Since 12:01AM on Thursday, UWOSA has been in a legal strike position.

The staff will have access to strike picket toilets that currently are in place at the campus -

Here are more photos.

Base Salary: $440,000 per year
10% performance bonus: +44,000
Gibbons Lodge (free): + 42,000
Leased Car (free): +12,000
Annual Research Allowance: +15,000
Legal or financial advice: +3,500
Annual Employer Pension (8.5%): +37,400
Special Executive Pension: +8,830

Grand Total for Compensation for year 2009-2010: $602,730

Also:

He received moving expenses of $25,000

All travel is Business Class
and he can take his spouse with him at no extra charge

At the end of his term, he gets to automatically become a tenured professor at 80% of his final salary.

The threatening and invasive “Conflict of Interest” article now is part of TAs’ Collective Agreement.

Many other photos are posted here.

On Wednesay, at 12:01 A.M., the UWOFA may decide to officially go on strike. UWOFA represents all full-time non-clinical faculty members, and all part-time non-clinical faculty members teaching a minimum of one full course. What this means is, for the most part, classes will be cancelled for thousands of UWO students.

The UWOFA, who have been negotiating since May, and without contracts since June, are disputing with the UWO Administration over sweeping and monumental changes to how professors will have to behave, and how students will learn in their classrooms.

As posted on the UWOFA website:

The UWO Administration has proposed a series of linked articles that would institute ‘performance management’ techniques governing Academic Responsibilities, Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment, Annual Performance Evaluation, Sabbatical Leave, and Discipline. One aspect of this chain of links amounts ultimately to a post-tenure review [by four unelected senior administrators], leading to possible dismissal. There also would be reporting requirements of all outside activities for Full and Part-Time Faculty, giving the Employer monitoring and control of all our professional lives, including parts not covered by Academic Responsibilities.

Many professors, students, and other members of the faculty believe these measures are being put into place in order to ensure that the faculty adheres to regulated educational materials and administrative ideologies.

James Compton, the UWO Faculty Association head, said the following:

People whose jobs are less secure are less willing to speak out, and that, in turn, weakens a central purpose of a university…It isn’t about money, it’s about a concern over performance management techniques that are foreign to Canadian scholarship and best practices generally…Peer review and self-governance took a long time to get right, and we have that at Western and good universities have that — it’s what marks universities off from high schools.

While we often see strikes happening over the issue of wages, what we have instead is a fight for not only the basic tenets the post-secondary educational system, but also those of every citizen: freedom of speech. Professors who refuse to teach the recommended textbooks and course outlines may face reprimand by the hands of the administration, and they will fear involving themselves in extracurricular activities (like the amazing pot luck I had with my class at my professor’s house last weekend) because they will have to explain why they did it, and why it was crucial to the course.

While many students are frustrated over the possibility of a strike, and what it can mean for their academic year, hopefully they are informed enough to realize that this fight is as much for them as it is for the professors.

We should know for certain some time today or tonight, but it appears probable that a faculty strike at Western is on the horizon.

The overarching issue, in all labour negotiations presently underway — both at Western and at other universities — is the growing culture of control on the part of university managements. With respect to labour negotiations presently underway at Western, this growing managerial grip is evident in at least two respects:

1. Management demands that would significantly erode the tenure and promotion process and, therefore, academic freedom.
2. Management demands that would broaden surveillance and regulation over employees’ lives — both on and off campus.

Bear in mind that whatever demands the university’s management “wins,” those new terms will become precedent-setting for universities across Canada. It would appear that Western has been selected as the “test site” for policies that will — quite deliberately — accelerate the corporatization of our universities. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has been at the forefront of exposing this trend; see: http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=711

Therefore, much is at stake — including our working conditions as professors everywhere, for those of us who are planning such a career path. Accordingly, I wish to draw your attention to the following related links:

* Letter from the Ontario branch the Canadian Federation of Students, our national student organization:
http://goo.gl/LOE6a (as cited in The Gazette: http://goo.gl/r8MjG)

* Commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Parents: Your Children Need Professors With Tenure”
http://chronicle.com/article/Parents-Your-Children-Need/124776/

For information updates — apart from those provided by the university’s management via mass e-mails and Western’s website — I recommend the following online sources:

* “Students in Support of UWOFA” website: http://studentsforuwofa.wordpress.com/
* “UWO Strike Support” website: http://uwostrike.wordpress.com/
* UWOFA website: http://www.uwofa.ca/
* UWOFA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/uwofa

The threats to academic freedom, combined with the expansion of corporate-style management of universities, should be especially concerning to those of us in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and related areas, in light of certain chilling trends internationally. Take, for example, the following news stories from the UK:

* “Humanities to lose English universities teaching grant”: http://goo.gl/HNFg
* “Humanities research threatened by demands for ‘economic impact’”: http://goo.gl/8RZwd

Colleagues, I hope you will join me in supporting Western’s faculty members who have been put into the unenviable position of having to fight for tenure and academic freedom, and against the growing culture of control, on behalf of all academics in Canada. Should the university management be “successful,” we will all lose — everywhere.

