This meeting marks the end of my term of office. There are only a few tasks yet to accomplish to complete the job. First, to report on the year's activities, and second, to thank those who have worked hard to try to make me look good.

First, for the report. At the January General Meeting I brought you up to date so my focus here is really on developments since that time or on ones that were not fully dealt with at that meeting.

MUFA has been working since last summer with the librarian members of MUFA to negotiate a new arrangement with the administration. It has taken a long time to get these discussions underway, but we think we are on the verge of making progress. The key issue for our librarian members is recognition of academic status for librarians. This status would recognize the academic role of librarians. In particular, it would recognize that contributing to the research and scholarly mission of the University is to be rewarded in librarians. A number of other universities in Canada have librarian appointments that are equivalent to faculty appointments, but this is not what is being sought at the moment though academic status would be a first step in that direction.

All of you will have seen and heard of the salary agreement by now. In the context of Ontario universities, it is a good agreement. Many other Ontario faculty associations would be glad to settle for it right now. The only future settlement that might make ours look bad is that of Toronto. They are in arbitration right now and if they were to get a major arbitration gain, we might regret having signed a two-year deal. Those that have settled, such as Trent and Queen's envy our settlement. After all agreements are in, I think we will be able to say that McMaster is the only University in which all the CP/M (or PTR, as it is called elsewhere) lost during the Social Contract has been restored.

We improved benefits again in our recent negotiations, mainly through the agreement concerning a pension holiday which, for a faculty member at the average salary level, puts an extra 2% in his or her pocket. We also improved PDAs in three ways: increased value; increased borrowing and carry- forward; and introduction of a Research Leave PDA. Though we think of these improvements to PDAs as aids in doing our jobs, to the extent we have had to pay for our own equipment, travel, and supplies out of our own pockets, they are a benefit. Finally, benefit discussions continue on devices. The University is interested in a cost sharing arrangement while we are interested in extending coverage to other devices, such as hearing aids. We hope to have an agreement on these soon.

I notice I did not really report on the benefit changes last fall at the January meeting so let me do so briefly now. The benefits agreement was negotiated by the end of September (without resort to arbitration) and we believe we improved our benefit package while easing the financial burden of the University at the same time. To limit costs, we moved towards a formulary for prescription drugs, we capped the amounts covered for hospital rooms, and we changed the frequency of covered dental visits. To improve benefits, we increased the proportion covered by insurance for major restorative dental work, we extended our dental plan to cover sealants for children, we improved vision care substantially, and improved our out-of-province health care (the University now pays for it).

While thinking of our negotiations, let us not forget our colleagues at York who are so under siege. Their strike is now in the 40th day (the longest at an English-speaking university) and they would be only too happy to settle for our package of increments and benefits since the beginning of the Social Contract. It looks more and more like the Board of Governors at York is simply trying to break the Faculty Association. For that to happen would be a major blow to Ontario faculty associations. Whether or not you are a union supporter, you should be concerned about the outcome of this strike. If you want to learn more about this strike, take a look at the YUFA web site.

A short time ago on the e-mail list we announced that MUFA would pay transportation for any members wishing to go to York and join the picket lines in a show of support. A few members have gone to York, but unless they plan on submitting bills later they have so far paid their own way. In any event, the offer still stands. Further, last week the Executive met and unanimously approved MUFA sending a message of support and token financial support to YUFA. We have sent $1,000. We are not in a financial position to do a lot more in this regard, but the Executive thought it important to send moral support in this way.

To put this in context, it is worth noting that when we felt besieged by the mounting court costs associated with our pension dispute, we received approximately $4,000 from other associations, including a contribution from the York Faculty Association.

Getting back to our remunerations settlement, though, the other point I would like to make about our settlement is that, although we have done well relative to other universities and perhaps much of the public sector, since the beginning of the Social Contract university salaries in Ontario have been eroded by over 10% in real terms. While at McMaster we have managed to maintain our movement along the salary profile, the whole profile has fallen dramatically. This will prove to be a real problem in maintaining the quality of faculty we have attained in recent years.

The pension bridging discussions continue among employee groups and the administration and we have another meeting just this week. You have seen the first instalment of my Pension Primer and will be getting a second instalment this week [see March-April 1997 Newsletter]. Basically, we are discussing a dollar for dollar deal with the administration. They would be allowed to use about $4 million of the surplus to pay for the bridging of the special Early Retirement Programme and employee groups would get $4 million of pension improvements. This would commit only about 5% of the surplus and is unlikely to be the end of discussions of this sort. Improvements being discussed include improved survivor benefit for marrieds and improved pension guarantees for singles, a permanent pension bridge, and/or an improved pension holiday.

Your Executive and the Joint Committee has continued to work on various policy issues this spring. We have been active in discussions about the T&P document; we have commissioned and are about to receive a draft policy on suspensions; we have had recent discussions about an accommodation policy, about performance indicators, about conflict of commitment, about making public teaching evaluations, and about a patent policy. There is always much to do.

From my perspective, this has been a good year despite the bad financial times for the University. We had two opportunities to go to final offer selection þ last fall on benefits and this spring on remunerations generally. We reached amicable agreements in both cases. I believe this is as much because of the reaffirmation of collegiality by the administration. Both the President and the Provost have approached our relations in a collegial way that we had not seen at McMaster for some time. As tangible benefits of this rediscovered collegiality, during this academic year the MUFA President has been made an official observer on both Senate and the Board of Governors. The cost of this collegiality, of course, is more meetings for Catherine to attend next year.

As a final note, I want to acknowledge the hard work of others who have made this such a successful year. All of the Executive have made significant contributions this year and deserve your and my thanks. I want to acknowledge some individuals for their special efforts on our behalf. Bernadette, as Remunerations Chair saw us through two rounds of negotiations in one year, an unprecedented contribution. Hank Jacek gave me much guidance as Past President and has done an outstanding job for us at OCUFA and working on the OCUFA review team. Catherine and I have nominated him for the Executive of the Board of OCUFA for next year and we certainly hope he will have the opportunity to provide leadership there. Special Enquiries and Grievances is always a heavy job, but one that goes on mainly behind the scenes since dealing with individual cases is on a confidential basis. Les King and Jackie Roberts have done an outstanding job for us this year and I am pleased that they will both be back on next year's Executive. Finally on the Executive, I wish to acknowledge the hard work of Catherine Beattie, your incoming President. Catherine and I had never met before this year so I did not know what to expect in my Vice-President. She has done everything that could have been asked of a Vice-President. She is always there to pitch in. She sits on the Joint Committee, the librarians negotiating team, all standing committees of the Association. She has represented us at meetings at OCUFA and at CAUT, and she has done all this with good humour. Thank you, Catherine.

I would be remiss were I not to mention that there are many other members of our Association that serve us well in many different capacities. Some of the names you will see mentioned in the Committee reports included in the package for this meeting. Many others have helped but are not mentioned there. To all of you, and you know who you are, I offer my grateful thanks.

Last but not least, there is the MUFA office staff, Phyllis and Kelly, that need mention. Hank last year pointed out that if the University ran as well as our office, we would have the most efficient university in Canada. I couldn't think of a way to say it better. They make the President and Executive look good over and over despite our best efforts to fall on our faces. They deserve our heartfelt thanks.

Les Robb

[The York strike was settled through arbitration on May 13, 1997. Ed.]