (specifically 2013), the administration proposed the same thing, and in front of the arbitrator retracted a number of issues which had been on the table, but which they suddenly decided ‘shouldn’t be arbitrated’. When UMFA objected, they’re response was, essentially, ‘if you wanted X so badly, you should have gone on strike’. Our current opposition to unconditional arbitration is based on exactly that ‘advice’. Fool me once, and all.

Instead, UMFA has imposed conditions before we will proceed to arbitration. These conditions included the settlement of a number of non-financial governance issues to protect our rights as scholars and as employees.

I am cautiously hopeful about your government’s approach to higher education and public sector unions. I am particularly pleased by Minister Fielding’s announcement that the PSSA-style wage freeze is to be lifted, and that in court the government’s lawyers have acknowledged the unconstitutionality of the interference in the 2016 collective agreement negotiations. “Dialogue and engagement” are indeed necessary to truth and reconciliation. I would remind you that they are also the essence of negotiation.

I am however very concerned about the ‘new funding model’, about which the Speech from the Throne gave no details, except that it is to be tied to ‘employer needs’ and outcomes. Although we share your government’s wish that all our graduates find gainful and fulfilling employment, I absolutely disagree that ‘training’ students for specific jobs is a good strategy.

For the last 15 years, at least, employers have been telling us that reliance on STEM education isn’t the panacea some had thought. A business associate said to me ages ago that ‘we can teach them to run the machines and do the calculations. What we can’t teach them is to read and write.’ Many, many articles suggest that the value of STEM education isn’t the focus on employability or job skills, but on creative problem solving and critical thinking.

I have great respect for tradespeople and vocational training. However, that is not the point of a university education. Particularly in Arts, we have always focused on critical thinking, critical reading, and critical writing. That is, skills much needed by and appreciated by employers for the workforce. These skills are fostered not only by major and minor coursework, but electives that allow students to explore fields they hadn’t considered, or in some cases even heard of, and to experience different approaches and points of view to various real-world issues.

My point is that one can never be sure exactly what kind of needs employers are going to have in the next 5-10 years, let alone over the lifetime of our graduates, any more than one can be sure what knowledge, skills, and talent are going to lead to the next entrepreneurial success, or the next medical breakthrough.  What employers have always needed, still need and always will need, is a workforce capable of thinking critically and creatively. This is the point of a university education, and this is what we all, whatever our individual fields of study or discipline, strive to offer to our students.

It would be remiss of me now to not mention the admiral goal of opening 400 new spaces for admission to nursing school. I want to point out that educating all those nurses will require a good deal more staff, and as I’m sure you know, University of Manitoba salary grids at the moment do not offer competitive compensation for the staff we have, let alone any new staff we want to recruit and retain. This is what is at stake in our current negotiation. Education, including higher education, requires a financial investment, not arbitrary austerity measures, if we are going to be able to do our jobs, and our students to do theirs.

Respectfully,

Robert Hagiwara, PhD
University of Manitoba
Currently on legal strike

Bonus blog! Last year's priorities from the throne speech

Premier Heather Stefanson's first throne speech will be delivered (by the Lieutenant Governor) tomorrow around 1:35.  The throne speech opens the legislative session and sets the government's priorities for the session.

I'm planning to attend the 'watch party' (I don't think that's what they're calling it, but it's basically what it is) with the Union over Zoom while we watch the streamed speech.  I've never paid much attention to the provincial throne speech, but I'm getting militant in my old age.  Also I'm a  citizen now, and on strike, so I guess I should be paying more attention in general.

So this evening, I looked up last year's throne speech, in which the LG (speaking for the Premier) laid out five priorities. From the 2020 throne speech

1. "... protecting health care, and vulnerable Manitobans, with record new investments and initiatives ... as we build an even stronger health care system for Manitobans
2. "... protecting jobs by creating more jobs and restarting our economy with new investment and business supports....
3. "... protecting your income by reducing the taxes you pay ...
4. "... protecting education and child care by building a first-class K-12 education system with new schools, increased classroom funding, and more say for parents in their children’s education outcomes and child care choices.
5. "... protecting Manitoba’s financial, environmental and energy futures by pursuing a careful two-term, balanced budget plan to eliminate the COVID-19 deficit while investing more in health care and education and lower taxes, taking more steps for climate action and conservation to protect our province’s environment, and protecting our clean energy advantage with a strong and secure Manitoba Hydro."

Just as an exercise, how well have they done?

The healthcare system is close to the breaking point, and not just because of COVID. Last spring, the government basically demanded that the Nursing programs increase enrollment by 200 spots. The University of Manitoba College of Nursing would accommodate approximately 120 of those spots.  They were given, seriously, 24 hours to submit proposals regarding how they were going to accomplish that. The province continues to undervalue nurses and nursing instructors.

I need to go through my tax records, but the main thing I gained last year is my $433 (or something like that) education tax rebate. This represents a portion of my property tax that is earmarked for public education.  This in an environment when already underpaid teachers spending their own money on classroom supplies is regarded as an 'opportunity' and not an abomination. Like nurses, public school teachers around North America are being asked to do more and more, with less and less.  (I hesitate to point out that these are both professions dominated by women, but it's probably worth mentioning.) I never did figure out a way to donate that money back to the local schools.

