Newsletter

SEPTEMBER  2000, VOLUME 27.1    Miroslav Lovric, EDITOR

           in this issue:

Welcome to the new term to all colleagues — both continuing and new to MUFA.  It has become traditional (as I have been told!) for the MUFA President to make a report in the September Newsletter on what has been happening over the summer regarding MUFA initiatives and the plans for the coming year.  I will take this opportunity to bring you up-to-date in our ongoing and future actions on behalf of the Association.

CAUT Postcard Campaign
The MUFA Executive voted in Spring 2000 to participate in the CAUT postcard campaign to urge legislators to restore and improve funding to post-secondary education.  We invited other campus groups to participate in this Campaign and the MSU has agreed to join us.  Campaign posters and postcards have been sent to the MSU and to our MUFA Council members (and to individuals if they are not represented in Council) for distribution.  I urge you, if you have not done so yet, to return your postcard and try to make this a successful national effort.
 

Pension Surplus
The negotiation of the ways and means in which members (including MUFA) and the University could have access to a share of the current pension surplus has reached a critical juncture.  Our lawyers and the University lawyers have drawn up an agreement in principle based on input from member groups and the administration over sharing arrangements and the way in which voting on the agreement would take place.  The pension surplus distribution is a very complex issue and MUFA and the other member groups have profited enormously by the participation of Les Robb as the MUFA negotiator.  The current offer from the University includes a $150 million withdrawal of pension surplus, split 50/50 between pension groups and the University.  Distribution to members would be based on their Plan liabilities with minimum amounts for short-service members and elderly retirees (the actual amount is to be part of the agreement).  Part of the complexity of actually bringing a deal to fruition is the fact that to win approval from the Financial Services Commission of Ontario we must achieve at least a 90% agreement, with 100% casting votes.  Anyone who votes “no” to the proposal (if one is ultimately forthcoming...) will not participate in the distribution of surplus, but will become part of a separate pension group with their portion of attributed surplus.  There are certain aspects of the potential agreement in principle still under discussion.  Since the administration has set a late September expiry date for their offer, when you read this it is likely that an agreement either will be a fait accomplis or will have fallen through.  Everyone realizes that while the University would like its $75 million of the pension surplus, if the member groups do not agree in principle about the issue of distribution now, it will probably be another three to five years before discussion on surplus will again take place.

You will hear more about pension surplus in the next months whether or not the agreement in principle happens.  Just a warning, however, don’t spend your share of the money yet because the voting and approvals could take up to two years!

Career Progress/Merit Scheme
During the 1999/2000 session, an ad hoc sub-committee (A. Harrison, B. Lynn, J. Platt, H. Weingarten) of the Joint Committee reviewed the current CP/M document.  After discussions about the way in which the scheme operates and general complaints about CP/M, the sub-committee decided that the current scheme is, in fact, a good one and that the document needed to be revised to clarify some language (e.g., “par”) and to remove specific numerical references to the CP/M values which had become out of date.  The revised CP/M document will be approved by the current Joint Committee in September and then routed to the MUFA Executive for discussion and approval.  MUFA members will be asked to vote on the revised document once it has completed its bureaucratic hurdles.
 

Tuition Bursary
As John Platt announced in the AGM in April, the Joint Committee came to an agreement about a procedure of annual review and revision of the amount of the individual tuition bursary to be awarded to students.  Our agreement allows for $200,000 allotted to MUFA dependents annually and we have never had claims for this much in any year to date.  Thus we increased the tuition bursary to $3,000 or $100 per unit for 1999/2000 as we informed you last year.  The increased bursary amount was also extended to dependents of librarians.

The award was held at this level for 2000/2001.  The amount for 2001/2002 will be decided at the June Joint Committee meeting after reviewing the experience with the benefit over the 2000/2001 session.  The global amount of $200,000 needs to be discussed during our next negotiations (Winter 2002) when the current agreement expires.
 

Librarians
After serving on the MUFA team during two salary negotiations for our librarians, I am happy to report that we are progressing toward a memorandum of agreement about how MUFA faculty remuneration agreements can be adapted to librarians.  MUFA has been  pressing  the   administration  to  come   to   an agreement about how ATB, benefits and merit arrangements agreed to in the Joint Committee negotiation could be extended to librarians.  We argued that the MUFA negotiators would basically be asking for a treatment similar to the faculty settlement for the librarians.  Thus much negotiating time could be saved if we could extend items of the faculty settlement to librarians as appropriate.  Discussions are proceeding well and an agreement should be in place in Fall 2000.
 

Mactron
Our efforts to curb the way in which the Mactron is used have proved fruitful.  You will notice that the commercials are gone and the sign itself has been repositioned.  Thanks go to Martin Dooley and Paul Rapoport for spearheading our efforts in this affair.
 

Rights & Responsibilities of Faculty during Work Stoppages
In Winter 2000 the Joint Committee developed a policy on the rights and responsibilities of faculty during strikes after the experience of the TA Strike in December 1999.  The policy was discussed and approved by the MUFA Executive in September 2000 and will go to the general membership for a vote.  Although the MUFA members of the Joint Committee agreed that the policy should have included librarians, the administration disagreed.  Discussions are in the works to negotiate a parallel policy for librarians.  I hope that the policy we negotiated will help to make our rights and responsibilities clearer in the event of legitimate work stoppages on the campus than they were last Fall when the TAs went on strike.

The 2000/2001 year is shaping up to be an interesting one for MUFA.  Although there are no salary negotiations this year, we will be working to keep track of issues which will be pertinent to the 2001/2002 negotiations.  As well, the respite from negotiations will allow us to spend time on other issues — such as the commercialization of the university — that have an impact on our quality of life at McMaster.  I look forward to an interesting and rewarding year for the Association.

