The MUNFA Negotiating Committee has met twice this month with the administration’s team to begin bargaining towards a new Collective Agreement. The first bargaining session was held on Wednesday, October 7, 2009. In preliminary remarks Morgan Cooper, the Director of Faculty Relations and Chief Negotiator for the administration, and Jon Church, Chief Negotiator for MUNFA expressed the hope that a new Collective Agreement could be agreed upon by this Christmas, despite past experiences to the contrary. MUNFA and MUN agreed to incorporate a number of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) that had been signed in the recent past. Most of those had already been incorporated into the Articles that MUNFA circulated to the membership and MUN had two in addition to these. These affect the Occupational Health and Safety section of Article 26; Clause 19.22; Clause 14.02; Clause 10.08; Clause 8.03; Clause 3.22; Clause 3.24, Clause 31.01, and have been agreed in principle by both Parties at this point.
MUNFA presented proposed contract language on articles 3, 23, 26, 31 (non-salary section) and a new article, 32, that deals with Distance Education and Learning Technologies (DELT). The administration then outlined the changes that they would like to see in a new agreement. While there were many such changes, the majority were of a minor or “housekeeping” nature. However, the administration did indicate that they would seek a small number of significant changes.
The parties next round of negotiations was Tuesday, October 20th. This session was devoted almost exclusively to questions and answers concerning MUNFA’s tabled proposals for a new Collective Agreement article on DELT.
In general, both sessions were cordial and frank, and explored the positions held by both sides. MUNFA hopes that the cordial nature of the discussions will continue and that a new Collective Agreement can be reached in a timely fashion.
The date for the next round of negotiations was set for Friday, October 30th.
MUNFA Negotiating Committee:
- Jon Church (Medicine) Chief Negotiator
- Sean Cadigan (History)
- Sonya Corbin-Dwyer (SWGC)
- Chris Dennis (Library)
- Kjellrun Hestekin (Music)
- George Jenner (Earth Sciences)
- Basil Kavanagh (Human Kinetics)
- Leroy Murphy (Business, Coop)
- Lili Wang (Pharmacy)
- Paul Wilson (SWGC)
- Marian Atkinson (MUNFA Executive Officer, non-voting member)