Well COVID didn't make things any easier,  but I don't get the feeling from parents and teachers on the ground that any positive changes have occurred. Pallister's idea of giving parents 'more control' was to try to eliminate local elected school boards, which strikes me as the exact opposite of what they claimed they wanted to do.

And we know how priority five is going, seeking to balance the budget on the backs of public sector workers by holding their salaries static. Protecting Manitoba Hydro is a joke, since the PCs have been trying to privatize it for at least as long as I've been in Manitoba.

Thoughts?

A long and jumbled post, but there's a lot going on right now

A few interesting things happened this weekend. Well, starting on Friday and continuing right up to 11:30 this morning, which is when I tried to stop paying attention.

The Chair of the BoG, Laurel Hyde, responded to my email with a nice note. All we have gotten from the Premier, the Ministers, and the President have been auto-replies, locked doors, and unplugged phones. So Laurel Hyde, I thank you for your time and consideration. I’ll thank you even more if you and the Board can lean on the Dark Side (the administration) and if necessary the Province, to Be Reasonable as negotiations proceed.

Last week, UMFA proffered our latest offer, which to no one’s surprise was rejected by the Dark Side. On Friday evening, just in time to send us strikes into a tailspin of emotions and anxiety, not only did the Dark Side reject the offer, but indicated that it was refusing to counter. This is not a good example of free and fair negotiation, but whatevs. The announcement was accompanied by an indication that they would seek ‘advice’ from the mediator to try to find a solution for this apparent impasse. Considering they created this impasse by refusing to counter…. Well, whatevs.

The mediator, seeing no resolution on the horizon, suggested that perhaps it was time to go to binding arbitration. As we’ve indicated, binding arbitration is no one’s best choice, particularly not now. The Dark Side has proposed ‘binding arbitration with no conditions’. What that means exactly isn’t clear, but the union has some conditions. We’ve got some non-salary governance issues that we think need to be hammered out before arbitration. Among these are a proposal guaranteeing staff (in particular our overworked and underpaid Instructors) a contiguous 21 days away from teaching ever year, to catch up on journal reading and advances in the field, to plan and retool courses, and to have a little time to themselves just to recharge. Another is a guarantee that (absent a public emergency) we cannot be forced to deliver a class online.

As a professor, I typically don’t teach in the spring or summer terms (except by choice, on overload, or very, very occasionally to make up for an earlier class that gets cancelled), so the contiguous days issue doesn’t really effect me. But our instructors typically teach at least 8 courses a year (compared to the 3-5 most professorial staff teach, because we’re supposed to maintain an active research program as part of our work). Most of the instructors I know in fact manage to do research in spite of it not being technically part of their job. And many of these classes involve hundreds of students.

Moving instructors onto the librarians grid (who likewise often maintain research in spite of not being paid for it) would go a fair way to addressing the issue, and providing a significant increase to the salary grids in general would do more.

I’m particularly concerned about online teaching. The Dark Side, and apparently the Province,love the idea of online delivery of courses. They can open and even increase enrollment in popular classes, they can get students from far away to take and pay exhorbitantly for classes. And (they think) it means they don’t need as much teaching faculty. One of the sentiments we hear from the public and the province is ‘why do we need professors at all? Can’t they just record a lecture once and then use it forever?’

Well, no. Aside from eliminating professor-student interaction (which is arguably one of the most important factors in student satisfaction), professors and instructors work hard at updating courses, keeping them current with the state of the field; adapting to current events when appropriate. Imagine class in public health, immunology, genetics, or medicine, recorded just two years ago, that makes no mention of the current COVID situation. Insanity. And it would contribute to the ‘erosion’ of the value of a university education (and the promotion of the anti-science sentiment) that we see all around us.

And we need enough autonomy to pursue the work we think is important, irrespective of capricious provincial or administrative whim. This is an important component of Academic Freedom, which maybe we’ll talk about another time.

Along with recruitment and retention, we are very concerned about educational standards. What is the value of a university education. It’s so much more than what you get in a college or vocational education. It’s getting exposed to fields, points of view, and analytical approaches. It’s applying critical thinking/reading/writing skills not only in your major, but across the board. For those of us in less familiar fields, it’s presenting things to students who didn’t know anything about us, and inspiring them to an interest in something they didn’t know was a thing, let a lone one that might occupy a lot of the rest of their lives.

UMFA is limited in the kinds of things we can control through collective bargaining. We have no authority over majors or credits or which courses have significant ‘writing’ components or ‘math’ components. We have no say on administrative appointments or policies (except insofar as individual members may be on particular committees). As I wrote in 2001, UMFA is not the Excellence Task Force.

So salary scales may (and quite well could) end up in arbitration. But there are some things we’re going to dig our heels in on, and these governance issues are high on the list.

