COVID-19 MUNFA Update – March 23

MUNFA Services

Although the MUNFA office is closed for in-person service, MUNFA staff continue to support the day-to-day operations while working from home. Any MUNFA member who needs to speak to a MUNFA staff person can reach out to munfa@mun.ca or 864-8642.

If you have specific questions regarding the Collective Agreement or your working conditions, please direct them to MUNFA’s Labour Relations Officer, Amy Wadden, at lro.munfa@mun.ca.

The MUNFA staff, along with the MUNFA Executive and Academic Freedom and Grievance Committees, will be utilizing email, telephone, and web-based technologies to conduct MUNFA work. There may be a delay in response time or some technology hiccups; we ask for your patience and understanding as we seek to shift to alternative service methods.

For members with open case files (e.g. grievances), we are working internally and with our MUN counterparts on how we will handle existing open cases. These will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Questions About Your Working Conditions

We have received a number of specific questions from members about working conditions. For some of these questions we have referred members back to their Department Head or Dean. This is not because we don’t want to support you; it is because some of your questions are for MUN to answer. If we do redirect you, and you have concerns about the university’s response as it relates to your working conditions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us again.

Furthermore, the MUNFA Executive and Staff are compiling a list of general concerns arising from the pandemic response and are working hard to find agreements to address these with the university administration. These concerns include:

  • Promotion & Tenure timelines;
  • Administration of research and PDTER funds;
  • Impact on research operations;
  • Impact on Sabbatical;
  • Contract appointments for the Spring, Intersession, and Summer semester; and
  • Intellectual property rights as they pertain to newly developed online course material.

We are working with Faculty Relations to get you more clarity on these, and other, concerns, and are also benefitting from the advice of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which is providing guidance to Faculty Associations across the country on common areas of concern.

Please continue to stay apprised of the situation at Memorial University’s COVID-19 Information Hub: https://www.mun.ca/covid19/ and raise questions with your Department Head or Dean, or by directing them to coronavirus@mun.ca.

If MUNFA members would like to discuss their concerns with the Faculty Association, please do not hesitate to email our office munfa@mun.ca.