Mount Allison legal fees revealed through right to information process

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(April 30, 2015-Sackville, NB.) Recent right to information (RTI) requests made by the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations (FNBFA) have revealed Mount Allison University spending on legal fees in the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 fiscal years.

The University reports that it paid $31,878 to lawyers in 2012-2013. Payments to lawyers in 2013-2014 totalled $455,585.

“While the administration has declined to name the firms that received the payments or to identify the services provided, the reporting period of 2013-2014 includes the collective bargaining process which began in the summer of 2013 and extended into the strike in the winter of 2014,” said Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) President Loralea Michaelis.

In 2013, the University took the unusual step of hiring an external lawyer to act as its Chief Negotiator. The lawyer, Brian Johnston, QC, is a Halifax-based partner with the law firm Stewart McKelvey. Stewart McKelvey is also the firm that Mount Allison uses for grievance handling.

Mount Allison records indicate that Brian Johnston served on the Mount Allison Board of Regents from 1991 to 2006. Records also provided to the FNBFA indicate that he served as Vice-Chair of the Board in 2004 and Chair of the Board in 2005 and 2006.

The current chair of the Mount Allison Board of Regents is James Dickson, QC, also a Halifax-based partner with the law firm Stewart McKelvey. He has served on the Board since 2007, holding the position of Vice-Chair in 2012 and 2013. Mount Allison records also indicate that he served from 2009 to 2013 on the Board of Regent’s Human Resources Committee.

“This information raises a lot of questions about how the University is being managed,” said MAFA President-elect Andrew Irwin. “For example, how can the administration make responsible spending decisions about legal fees if it is retaining a law firm with which it has such close ties?” he asked.

“We are told that times are tough and money is tight, so it is surprising to discover that student tuition dollars and the grant from the government are being spent in this way,” said Michaelis. “$455,000 is a lot of money for legal services in just one year. And we still don’t have the complete picture,” she added.

The tally for payments made on legal services for 2014-2015 is not yet available but this reporting period would include the interest arbitration which continued through the spring, summer, and fall of 2014. There were also several grievance arbitrations held in the fall of 2014 and winter of 2015.

The interest arbitration process was aimed at resolving issues outstanding from the 2014 strike and establishing new collective agreements between Mount Allison University and its faculty and librarians.

The FNBFA also asked for information on any payments made in 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 to communications, public relations, and crisis management firms. The University reports that it spent $0 for these services in 2012-2013. For 2013-2014, the University declined to provide any information, claiming that disclosure of this information “might invade the privacy or affect the interests of a third party.”

A right to information request made of the University of New Brunswick, filed by the Fredericton newspaper The Daily Gleaner (and granted upon successful appeal to the NB Privacy Commissioner), revealed that the UNB administration paid $113,000 in 2014 to a communications firm for media services related to the faculty strike (The Daily Gleaner, March 5, 2015).

The Mount Allison Faculty Association represents 148 full-time faculty and librarians and 40 part-time faculty.

For further information contact the MAFA office at 506-364-2206 or email [email protected]. Original documents are available upon request.

MAFA makes annual holiday season donations

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The Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) has announced its 2014 donations to local charities.

“Every year the Mount Allison Faculty Association makes donations to local charities, as a way of supporting the good work being done in and around Sackville,” says MAFA President Loralea Michaelis.

This year MAFA is donating over $4000 to local charities. Earlier in the year, MAFA donated $2700 in support of a Mount Allison refugee student through World University Services of Canada.

Local organizations receiving support include the Festival by the Marsh, Habitat for Humanity, Springhill NS Build, Sackville Christmas Cheer, Sackville Memorial Hospital Foundation, Sackville Public Library, Salem Elementary Outdoor Classroom Project, South East Regional Adult Learning Board, Tantramar Family Resource Centre, Tantramar Heritage Trust and Tantramar Hospice Palliative Care Organization.

The faculty union also made a donation to the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity.

“This year our members decided to support a mix of organizations providing help to those in need, as well as educational and cultural initiatives in the broader community,” Michaelis says.

MAFA is the bargaining agent for 190 full- and part-time professors and librarians at Mount Allison University.

MAFA passes resolution of support for university divestment from fossil fuels

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Sackville, NB – At its recent Fall General Meeting members of the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) voted unanimously in favour of a motion in support of DivestMTA, a group of Mount Allison students pressuring the Mount Allison Board of Regents to divest from its investments in fossil fuel companies.

“Fossil fuel industries including oil are industries of the past. The urgency of dealing with global warming means these are no longer good long-term investments. It is time to shift our investments to renewable energy companies, the industries of the future” says Geography and Environment Professor Brad Walters, who was the mover of the motion.

The Mount Allison University endowment is worth $140 million and the university investment policy does not currently screen investments for environmental sustainability.

As part of the same motion, the MAFA membership also voted to direct its representatives on the university Pension Advisory Committee to investigate the possibility of providing pension plan members with ethical investment choices, including an investment fund focusing on renewable energy.