At 11:37am, we all received word from the President of the University that the Vice President (External) was resigning, effective Dec 3. Apparently this has been in the works for a while, with the President doing his best to convince the VP(Ext) to stay, but the timing of this is weird. We’re on the verge of the longest UMFA strike in history (today is day 21, equaling the 2016 record). We are in the middle of difficult negotiations. We keep talking about the quality of the university. The VP(Ext)’s job entails overseeing, among other things, community relations, PR, and especially fundraising. Cajoling industry and commercial interests in partnering and funding the university. Reminding alumni of everything they owe to their University experience and getting them to support it. That kind of thing. Also, it seems to be, officially, only 11 days notice.

So the timing of this seems … odd. It kind of undermines the Dark Side’s claim that they can’t afford anything, since the soon-too-be-former VP(Ext) is responsible for some of the most successful fundraising and university profile campaigns ever. It also means that the next VP(Ext) is walking into a powder keg, caught between the Dark Side and the Provincial Government, and the Dark Side and alumni relations, and a very serious discussion of the decline of university standards and the value of the university experience happening all around us. I cannot fathom what the next VP(Ext) is walking into, and that’s just the things I know about. No idea what other forces the VP(Ext) has to balance and manage. Good luck to you, whoever you are.

I am grateful for these organizations and their public support

Been kind of a rough week for a lot of my colleagues.  I’m going to take time to practice gratitude.

Yesterday, I mentioned how much we appreciate our Students @SupportingUMFA group. Today I want to shout out the many organizations that have sent messages of support. In some cases, they’ve sent actual people to walk the lines with us.

Method:

I did several advanced searches on twitter, looking for tweets that mentioned the UMFA twitter handle (@UMFA_FAUM) and one or more of the words "support" "supporting" and "solidarity" over date ranges starting Nov 1 (the day before the strike began) to about 10am this morning (19 Nov). From the tweets returned, I tried to make a note of all the organizations that offered their support.

Shortcomings:

This is only things that got tweeted; if something got sent to IG or Facebook or Tiktok or anywhere, but didn’t get retweeted in Twitter, I didn’t find it.  If any tweets did not include the UMFA twitter handle and one or more of the keywords, I didn't find it. Also, there were a few cases where I wasn’t sure if it was the organization, officially supporting ours, or individuals from an organization doing so. Apologies all around to anyone I’ve missed or misidentified. Please let me know and I’ll try to do something about it. 

Results:

There are of course many, many individuals we are grateful to for their support, but I don't have it in me to identify all of them right now and figure out if they’re UMFA members or supporters from Outside in the World somewhere.  So as far as I can tell, the list below names in alphabetical order each organization that (I believe) has offered their support to us (along with their Twitter handles): 

• Academic Teaching Staff, University of Alberta (@ATS_UofA)
• Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 (@ATU1505)
• Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta (@TheAASUA)
• Association of Employees Supporting Education Services (@AESES_AESSE)
• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba Office (@CCPA-MB)
• Canadian Federation of Students – Manitoba (@CFSMB)
• Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario (@CFSON)
• Canadian Federation of Students / Fédération canadienne des étudiantes et étudiants (@CFSFCEE)
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers (@cupw)
• Canadian Union of Public Employees - Manitoba (@CUPEMB)
• Carlton University Academic Staff Association (@cuasa)
• Community Not Cuts (@CNC_Manitoba)
• Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (@cafaab)
• Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (@CUFABC)
• Faculty Association at Simon Fraser University (@SFU_FA)
• Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (@MAHCP_MB)
• Manitoba Federation of Labour (@MFLabour)
• Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union (@MGEUnion)
• Manitoba Nurses Union (@ManitobaNurses)
• Manitoba Organization of Faculty Associations (@MOFA_FAPUM)
• Manitoba Teachers' Society (@mbteachers)
• Memorial University Faculty Association (@MUNFaculty)
• Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (@OCUFA)
• Public Service Alliance of Canada - Prairie Region (@psacprairies)
• Raven Law (@RavenLawOttawa)
• Students Supporting UMFA (@supportingumfa)
• University of Lethbridge Faculty Association (@ULFAssociation)
• University of Manitoba Graduate Student Association (@UofM_GSA)
• University of Manitoba Students’ Union (@MyUMSU)
• University of Manitoba Undergraduate Microbiology Student’s Club (@UofmMicroclub)
• University of Northern British Columbia Faculty Association (@FacultyUbc)
• University of Regina Faculty Association (@UofRFA)
• University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (@UWOFA)
• University of Winnipeg Faculty Associations (@theuwfa)
• Winnipeg Teachers' Association (@WinnipegTA)

UMFA member supporting StudentsSupportingUMFA

 

Have I mentioned how much I love and appreciate our students? I just wanted to call attention to Students Supporting UMFA, a grassroots, student-led group who recognize the importance of the issues of recruitment and retention that face us. They want and deserve a quality education. That’s going to take a quality university, and that’s going to require competitive salaries and benefits for professors, instructors and librarians.

