Dear UTFA Colleagues,
We write with a very important update on Bill 124 and UTFA-Administration salary negotiations. As a reminder, our current three-year round of salary, benefit, and workload negotiations has been heavily constrained by a law that interfered significantly in bargaining to the detriment of UTFA members and to the advantage of the University Administration.
However, on November 29, 2022, Justice Koehnen issued his decision on the constitutional challenge to Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations, in which UTFA participated. Justice Koehnen upheld the constitutional challenge and declared Bill 124 to be void and of no force and effect.
As you are also likely aware, UTFA and the Administration are currently awaiting a ruling from Arbitrator Eli Gedalof for the terms of the third year of the agreement that covers the period ending June 30, 2023.
Given that the restrictions imposed by Bill 124 have now been struck down and are not in effect, UTFA has requested that Eli Gedalof not issue an award within the 1% restrictions that Bill 124 had imposed, and instead give us an opportunity to go back to the Administration to bargain for increases in salary for the current year, and in order to see if we can also negotiate offsets against the impact of Bill 124 over the first two years, when the Across-the-Board (ATB) increase was restricted to 1% by Bill 124.
Of course, if we could not reach agreement with the Administration, we would then return to arbitration before Eli Gedalof.
We should add that there is the possibility that the government will, as part of its appeal of Justice Koehnen’s ruling, also seek to stay the effect of the Bill 124 ruling while the appeal is argued before the Court of Appeal. If that were to happen, and if the stay motion were to be successful, then we would be back under Bill 124 at least until the appeal is heard and decided.
You can be certain that UTFA is making every effort to offset the effects of wage restraints in the face of inflation. If we cannot make further gains in relation to the current Agreement, we will continue to do everything in our power to do as well as possible in the next round of bargaining.
We will keep you informed of further developments as they come.
Sincerely,
Terezia Zorić
UTFA President
Jun Nogami
UTFA Vice-President, Salary, Benefits, Pensions and Workload