News

FAUW is happy to announce that we have reached a three-year salary settlement with the University administration, effective May 1, 2021. 

This round of negotiations posed some unique challenges: meeting via video conferencing, the added stressors of the pandemic, and the unusual constraints of Bill 124, which restricts the University’s total spending on compensation to a 1% increase each year for three years. 

On February 5, 2021, members of the Renison Association of Academic Staff (RAAS) voted overwhelmingly (97%) in favour of ratifying the tentative agreement reached on December 16, 2020. The tentative agreement was reached after nearly two and half years of negotiations and over 45 bargaining sessions. The Board of Governors of Renison University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo, ratified the tentative agreement in a unanimous in-camera vote on January 27, 2021.

Our negotiating team has been engaged in bargaining with the University on salary and other compensation items since December 1, 2020. We did not reach an agreement by midnight, February 1, so negotiations will continue, first with a mediator and then, if an agreement is still not reached by March 1, going to arbitration. All these procedures are set out in section 10 of the Memorandum of Agreement.

The proposed revised version of Policy 14 – Pregnancy and Parental Leaves (including Adoption) is now posted for consultation with the UW community. The proposed changes would take us from having one of the worst pregnancy and parental leave policies in the province to one of the best.

Our 2018 salary settlement with the University included a commitment to re-allocate unused Faculty Professional Expense Reimbursement (FPER) funds. We've reached an agreement with Provost to divide all the FPER money that expired last spring and this spring equally among members and add it to this year’s FPER allowance (for faculty who were FPER-eligible as of May 1, 2020). That will happen on December 4, 2020.

The FAUW Board is pleased to announce that Kathy Hogarth, who is an associate professor of Social Work at Renison University College, will be FAUW’s Special Advisor on Racism and Anti-Racism. Professor Hogarth is a founding member of the Black Faculty Collective and a member of FAUW’s Equity Committee. Her experience in helping organizations guide internal transformation and her research expertise in the areas of racism and equity will be a huge asset to FAUW as we shape our response to the university’s efforts on this subject and reconsider some of how FAUW operates.

FAUW is pleased to welcome Dan Brown as our new association president today. Bryan Tolson will transition to the role of past president for one year, and also chief negotiator.

On June 6, in relation to a matter with a faculty member that prompted a public outcry and media response, the University of Waterloo told the press that “The University of Waterloo unequivocally believes that there is no place for the use of the N-word in class, on campus or in our community." 

Whether a word is appropriate for use in class is a scholarly decision that instructors must be free to make. In particular, instructors who teach about race and racism must be free, according to their best judgement, to lead unvarnished discussions about racist language.

The Renison Association of Academic Staff (RAAS) is delighted to announce that it received certification as a trade union on March 23, 2020. RAAS was first established as a non-certified association on February 12, 2018 and is affiliated with FAUW through a service agreement.

Earlier this month, FAUW conducted a survey about members' experiences preparing for the 2020 spring and fall terms amid the transition to fully remote delivery, to help us advocate for our members’ interests. You can now access the results of the survey in the Reports & Documents section of our website. 

FAUW is particularly concerned that, at the time of the survey (May 8–13), 71% of respondents teaching in the fall said it was not clear to them how decisions were being made about how their courses should be delivered. 

74% of respondents teaching in the spring term felt more unprepared than usual at the start of term and only 53% felt that they received adequate support for spring term overall.