I am so appreciative of their efforts, energy, and creativity.  Please visit their website, or their social media. #virtualhugs

Contact

• http://ssumfa.ca
• https://www.instagram.com/studentssupportingumfa/
• https://twitter.com/supportingumfa
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn6u_5v90Y64u80yNSy0sTA

In the news

• https://www.rankandfile.ca/student-organizing-101-at-the-umfa-strike/?fbclid=IwAR1F_0YamE8E9FLrKZoT7pgh2yWRF_IhV_otXEhhftiCwWxeDWZysjdOjM8
• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/student-protest-university-of-manitoba-1.6249099
• https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/students-staging-lockout-at-u-of-m-admin-building-as-strike-continues-1.5666291

#UMFA2021 #UMFAstrike

 

Open letter to the president and the chair of the board of governors

To Michael Benarroch, President and Vice Chancellor;
and Laurel Hyde, Chair, Board of Governors
University of Manitoba

I'm sure you're tired of all these emails and calls related to the strike and ongoing negotiations. I know we're tired of sending them. I am a proud UMFA member and am fully behind my union in the current negotiations. Our priorities are meant to support recruitment and retention, particularly as effect salary and benefits we are able to offer to our professors, instructors, and librarians.

The new offer barely differs from the previous offer, increasing by a total of approximately $225,000 (or about $187.50 per UMFA member).  Not only is this sum an order of magnitude too small, it provides the greatest benefit to only 44 members (with a $4000 lump sum payment, itself more than four times the next largest lump sum payment from the previous offer, which again only benefits a small portion of UMFA membership).

The present and previous governments have apparently learned the folly of demanding, in writing, severe constraints on bargaining as unlawful interference. I accept Ministers Ewasko and Fielding's assurances that there is no such (written) mandate.  But whether written or verbal, such direct interference is at best inappropriate.  

One cannot expect that all the ground lost to inflation and relative to the U15 all at once. But the growing gulf must be addressed, somehow, and immediately. It is vital to the quality and viability of the University that the administration and the board make it clear to Premier Stefanson and her Ministers that you will negotiate with your employee unions freely and fairly, that you will vociferously resist arbitrary and inconsistent political pressures, and that you intend to act only in the best, long-term interests of the University.

Robert Hagiwara, PhD
Department of Linguistics
Currently on legal strike

What's up with bargaining? *

After two weeks of nothing, the admin has put forward an offer.  For background, admin made a last minute offer on the eve of the strike, which was rejected by the union, followed two or three days later by UMFA's counteroffer.  Which was rejected in something like 36 hours, abut was not followed by a new counter offer until this past Sunday (the 14th). As has also become characteristic of this administration's offers, there's not a lot new. In particular, there's not a lot of new money in this proposal over the last one. In fact, according to the union, the total new money invested in this offer is on the order of $225,000. Which comes to a grand total of $187.50 per member (assuming 1200 members, which is probably a little low--i.e. everything always says 'more than' or 'upwards of' 1200 members  So probably even less that $187.50 in real terms. (In fairness, this is over and above the base salary increase they're offering, which is something like 1.5% averaged over three years.)

The really galling part of this is that 75% of the new money in this proposal consists of a $4000 lump sum payment to the 44 UMFA members who are already above maximum, or threshold, or whatever they are above.  That is, those members which already make the maximum amount of money in the salary grid.  UPDATE: A colleague reminds me that there are many more than 44 full professors at the top of the grid, and speculates that these 44 may be the ones who are already geting 'market stipends', i.e. money above and beyond the salary grid to make up for the vast amounts of money they could be making practicing law or running Fortune 500 companies or whatever they could be doing.(There is another $950 lump sum payment from the previous offer that would benefit 450 members.)  Otherwise we're looking at an increase of an average of about 1.5% increase in salaries per year, over three years.  Which is basically the same offer as last time.  (They get to do this by fiddling with the numbers, i.e. in one proposal, they offer 1.5% across the board, in another they offer 1% in one year, 1.5% in the next and 2% in the third.  I'm sure that amounts to real differences in totals and compounding and such, but not enough per individual to make a meaningful difference in terms of recruitment and retention.

So a $4000 lump sum payment to 44 members represents $176,000, or 78% and change of the total new money in this proposal. Benefitting 44 individuals who represent less than 3.7% of the total membership.

There are, in principle, the best paid people in the union. The group they belong to (full professors) in fact have lost the most ground to inflation compared tot he rest of the U15.  Average salaries at the other U15 schools have increased about 2.6% (well below inflation) between 2015-2020 fiscal years (all according to Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates). 

This is a transparent attempt to pander to some of the haves (and could-haves) at the expense of the have-nots. Sound familiar? and the administration knows that some of the haves, and potential haves, are concerned about their potential lifetime earnings being $120,000 or so less over their lifetime. if they get the same increase as everyone else. Which is not a wad of money to be sneezed at, certainly, but misses the point of these negotiations, which is about increasing salaries, especially at early and mid-career colleagues, so as to  be slightly more competitive with competing institutions.

Those 44 members absolutely deserve every cent they make, and what they make lags far behind their other U15 counterparts. But they already make the most money, and most now have roots here, and are unlikely to leave for more money somewhere else. Meantime there are positions that go unfilled, because after a search locates a viable candidate, they decline the offer, because they can make more money living somewhere (at least on the surface) more appealing. And many of these positions are available because they have been vacated by people who have left for greener pastures.

