Good news! Yesterday we wrote to you about the ongoing decision by U of T’s Senior Administration to withhold your July 1, 2020 PTR (Progress Through the Ranks) increase. The response from our membership was immediate and overwhelmingly supportive of UTFA’s position as expressed in our PTR petition.
Last night, following UTFA’s email and petition, we received an offer from the Administration that remained silent on two key features of how PTR will be calculated. Earlier today we wrote to the Administration for clarification and just received a response confirming that 2019-2020 PTR breakpoints and increments will be calculated using breakpoints and increments increased by 2% from those used in the June 30, 2019 PTR exercise.
UTFA has been able to negotiate an agreement that achieves each of the following:
- Materially acknowledges the vital contributions UTFA faculty and librarians made in 2019-2020, under extraordinary circumstances, to our students, our scholarly and professional communities, and the broader missions of the University of Toronto as a whole;
- Adheres to the ‘regular and routine’ past practice of implementing the PTR (Progress Through the Ranks) UTFA members earned and had assessed the previous academic year, including when bargaining is ongoing;
- Pays UTFA members their July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020 PTR in a manner consistent with the July 1, 2019 model, using PTR breakpoints and increments increased by 2%;
- Ensures that PTR payments are received without delay, retroactive to July 1, 2020.
In short, in the last 24 hours the Administration met the terms of the petition and fulfilled what UTFA had been seeking for many months. We have now accepted the Administration’s offer.
This key win on PTR was clearly tied to our members’ informed engagement and vocal support, and for this we are grateful.
Still, it is regrettable that hard-working faculty and librarians have had to experience lengthy delays in receiving their PTR and that the Association had to spend its members’ dues on expensive legal challenges in an effort to obtain them. UTFA members prevailed in a fight they never should have needed to wage in the first place.
How PTR is implemented for the current academic year, 2020-2021, and for future years remains unresolved, and is subject to bargaining with the Administration. There are, of course, many major issues remaining to be negotiated, including the pressing need to address the impact of the pandemic on our members. These needs and other priorities were well documented in a series of UTFA member surveys.
We continue to look forward to meeting with you and discussing your bargaining priorities—including but not limited to PTR—at upcoming Bargaining Update constituency-based meetings. And, as always, we encourage you to share your thoughts with us at faculty@utfa.org.
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Terezia Zorić, UTFA President
Jun Nogami, UTFA VP, Salary, Benefits, Pensions, and Workload