Sincerely,

Rick Telfer, MA
UWO Senator, representing graduate students
Past President (2009-2010), The Society of Graduate Students
PhD student & Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology
http://twitter.com/ricktelfer

PS. Bear in mind that the GTA Union (http://www.gtaunion.com/) and UWOSA (http://www.uwosa.ca/) are also presently engaged in collective agreement bargaining with the university’s management.

While I appreciate the work of our TA union representatives, and I generally trust the competence and values of our union’s leadership, I must oppose — in the strongest of terms — the proposed Collective Agreement. In particular, Article 28 is extremely concerning.

I offer my opinion as a long-time student representative with involvement in many student organizations locally, provincially, and nationally. In addition, I have experience in negotiating collective agreements from my time as a Trustee of the Toronto District School Board, and also as a former General Manager of the University of Toronto Students’ Union. I share such personal details only to lend credibility to my opinion; i.e., to assure you that I am both experienced and informed.

Specifically, Article 28 includes language that serves only to legitimate and expand the university administration’s culture of control. The proposed language gives unprecedented power to the university’s management to police our conduct both on and off campus. Not only will such power significantly diminish our rights as workers, but it will set a terrible precedent — against which workers elsewhere will have to fight.

The position of our union is that such policies already exist; therefore, including the policies in our Collective Agreement gives us a “seat at the table” with respect to the application of those policies. I disagree strongly with this assessment. Because the policies in question deal with conduct that is subject to disciplinary action, these policies are already subject to the established grievance process. What’s most alarming is that inclusion of the policies may, in fact, result in circumvention of the standard and established process of progressive discipline.

In short, if you find yourself accused or guilty of a conduct offense as deemed by the university’s management, then you will likely have less protection as an employee under the proposed new language.

Therefore, I urge you to strongly reject the proposed CA — and to send our union representatives back to the negotiating table.

Vote tomorrow (Tue Nov 2) at 2:00pm in the Alumni Auditorium of Alumni Hall.

Sincerely,

Rick Telfer, MA (PhD student)
Graduate student Senator, Past President of the Society of Graduate Students, & Teaching Assistant

This tentative agreement was sent to TAs on the day of the first of two voting sessions (on Monday). The second of those two voting opportunities is on the following day (Tuesday). Even if there weren’t 20 pages of tentative agreement documents to wade through, TAs would not have been given enough notice to leave room in their schedules for these voting sessions.  Yet, there are 20 pages of documents — with invasive and threatening measures buried in them.

Verbal responses from TAs are not permitted at the voting sessions.  Any TAs who can attend at all only will be permitted to ask questions, and vote.

Those of you who currently are TAs will find the relevant portions of the tentative agreement in the “Memorandum of Agreement.pdf” file, which is attached to the e-mail that the GTA Union sent out at 10:43am on Monday. On page 8 of that PDF you will find the relevant articles: that is, 28.01 through 28.03.

Here is a copy of those articles, in the tentative agreement -

Article 28 Conflict of Interest

New Article

28.01
Each employee occupies a position of trust in dealing with others inside and outside the University. Whatever the area of activity or degree of responsibility, the University expects each employee to act in a manner that will enhance the University’s reputation for ethical performance in all its dealings.

28.02
It is the responsibility of the employee to disclose possible conflicts of interest with respect to carrying out her/his duties. The conflict or possible conflict will be formally disclosed in writing to the Person designated by the Department, School or Faculty before any action or decision is taken. The Person designated by the Department, School or Faculty, after consultation with the employee and any other appropriate persons, shall determine whether a conflict, actual or apparent, exists, and determine an appropriate course of action as per University Policy. The Union Regional Representative will be notified upon determination of a conflict.

28.03
There are numerous ways in which conflict of interest can arise. Examples include relationships that involve a sexual or close personal relationship with a current student, teaching a student who is a close relative or close friend, excessive socializing with students outside class, lending money or goods to, or borrowing from students, or offering additional instruction to a student or a group of students outside of the regular class for a fee.

Please spread the word. We need fellow students and other concerned parties to help leaflet.