The admin needs to stop playing this divisive shell game with numbers and make a substantial offer.  We're never going to get the 3.5% we probably deserve (remember that inflation is currently at 4.4%) but given the much ballyhooed $96 million surplus they crow about (and the recent 6.6% increase in student tuition and fees (the third, and largest, increase in as many years, could they not come up with a way to invest around $400 per member (amounting to less than half a million dollars) in the future and viability of the university? A move like that would at least indicate a sincere wish to bargain, and possibly to end the strike and get us all back to work where we belong.

*It probably is worth saying that all opinions here are my own, based on my limited understanding and knowledge of Everything. That goes for this whole blog,not just this post.  In case I need to say it.

Welcome to week 3

Today I learned that the admin, in its attempt to sway public opinion, is cooking up numbers. Well, we already knew that, but now we know how, at last in one case. And it's almost sensible. But it isn't the way 'most people' think of numbers (for the record, I'm not sure the way 'we' do it is any more 'correct', but at least our way is more in line with 'most people'.

So let's say that admin's offer is 1% in each year of 3 years. To 'most people', that's a 1% raise, followedy a 1% raise, followe by a 1% raise, such that at the end, you're making approximately 3% more than you were making before. In fact you're making a little more, since those %s compound.

What 'most people' would not interpret that as is a 6% raise. Which it is not, in any sense. Except that admin's position is that by offering 1% in each of 3 years, they have to come up with 1% more money in the first year, and 2% more money (than now) in the second, and 3% more in the third year. Which adds up to 6%, which is how much more money they have to pump into salaries, but it's hot how much more money is going into paychecks.

Add to this the previously known case of including in your calculations increases that have already been bargained and they are beholden to.

So that's that. Draw your own conclusions.

If last week was targeting politicians, this week is supposed to be about targeting the administration. Frankly it's more fun sending emails to politicians, since we don't have to work with these people (directly) after the strike. But I'm thinking of things I can usually say to the president of the university. Perhaps I'll have another open letter to share in the next couple days.

BTW, the 2016 strike, for 21 days, was apparently the longest strike at the University of Manitoba in history. We're told (because there was a press release about it) that admin has presented a 'new' offer to the mediator today. We, the rank and file, know nothing about this offer yet. The Bargaining Committee and the Collective Agreement Committee are going over it, seeing what is really in it (as opposed to what was in the press release, which we know isn't how 'most people' are going to interpret it), before they officially comment. Which means I won't comment either. Except that the last couple offers weren't substantially different, in terms of better recruitment and retention of new faculty, than previous offers. They seem to involve moving money around, rather than coming up with new money. For instance, you can offer 1% in each of three years, or you can offer 1.5% in the first year, and 1% in the second year, and 0.5% in the third. From their perspective, that's the same 6% they have to outlay, except they have to come up with a little less year after year.

Full disclosure: the actual offers look nothing like the above. The above is just how I understood what was told to the mediator when they asked what the difference was between admin's numbers and our numbers. Or rather what was told to my cluster leader about what was told to the mediator.

But just to remind people, the current inflation rate is on the order of 4.4%, so even an offer of 2% in any year doesn't keep up with inflation, and actually falls further behind than the 1.5% offer back when inflation was about 2.3%. And this is just about the 50th contract year that hasn't kept up with inflation. Been reading about how young people don't have to go into debt to go to school, they just have to work. But school costs more, even adjusting for inflation, and employers pay less, than they did 40-50 years ago.

Thoughts at the end of week 2

Technically, week 2 ends with Monday, since we started on Tuesday the 2nd. But in my head it's the end of week 2.

This week, live picketers concentrated on the Leg/Ledge/Legislature Building and the constituency offices of various MLAs and ministers, primarily from the "Progressive" Conservative party, which gets less and less progressive as time goes on. (The analogous federal party, known simply as the Conservative Party (of Canada) went through a few pains on their way from "Progressive Conservative" to just "Conservative". Lately a new party, the Canadian Citizens' Party, has popped up to fill the nationalist void, but that's another random political story I don't know enough about.)

As readers of this blog will be aware (for instance, from my Open Letter to the Premier, and elsewhere) the PCs have been illegally (technically 'unlawfully', but I'm not sure of the difference at this point, or whether I care) interfering with collective bargaining for basically as long as they have been in power this time. They are smart enough not to have put anything in writing (which is what usually qualifies something as a 'mandate' coming down from above (as opposed to a 'mandate' from the voters upward, which requires only enough votes to get into power). Since such mandates constitute unlawful interference, the new PC trick is to communicate its wishes by telephone, backing up any contravention of those wishes by reducing the province's financial contribution by the same amount.

