Job Action, January 14

As you may be well aware, TRUFA announced that we would be initiating job action this morning at 8 am, but that the job action will not impact classes or students.

This is the first stage of what will be a graduated or phased escalation of job action if mediation does not succeed. The purpose of this job action is to highlight the failures of TRU senior administrators in creating an appropriate work environment that fosters our best efforts as educators.

These administrators have failed to:

· respect academic governance
· acknowledge program needs
· cultivate an environment of mutual trust and sincerity in collective bargaining;
· agree to labour-management committee meetings despite repeated requests by TRUFA
· assign faculty issues to a full-time administrator; and
· work collegially with faculty to develop a positive labour climate

In addition, over the past couple of years, many faculty members have approached me and expressed a lack of trust and faith in TRU’s administration. Alternative strategic planning sessions organized by TRUFA in 2013 and an institutional climate survey conducted last spring both indicated that faculty were extremely concerned about administration’s failure to seriously seek faculty input into academic decision-making, and a failure to recognize the day-to-day challenges faced by TRU faculty in their working lives. Disturbingly, the survey also indicated that nearly two-thirds of faculty felt that the university had become a less desirable place to work.

This lack of trust is well founded given the fact that, just yesterday, TRU administrators posted misleading and out-of-context information about TRUFA bargaining proposals on the TRU website, and have even mischaracterized their own bargaining positions on the same site.

As a result, TRUFA has announced that the job action will begin as a form of work-to-rule, which will limit communications and contact by faculty with the Provost & Vice-President Academic’s office. The work-to-rule is a ban on telephone, e-mail and in-person communications with the senior administrators in that office.

This work-to-rule action, while focusing faculty attention on the academic office on campus most responsible for the current poor state of administration/faculty relations, is not intended to interfere with normal communications or interactions between faculty members and Faculty/School/Division academic administrators.