Posts tagged with furlough.

Lakehead’s forced furlough achieved nothing

Joey Coleman, January 5, 2011 at 10:50 AM

 

Last year, I wrote about Lakehead University's decision to shut down its campuses for four days in December and place its faculty on furlough during that time.

Nearly a year later, an arbitrator ruled the university violated its collective agreement with faculty members by imposing the unpaid time off.

The ruling is significant. It effectively prevents any Canadian university from using furlough to save money without receiving consent from its faculty association - which is unlikely to occur without major non-monetary concessions by the institution.

And it will likely set off a chain of labour unrest.

The use of furlough at Lakehead has achieved nothing.

While the arbitrator left it to the faculty association and university to negotiate a settlement, it is unlikely the faculty will settle for anything less than full compensation for the furlough and costs for the arbitration - meaning the furlough will likely cost the university money.

The ruling comes at a critical time, with the current collective agreement for faculty expiring in about six months at the end of June.

The decision to impose furlough poisoned the labour environment at Lakehead and the ruling will likely only strengthen resolve among faculty to fight for strong salary provisions in the contract being negotiated.

Combine this with the provincial directive to freeze wages across the board for two years and it appears Lakehead's negotiations will be difficult.

But, while there is always the potential for a strike, it is very unlikely one will happen at Lakehead.

The provincial wage freeze has not been imposed at other institutions that have reached new collective agreements since it was announced. There is no reason to believe Lakehead will be the first university to impose a freeze.

And the drop in the number of applications to York University following the infamous 2008/09 CUPE strike has likely scared both administrations and unions into avoiding damage to their own interests by scaring away potential students - Lakehead's location make its even more vulnerable to long-term damage from a strike.

As well, the provincial election is scheduled for October and, because the university is in vulnerable Liberal territory, the province may be more open to opening its coffers for the university in the lead-up to the election. The two Thunder Bay seats are held by the governing Liberals, but are likely to fall to the NDP. The government held Thunder Bay-Atikokan by a slim margin of only 50 votes in the 2007 election. A strike during the election would be devastating for the Liberals in the North.

In short, it serves no one's interests to allow a strike to occur and a way will likely be found for the university to balance its budget without antagonizing its labour unions in the process.

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Furlough, the F-word of academia

Joey Coleman, December 22, 2009 at 9:05 PM

There are few words that upset the sensitivities of professors more than the F-Word of academia: furlough.

Furlough is the word of choice in high education to describe the cost-cutting measure of forced time-off and is one of many budget slashing methods being used by universities across North America has they deal with government funding cuts, loses from bad investments, or budget shortfalls caused by poor cut management and administrative bloat.

Salaries are the largest single expense in higher education. At Lakehead University, salaries and wages account for 80% of the operating budget approved for the academic year. With many of the expenses that account for the remaining 20% set by external forces and legal contracts; Lakehead has decided to entirely close the university campus this week and not pay its faculty and staff.

The university is looking to save nearly a million dollars by closing. In effect, the university just imposed a 1.5% pay cut on its staff. Needless to say, faculty and staff are not happy about having their wages cut; especially when they don't feel they caused the financial problems facing the university and they didn't get much say in this cost saving measure.

Monday, the Lakehead University Faculty Association protested the closure by holding rallies in Thunder Bay and Orilla.

That staff and faculty at Lakehead are upset should be no surprise, no one likes losing money. The fact they had were barely consulted points to a growing dysfunction in Canadian higher education; the increasing power held by Boards of Governors.

As universities have grown in size, power has increasing been centralized within the senior administration and Boards. At the same time, the power of university senates has significantly decreased as Boards have taken more control of the budget and management processes. This means the individuals making the budget are disconnected from the effects of that budget, whereas the Senate must absorb the cuts. Wage cuts should be a last resort and the process leading to them should meaningfully involve the stakeholders facing the burden.

Lakehead's decision to force time off upon its employees is just the latest symptom of a post-secondary system in need of serious reform and direction.

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