This is precisely what happened recently with the city of Winnipeg's negotiation of the contract with aS 7ambulance services. The province funds an outfit called Shared Health, which doles out money to local agencies for contracted ambulance service. The city recently agreed to a 2% increase in salaries. In order to ensure 'sustainability' (which is apparently the PC buzzword meaning 0 growth in expenses), Shared Health reduced its ~$50 million coverage of Winnipeg ambulance services by $861,854? Does that number look suspiciously specific? It should. It's exactly the amount that the salary increase costs. It amounts to something similar to 2% of the actual Shared Health contribution, but it is transparently an effort by the province to not pay for salary increases for public sector workers.

So it's pretty apparent that what the province is telling employers is that not only will they not pay for salary increases to unionized employees, but the employer is going to be penalized by the same amount. You spend an extra couple million on salaries? Kiss four million goodbye from you operating funds. (That's the amount of money the salary increases will cost you, plus the additional penalty pulled out of your operating funds.)

Because these things are conveyed 'informally' through direct conversation, rather than in writing, apparently indemnifies the province (thinks the PC party) from unlawful interference. But just because they avoid creating the paper trail, doesn't mean they aren't interfering. It just makes it harder to prove, since they can claim 'there is no mandate', any advice 'privately' conveyed to the university administration through conversation is presumably protected speech, and anyway, when they reduce the budget, it won't be because of salary increases, it'll be because of 'sustainability'.

It's been about a week since the university admin rejected UMFAs latest offer, but according to the mediator, they haven't put forward a new proposal. They're sticking to their previous proposal. We're sticking to ours, and frankly it's up to them to counteroffer at this point. They've also announced what kind of 'repair measures' will be taken if the strike ends on this date, or that date. Upshot is they are now advertising that classes will continue to 23 December, with finals and stuff happening in January. This is what they did in 2016 after three weeks. Even though this is sort of the end of week 2, there were no classes scheduled for this week (midterm break or reading week, or something) so technically they've only lost one week of classes. Sounds like they're settling in for a long one. And so, so am I.

Investment and return

This little factlet is based on information from the University of Manitoba Economic Impact Analysis (2019). Tuition and fees continue to climb. Full-time faculty, instructors, and librarians' salaries are being artificially frozen. So who is making this investment, and who is benefitting from the economic activity. Not UMFA members, and not students. So who?

Just a quick note: Tomorrow there will be no strike activities, owing to the Remembrance Day holiday.  Please take a couple of minutes at 11:11am to reflect on the sacrifices which have been and continue to be made by servicepeople and their families. 

Nursing in focus

 As we begin our second full week on strike, I am left running out of interesting things to say in this blog.  According to the intended academic schedule, which still holds for courses led by non-UMFA members, this is fall term break. Which means what little traffic there is in and out of campus will be that much more sparse. What's the point of picketing when there's no traffic?

But a-ha! UMFA is composed of scholars, i.e. relatively smart people, and they have anticipated this problem.  This week, in addition to online and 'virtual picketing' activities, they are moving the regular picket lines to political hotspots.  Yesterday was the constituency office of the Premier, today was the Minister of Mental Health, Wellness, and Recovery. I forget who tomorrow's favored target will be, which is just as well since I'd just be spilling the beans.

In keeping with directed protest in the direction of the Minster of MHW&R, a lot of us are concentrating our information on the 'looming' nursing crisis in Manitoba. Hundreds of FTE nursing positions are presently vacant in Manitoba. The need was so great that the province required the College of Nursing to double its intake of students, with concomitant increase in instruction and practicum hours. Which of course requires qualified people to teach teach and oversee them, and hopefully minimizing endless fruitless searches for replacements who leave for more money, better conditions, and less stress.

We know that nursing is a difficult and often thankless profession. Burnout is high. During the pandemic, nurses and nursing students were even more overworked (and in greater personal danger) than usual; and frankly if there's one group you want not foregoing sleep or food, it's your front-line nursing staff.

So let's hear it for nurses, and those who train them. Let's hear it for front-line nurses who risked physical and mental health keeping the rest of us safe and alive during the pandemic, in spite of not having a contract for over four years (finally settled this past October). Remind the province that interference in collective bargaining is both unlawful and antithetical to keeping high-quality nurses on the job and satisfied. Remind the province that quality health care, as well as quality education, is going to cost money, and if they want nurses in particular, it's worth investing in the system that produces them. Remind the university administration of the same thing, and that it's their duty to act in the best interest of the university and the community.

My open letter to the Premier

 Dear Premier Stefanson

I came to Manitoba from my home in the USA in 2000, to join the faculty of the University to Manitoba. As was expressed to me then, and which has been amply demonstrated since, recruitment and retention of new faculty is of huge concern. Building and maintaining a world-class university absolutely requires a steady intake of truly exciting and innovative researchers.  The salary grid at the University of Manitoba remains at the bottom among comparable universities, particularly at the early and mid-career levels, and thus is presently an impediment to that recruitment and retention.

 

It is vitally important that university president Michael Benarroch be allowed to bargain in good faith with his unions, with the best interests of the university, its growth, and its reputation foremost in his mind.  As you know, policies and attitudes inculcated by your predecessor, with his well-demonstrated disdain for education, higher education in particular, and his obvious antipathy to public sector unions, resulted in bargaining mandates which have twice been found to be unlawful interference in collective bargaining. I am extremely concerned that under your watch, these policies are continuing.

