FAUW dues

All faculty members represented by FAUW pay dues as a condition of your employment, whether you've joined FAUW as a voting member or not.

FAUW dues are 0.525% of your base salary, charged on a monthly basis and rounded to the nearest five cents. CAUT and OCUFA membership fees are included in these dues.

Part-time members are charged one-and-a-half times the CAUT and OCUFA part-time fees rather than the full FAUW dues.

Where do our dues go?

FAUW dues are spent largely on CAUT and OCUFA fees (which provide us with free legal and other advice, provincial and national advocacy on behalf of members, training, and access to sample policy language from other institutions), FAUW staff salaries and benefits, course releases for FAUW leadership roles, and additional legal fees and advice.

2025/2026 budget

The 2025-2026 budget allocates FAUW spending as follows:

  • 51.35% for OCUFA and CAUT dues, annual audit, insurance, and legal fees
  • 34.45% for staff salaries and benefits (staff provide member support, manage the operations of the Association including events and outreach, and advise on policy and governance)
  • 6.09% for administrative expenses (including professional development, meetings, events, workshops, communications, and office expenses)
  • 4.1% for course buyouts for some volunteer roles with large time commitments
  • 2.5% for sponsorships
     
Pie chart showing the distribution of dues collected

Claiming dues on your tax return

Faculty Association dues are tax-deductible. They are reported in box 44 of your T4, which is available in Workday by the end of Februaryeach year.

You will get a notification in Workday (and an email from the University) letting you know when your T4 is available. To find it again later, go to the "Pay" section of Workday, then "Tax documents."

To access FAUW dues receipts from prior to 2020 in Workday:

  1. Click the Cloud icon (or photo if you added one).

  2. Click View Profile.

  3. Select Personal from the menu.

  4. Click the Documents tab. Recent slips will appear at the end of the list.

If you have any questions, please contact Human Resources at payroll@uwaterloo.ca or extension 35935.

Why non-members still pay dues

In Canada, union/association membership is not allowed to be mandatory – nobody can be forced to join against their will and there are a variety of religious, ideological, and political reasons why someone might object. However, this has the potential to create “freeriding” problems where only a portion of employees pay dues that support the work of negotiating better salaries and working conditions that benefit everyone.

The legal compromise is a concept in Canadian labour law called the Rand formula (named after the Supreme Court justice who came up with it), which requires workers who are covered by collective bargaining contracts to pay union dues whether or not they are members. Even though FAUW isn’t unionized, this aspect of labour law still applies to us because we are recognized as the sole official bargaining agent for faculty with regard to salaries and terms and conditions of employment.