 Bernadette Lynn
 President

Observers Needed

Required: faculty and librarians who are members of the Faculty Association — yes, RETIREES also qualify — to serve as observers for  appeal and grievance hearings.  The role of the Observer is to report on the adequacy of the procedures, with a view to making recommendations to improve relevant policies, not to comment on the conduct or the judgement of the tribunal.  Hearings usually take place over one or two days.  For more information, send us an e-mail (mufa@mcmaster.ca), give us a call (24682), or drop us a line (HH 103A).

This year your annual salary letter from the President, dated 15 June 2000, included the information that “for faculty who received delayed merit awards relating to years 1994 to 1997 there will be a one-time payment.”  If you are one of the 577 MUFA members in that category, your one-time payment showed up on your July pay stub as a line under your regular salary labelled “spec pay”.

The salary letter did not explain how the one-time payment was calculated. So here’s an explanation.

In the last salary settlement, the Faculty Association and the administration agreed to restore some of the salary lost through delay of merit awards for years 1994 to 1997.  We agreed that a sum of $250,000 would be divided in proportion to the amount lost by those faculty members who were in the career progress/merit scheme during all or part of that period and who were still on the payroll as of July 1, 2000.  The total amount lost by these continuing faculty members was
I$3,919,037.81.  Thus, each faculty member in the group received about 6.34% (250,000 divided by 3,919,037.81) of the salary lost through delayed merit awards.

The average one-time payment was $433.28 (that is the result of dividing the $250,000 by the 577 faculty members among whom it was divided).

Your payment should have been higher than the average if you were a faculty member in the career progress/merit scheme during all four of the years 1994 through 1997 and your salary in that period was below the first breakpoint in the career progress/merit scheme.  It should have been lower than the average if you were a faculty member in the career progress/merit scheme during only some of those four years or your salary in that period was above the first breakpoint in the career progress/merit scheme.  It should have been zero if you were not a faculty member in the career progress/merit scheme during any of the years 1994 through 1997.  (For details of the career progress/merit scheme, see your Faculty Handbook, available on the MUFA website.)

The one-time payment allowed the Faculty Association to secure a larger amount for lower-paid faculty in the junior ranks who had lost the most through delays in paying merit awards.  It allowed the administration to emphasize in a practical way (through dollars) its commitment to merit.

To check the administration’s calculation of your one-time payment, you will need not only your July 2000 pay stub (or your 15 June 2000 salary letter) showing the amount of this payment but also your annual salary letters for 1996, 1997 and 1998, which show the amount of your career progress/merit awards relating to the years 1994 through 1997.  From these salary letters, note the following amounts:

  a.      amount of 1994 career progress/merit award announced in your salary letter of 17 June 1996 (start date delayed by 1 year from 1 July 1995 to 1 July 1996)

  b.      amount of 1994 career progress/merit award announced in your salary letter of 16 June 1997 and also in your salary letter of 15 June 1998 (start date delayed by 3.5 years from 1 July 1995 to 1 January 1999)

  c.      amount of 1995 career progress/merit award announced in your salary letter of 16 June 1997 and also in your salary letter of 15 June 1998 (start date delayed by 2.5 years from 1 July 1996 to 1 January 1999)

  d.   1996 career progress/merit award announced in your salary letter of 16 June 1997 (start date delayed by 0.5 year from 1 July 1997 to 1 January 1998)

  e.   1997 career progress/merit award announced in your salary letter of 15 June 1998 (start date delayed by 0.5 year from 1 July 1998 to 1 January 1999) Then your lump sum payment will be

(a + 3.5b + 2.5c + 0.5d + 0.5e) times 250,000, divided by 3,919,037.81.

a = $617.40
b = $617.40 (and so 3.5b = $2,160.90)
c = $336.77 (and so 2.5c = $841.925)
d = $1,390.15 (and so 0.5 d = $695.125)
e = $1,413.79 (and so 0.5 e = $706.895)

In the past, some faculty members have signed individual agreements with the University concerning the conditions of their retirement.  These agreements have covered special (non-standard) access to office space, laboratory facilities and other matters.  At present, there is no established procedure, other than the civil courts, for resolving subsequent disputes concerning the interpretation of such agreements.  The Faculty General Grievance Procedure applies only to those who “hold the academic rank of professor, associate professor, assistant professor or lecturer”.  Professors emeriti are not covered even in the case of disputes concerning an agreement signed prior to retirement.  Hence, it is especially important that clear, specific wording be used in such agreements.  It is strongly recommended that our colleagues seek the advice of MUFA and of their own lawyers before signing any such agreements.

 

If You Are Being Considered for Tenure and/or Promotion,
Read On

If you are a faculty member who is being considered for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor or for promotion to Professor, you may find it helpful to have a faculty colleague act as an advisor during this process.  This colleague can assist in the preparation of your research résumé, teaching dossier and other material.  An advisor can also accompany you to interviews at various stages of the process should this prove necessary.

This practice has been informally sanctioned in the past.  The Tenure and Promotion Policy explicitly states that a faculty member may be accompanied by a faculty colleague acting as an advisor when appearing before a Departmental, Faculty or Senate  committee.

Please feel free to contact the Chair of the MUFA Committee on Special Enquiries and Grievances should you desire further information concerning this policy or assistance in seeking out an appropriate advisor.
 

Modem Pool Funding

The Joint Committee has set the 2000/01 modem pool funding allocation, effective July 1, 2000,  at $80.  The level of spending will be reviewed at the January meeting of the Joint Committee.

Only faculty on the Career/Progress Merit Scheme and librarians who are MUFA members are eligible for this benefit.  To set up an account or if you have questions about your account, please contact the CIS Main Office at ext. 24357 or e-mail: carmela@mcmaster.ca.