 

The University of Manitoba Faculty Association is presently in its second week of strike action largely due to the intransigence of the administration in negotiation, in matters of governance as well as in compensation.  President Benarroch has claimed that he is constrained by provincial mandate. Your Ministers of Finance, Scott Fielding, and Advanced Education, Wayne Ewasko, have both claimed that there is no such mandate. The absence of a written mandate is not in itself evidence that undue pressure is being placed on President Benarroch from somewhere in your administration.

 

Are you able to state, publicly and unequivocally, that President Benarroch is somehow mistaken about such a mandate, and that no undue pressure or threat of reprisal is coming from your government, your ministers, or their aides? Do you repudiate the unlawful attempts by your predecessor to interfere in collective bargaining? Would you publicly encourage President Benarroch to bargain freely and fairly, in good faith, with only the best interests of the university in mind?

 

Respectfully

The strike as an exercise in critical thinking

 Late on Sunday night, after mediation had broken down and the strike was unavoidable, the Dark Side sent out a piece of propaganda (we're unclear what happened to the communication blackout at that point) that our bargaining team had rejected their last offer.  Which they went on describe, shall we say 'creatively', their offer of a 9.5% increase in salary.  This was at best a misrepresentation. It was transparently an attempt to confuse and mislead UMFA members. You've read me rant about that.

 Now, here's where the critical thinking/reading/writing skills should (and for many of us did) kick in. What are those skills? Among other things, we always ask our students to consider a) who is providing the information, b) what do they want you to believe, and c) what are their starting assumptions.  Had we all done that, we would have cut through some of the confusion and wouldn't have started this job action in the state we did.  

a) who is providing the information?  The Dark Side. Hardly a neutral, disinterested party.  (As I hope I have said, or implied, UMFA's information is also cherry-picked and spun in the directions that we want people's thinking to go. And I hope it's clear that I am squarely in the camp of the union, which also cannot and should not be regarded as a neutral, disinterested party.)

b) what do they want people to believe? They wanted us to believe that, after 50-odd years of poor increases, and several years of 0% offers, the Dark Side had magically and magnanimously come up with 9.5% (over two years) across the board, that the union's bargaining team wase unable to recognize the amazing offer for what it was, and that they rejected said offer out of hand without bringing it to the membership. Since the only thing in the propaganda was about the supposed salary offer, that this is all about salaries.

c) What to they assume? The media, the public, and (apparently) some of my colleagues, are distracted and not cognizant of the myriad issues up for bargaining; that in the absence of that knowledge, it's all about salary; that people won't look past whatever surface information they provide

To counter this, how do we apply critical thinking? Well, what are the odds that this information, coming from an involved party (after weeks of silence), is unadulterated and easy to understand at first blush? Well, presumably poor. Consider the source, and what they want you to believe. Consider the absence of any supporting figures, like how much the whole proposal would actually cost in dollars, whether it would be distributed equally, or equitably, or (as they apparently wish to represent) across the board?

Their goal in deploying this 'information' was to destabilize the union membership's resolve, weaken our position, and make us look greedy and out-of-touch among the public and the media. They were unfortunately successful.  It took a couple days for UMFA's information to come out, which exposed the disingenuous smoke-and-mirrors nature of the 9.5% figure. Which I'm glad they did, even if a little late to counter the damage done.

There are always people who don't respect the strike.  That's fine.  Their business.  I mean, not fine, but their business, so whatever. After the confusion caused by the Dark Side's clumsy propaganda move, many more people considered breaking the strike, and in fact we know of some who actually did.  I really hope I don't learn who these people are because I don't want to libel anyone.  But I don't trust them. And I especially don't trust their critical thinking.  

You wanna talk salaries? Let's talk about salaries

 Monday night, as a last move before the strike, the university administration (hereinafter to be known as the Dark Side) sent out a message which was a transparent attempt to undermine people’s faith in UMFA and the job action we were then about to embark on. Or at least I thought it was transparent. The result was quite a number of people choosing to break the strike and a (presumably overlapping) setoff people forcing a vote on that proposal.

 First of all, proposals on both sides are typically withdrawn upon the end of mediation and the beginning of strike action.  Second of all, these people are (presumably) scholars, who make their living reading critically, questioning and evaluating claims, and considering sources.

 If the issue were salaries, which I admit are part of it, what are the odds, that if the administration were really offering everyone what amounts to an astronomical increase in salary that our bargaining committee would have rejected the offer out of hand?

 All information is propaganda, spun so that people will believe what we want them to believe. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it is obviously a disingenuous ploy.  It isn’t always easy to tell the difference, true. But, as I say, these people should be practiced, if not good, at it.

 

This by the way is the value of the university. Practice and critical reading, critical writing, and perhaps most importantly, critical thinking. But I digress.

According to the Dark Side’s announcement, the last-minute offer was for a 9.5% salary increase. (To quote a random commenter on the CBC news website, “when was the last time you were offered a 9.5% raise?”  Which is precisely why this should have been seen for what it is. In the words of my union president, it’s “smoke and mirrors”. Or more charitably, it’s creative use of cherry picking and statistics. 

