Another open letter to the chair of the Board of Governors

Dear Ms Hyde:

Today is December 1^st and the strike continues beyond the date any of us expected, let alone hoped. I want to begin this by thanking you for your personal response to my previous letter. In this time of seemingly increasing distance it was nice to feel some kind of personal connection to a stranger.

But as I say, the strike continues. Throughout negotiations, UMFA has put forward proposal after proposal, and has been met with at best minimal movement from the administration's bargaining team. Members involved and who have reported their impressions of bargaining and mediation, have indicated that much of the rest of the administration's side don’t seem to be as active participants in the process, and that the head bargainer, Ken Maclean, seems to be perhaps the only consequential voice on the admin side.  Mr Maclean is of course a specialist in labor and employment law, but as an outside litigator how familiar is he with the day-to-day activities of a university?

Employers and educators are finally beginning to realize that a focus on STEM education and outcomes, which seem to be at the forefront of ‘market-driven’ and ‘employer-focused’ educational philosophies, are inadequate in the long term. Many writers opine that the true value of STEM education is the focus on creative problem solving and critical thinking, not the factory-output of competent engineers and technicians. Lately, I have been seeing reference to STEAM educational values—science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics—recognizing that traditional university disciplines, rather than being valueless to the marketplace, haave always produced the critical thinkers and problem solvers that employers need now and into the future.  Acquaintances in industry have often said that ‘they can teach them to run the machines and work the numbers. What we can’t do is teach them to read and write’ in illustration of exactly this point. They do not know what skills will be most in demand in five-to-ten years, let alone further along, any more than they (or we) know where the next medical breakthrough or entrepreneurial success will come from. But it will definitely come from someone well practiced in critical thinking, not just numbers and existing solutions.

I speak for no one but myself, but it seems to me that ‘negotiation’ is by definition give-and-take. No one is necessarily 100% pleased with the outcome, but the result should be some kind of ‘acceptable’ middle-ground. It seems that Mr Maclean has shouldered the burden of some arbitrary (or provincially sponsored) line in the sand, and dug in his heels to protect it,, perhaps ignoring even the wisdom of the rest of his team in doing so. He and the bargaining team have not demonstrated fair and good-faith bargaining, as reflected in compromise. If there is any truth in this, regardless of the source of the limitations on the bargaining team’s activity, they do the university community a grave disservice and endanger the long-term health of the university.

This, in my long-winded way, is my way of asking that, as a matter of inexpressible urgency, the Board provide new direction to Mr Maclean and the bargaining team, to look forward to the long-term health of the university, the robustness of the university community and our ability to recruit and retain energetic and imaginative faculty, and our ability to deliver on long-term needs of ‘the market’.

Respectfully
robh 

Robert Hagiwara
Department of Linguistics
Currently on legal strike

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)