The Mount Allison faculty pension fund is a defined-contribution plan to which members and the employer each make fixed contributions and, like in a Retirement Savings Plan, the individual member gets to make investment decisions from a limited number of fund options.

“Environmental responsibility begins at home. We should have the choice to invest in sunrise, renewable-energy companies,” Walters says.

The pension fund has around $50 million under management. “These are significant resources and it seems reasonable that we should have the opportunity to make decisions as to what companies we invest in,” says MAFA Vice-President David Thomas, also a Politics and International Relations professor who has taught in the area of socially responsible investing. He said that many faculty members are concerned about their impact in the world and not just the rate of return in the pension plan.

MAFA represents 195 full-time and part-time faculty and librarians.

The full motion reads as follows: “That MAFA support DivestMTA in their effort to encourage fossil fuel divestment in the Mount Allison endowment, and further that MAFA call on its representatives on the Pension Advisory Committee to explore similar measures with respect to the faculty and librarian pension funds.”

For more information, contact David Thomas at (506) 364-2289, or [email protected]

Arbitration decision issued

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Sackville, NB – Arbitrator Kevin Burkett has just issued his decision to settle the two collective agreements between the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) and Mount Allison University.

The decision provides for an increase in full-time faculty and librarian salaries of 1.75%, 2.0%, and 2.25% effective July 1, 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively. The stipend for part-time faculty will increase from 8.75% to 9% of the Assistant Professor floor per course. Both agreements will run for three years.

The purpose of the arbitration was to settle all of the issues left unresolved following the three-week faculty strike in the winter of 2014. In the end many of the non-monetary proposals were withdrawn by both sides in August 2014 in preparation for the arbitration process.

“The challenges of this round of bargaining have strengthened the resolve of our members to defend the conditions of work which are essential to the academic mission of the university. We are looking ahead to the next steps in the arbitration process,” said MAFA President Loralea Michaelis.

The arbitration decision did not completely resolve all the issues. Arbitrator Burkett referred the dispute between the parties over the purpose of Anonymous Student Questionnaires to a joint MAFA-Employer Committee. The arbitrator will make a final ruling on the matter in June 2015.

The Mount Allison Faculty Association represents 148 full-time and 47 part-time faculty and librarians.

For more information, contact Loralea Michaelis at 506-364-2289.

“Universities are not Walmarts,” National President tells Faculty Association Crowd

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As part of Fair Employment Week (October 27–31), the President of the Canadian Association of University Professors (CAUT) told members of the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) that it’s time for everyone to join the fight to preserve a public, rigorous and fair university system.

“We are increasingly aware of the inequities in the Canadian university system,” says Robin Vose, President of the CAUT. “Two tiers of academic employment, those with permanent, full-time jobs on the one hand and, on the other, those teaching for a fraction of the money on a part-time basis, have become entrenched.”

“Boards of Regents and their administrators often seem to regard education as just another commodity and the students as customers,” says Vose, who is also a history professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Rather, universities have a duty to the public. Running them like businesses only undermines their academic integrity. And the increasing reliance on precarious academic labour doesn’t seem to be saving the public any money. “The irony is that the cost of a university education keeps going up rather than down, and the students get less educational benefit because of cuts to faculty numbers,” he says.

At Mount Allison for example, the number of full-time faculty and librarians has dropped from 158 in 2013-14 to 148 in 2014-15. Over the period 2007 to 2013, the number of courses taught through part-time teaching has increased 19.8% while the number of part-time teachers has increased by 14%. Part time faculty are paid around $6000 to teach a single course; most receive no benefits or pension and have little or no job security.

“Meanwhile, administrators increase their own numbers and salaries and build legacy capital projects named after wealthy people,” Vose says. “The other irony is that they praise corporate management but the universities themselves are not well run, by the standards of contemporary management practices,” he said.

Vose says that academic staff unions need to focus on collective bargaining but also political action, in areas like the improvement of employment standards, Employment Insurance, the CPP system, and a national day care policy.

Fair Employment Week (October 27-31, 2014) was established by CAUT in 2001. Its purpose is to highlight the contribution of contract academics and remind everyone of the important role they play under often difficult circumstances of low pay, limited or no job security, and little time or support for their research, teaching or service.

The Mount Allison Faculty Association represents 148 full-time and 47 part-time faculty and librarians.

For more information, contact Robin Vose at (Office) 613-820-2270.

April 2014 MAFA Executive Newsletter

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In this issue:

  • President’s Message
  • Outstanding Student Volunteer Awarded George J. De Benedetti Award
  • Report from the CAUT Aboriginal Staff Forum
  • MAFA Membership Takes a Stand at Recent Annual General Meeting
  • Report on the CAUT Equity and Diversity Forum
  • Report from the CAUT Workshop for Senior Grievance Officers
  • A Note on the Retiring Members’ Party

Newsletter April 2014 (PDF)