 Again, I point out that all information is propaganda.  I have no reason to believe our information is any less cherry-picked or ‘spun’ than the Dark Side’s.  I hope, however, that our information is at least more complete, and less disingenuously deployed.  We shall have to see about that.

 What the Dark Side actually offered, according to UMFA, is a 2.8% increase over two years.  Which is not to be sneezed at. The remaining 6.7% or so is in fact money that the Dark Side is already obligated to pay. In every contract there are built-in ‘increments’, small increases to your salary (called your ‘base pay’, if I have understood the explanation) given to all employees.  Increments differ depend on length of service, which salary grid you’re on (currently professorial staff, full-time librarians, and full-time instructors are all paid on different grids), what level you are on each grid (an Instructor I in her first year gets a different increment than a full Professor in her 30^th year), and other factors.  There are also ‘merit increases’ which can be added on top of these, again depending on a) whether the appropriate Dark Side minion™ things you deserve it, and b) where you are on which grid, and so on.  As I understand it, that 6.7% is composed of the entire fund required to meet existing obligations.  So as you see, these are distributed unequally across the salary grids, and effect only base pay.

 Instead, what we want, and what we’re striking about, is not base pay.  The issue is the salary grids.  What we’d like is a “reasonable” increase, to all grids, and all levels, equally. This would also include an increase in salary minima and threshholds.

 While obligated to increase yearly salaries (base pay) to all existing employees, the Dark Side is not obligated to offer incoming employees (remember, the ones we’re trying to recruit) more than the minimum base pay (at the relevant grid-level, very typically Assistant Professor or Instructor or Librarian I), because the bottom of each grid-level won’t change, just the amount of each individual’s base pay form year to year. Since the Dark Side can offer the minimum (at the appropriate grid-level).  Sometimes they offer more than that, if they are particularly interested in recruiting someone,  but this introduces intrinsic inequities  between individuals doing, presumably, the same job. And results in greater inequities experienced by women and visible minorities compared to white men which persist (surprisingly to some of us) even to this day.  But that’s a different rant.

What UMFA wants, as I say, is for all intents and purposes, a bump to the entire grid system (and the shuffling of Instructors onto the same grid as Librarians, which effectively raise their pay considerably). 

 This is one of the many issues involved in this negotiation. It is almost certainly the one that involves the greatest capital investment. But the Dark Side’s proposal addresses only salary, and does so inequitably across the grid-levels. UMFA’s priority is a structural change to the grids.

 According to the Bank of Canada, the current rate of inflation is 4.4%. The Dark Side’s proposal would see a ‘raise’ of 2.4% over two years, over and above scheduled obligatory increments.  I have been at the University of Manitoba for 20 years.  My first UMFA strike was in 2001, where I learned that in something like the previous 30 years, increments and increases hadn’t ever kept up with inflation.  (In 2001, inflation was somewhere around 2.3%.  Since then, I think we had one year, maybe two, where increments and increases have come anywhere close to the rate of inflation.  Over a career, that is a very real loss of buying power, of pay-off-the-mortgage money, of send-the-kids-to-school money. Add to that the overall economic reality, with young people stuck in lower-paying jobs, unable to rent or buy their own homes, and boomeranging home.  Add to that the increasing reality of many of my colleagues taking care of dependent parents and others.  And we haven’t start to talk about perks, like our parking subsidies, our prescription and other healthcare insurance coverage, and on and on.

 There are also non-monetary issues on the table, like what kind of information can and cannot be used in what kinds of personnel decisions (there may not have been a ‘permanent record’ in school, but there is definitely one for university employees). Whether we can be forced (absent a public emergency) to teach by remotely, or conversely in person, and who owns material we develop for our courses.  And countless other things that I know even less about.

 And this is the strength of having a union, collectively bargaining for us, in good faith. Individually, we don’t have to worry about these things, or ensuring that gains made are equitable. The union also sees to the enforcement of our rights and provides assistance when there is need to protect or enforce our rights.

 We are absolutely cognizant (or at least I am) that we are, generally speaking, well-paid compared to most workers in our city and province, where university education is not the expected norm, and thus the public at large may not understand the value of the university quite the way we’d like.

 But I would prefer not to work at a university whose quality comes down, even just a little, year after year, while student fees increase, even just a little, year after year. Where the ability to offer competitive salaries to incoming colleagues erodes little by little, year after year. Where we continue to lose colleagues to institutions that can offer more money and lower costs of living (here, I obviously exclude cities like Toronto and Vancouver, where costs of living really are unsustainable). Where quality of life, in addition to buying power, continues to decline.*

 *It must be said, that there is a lot about Winnipeg that I have come to love. But especially to new colleagues, the fact that it costs about $300-500 more to get anywhere from here (owing to having to fly through a ‘real city’™ to get anywhere, or a 4-hour drive only gets you to a city the size of Fargo, and only if you cross an international borde.And don’tget me started on the winters, although we do not have it worse, perhaps we even have it better, than most of Canada, if not most of our competing cities. But again, that’s a different rant.