MAFA

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

The fall term is drawing rapidly to an end and it has been a very busy time for MAFA members. The Collective Bargaining Committee and its subcommittees have been particularly active and all members will have the opportunity to discuss the results of their work in the meetings next week. MAFA has always been marked by the active involvement of so many of its members, and in particular in the year before negotiations we look to the guidance of our members to establish directions for the future.

Last week I attended the CAUT meetings in Ottawa. They began with a day devoted to visiting Members of Parliament to talk about post-secondary education issues. I had a good meeting with our MP, Dominic Leblanc, in which he assured me that the funding of universities is a concern for the federal government. Now that a federal election has been called, it is important for all of us to take any available opportunity to ask candidates about their support for post-secondary education. For several years the CAUT has been suggesting that a good step would be for the federal government to introduce a Post-Secondary Education Act that would remove support from universities from the general social program transfer to the provinces and make it a transfer that is dedicated to post-secondary education.

At the CAUT Council meeting interesting items included reports on balance between family life and workplace commitments, on stress in the academic workplace and on CAUT’s campaign against the Anti-Terrorism Act. Policy statements and model clauses were approved dealing with such items as collegiality, academic freedom and artistic expression, fairness for contract academic staff, and elimination of discrimination in the workplace. All of these items will guide faculty associations in seeking consistent standard when negotiating collective agreements.

The MAFA Executive looks forward t seeing you at the meetings next week and to working with you in the preparations for negotiations.

MAFA UNIT 2 (PART TIME) NEWS

Geoff Martin continues to work to see that the Unit 2 collective agreement is being properly administered by the employer, and this is going fairly smoothly. (However, we should keep in mind that this is a first agreement, and from our perspective many of its provisions are weak).

In the Contract Academic Staff (CAS) committee of CAUT, we are putting much of our effort into writing model contract language, as well as commentaries and CAUT discussion papers, advocating pro-rated appointments for part-time CAS. Over the last month Geoff has been working with Wendy Burnett, Maritza Farina, Ian Crutchley and Rob Cupido (the Part-Time Issues sub-committee) on ways to improve the Unit 2 collective agreement in the next negotiation.

*IMPORTANT UPCOMING MEETINGS

Monday December 5^th at 7:00 p.m. in Avard Dixon G12. Delegates from the sub-committees struck by the MAFA executive will present for discussion ideas generated at their meetings. These ideas and the discussions at this meeting will guide the Collective Bargaining Committee in formulating the agenda for upcoming negotiations.

Friday December 9^th at 10:00 a.m. in AD G12. The regular fall MAFA members’ meeting. The agenda will include reports from the Executive and Committee Chairs. Members will also be asked to discuss and to decide how MAFA will proceed with its negotiations. It will be very import for all members to make their views known. * Please make every effort to attend both of these meetings.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Sub-committees struck by the MAFA executive have been reviewing for about six weeks articles of the present collective agreement pertaining to:

Appointments
Librarians’ issues
Part-time issues
Retirement issues
Salaries & Benefits
Work-loads/working conditions

These sub-committees will report to the Collective Bargaining Committee on December 2^nd. Summaries of these deliberations and resulting recommendations will be presented for discussion at a Members’ Meeting on December 5^th at 7:00 p.m. in Avard Dixon G12.

2005 CAUT LIBRARIANS CONFERENCE

Jeff Lilburn recently attended the 2005 CAUT Librarian Conference “Negotiating the Changing Culture of Academic Librarianship” in Ottawa from October 20-22. This is his report:

Conference sessions included reports on the CAUT Librarians Salary Survey the 8Rs Canadian Library Human Resources Study and the OCLC Environmental Scan which examined issues and trends affecting libraries, archives, museums and related institutions.

A workshop on knowledge management techniques provided an overview of strategies for building generational memory within an organization. Within a faculty association, for example, knowledge management techniques such as after action review (following negotiations) and storytelling (for departing executive members) may be used to ensure that knowledge is not lost from year to year.

The regional review session, a regular part of the conference, provided an opportunity for librarians to share and learn about issues at institutions across the country.

Papers were also presented on negotiating language for collective agreements and affirmative action in academic libraries. The conference ended with an open forum that included lively discussion of many of the issues raised throughout the conference.

The CAUT Librarians Conference is held every two years and provides an important venue for sharing and discussing issues facing academic librarians across Canada. The next conference is scheduled for October 2007.

Jeff Lilburn, Public Service Librarian

UPCOMING DEADLINES

December 31

Deadline for the Chair of the Tenure and Promotion sub-committee to communicate the sub-committee’s decision to the faculty member/librarian concerned (Article 17.21/20.21).

February 21

Deadline for those employees granted a Sabbatical leave to confirm in writing intent to take the leave or postpone it for one academic year (Article 23.21).

MAFA 2005-2006 EXECUTIVE

Hans vanderLeest – President (Classics)

Chris Storm – Vice President (Psychology)

Ivan Cohen – Treasurer (Classics)

Anita Cannon – Grievance (Library)

Bill Lundell – Collective Bargaining (History)

Elaine Naylor – Membership (History)

Geoff Martin – Unit 2 (Political Science)

Paul Berry – Past President (Commerce)