Laurier Milton

Apparently the university is looking to expand to new land donated to the university by the town of Milton. Ok... so the land is free. But a few simple questions:

Who will pay for the buildings? The professors? The administrators? The staff? The office equipment?

Why is the university looking to expand still when its this over expansion hurt it so badly in the past?

Is the university really having financial problems or can Max Blouw really shit gold?

Either way - why can't they just pay their CAS profs?

A "Fair and Responsible" Offer

Ladies and Gentlemen - Max Blouw's own words:

I believe Laurier’s final offer is fair and responsible and takes into consideration both the short- and the long-term well-being of our students, staff, full-time faculty and contract academic staff. The university’s final offer recognizes the need for Laurier to be competitive with respect to the compensation of its CAS members. It also focuses on ensuring academic quality and the ongoing viability of Laurier by acknowledging the budgetary and other challenges we face.

Key words are bolded.

So what was their final grand offer. That was obviously very competitive and recognized the value part-timers gave to Laurier. Well it was... 3.5%... oh and no increase in job security. Do the math now - 6,001 x 1.035 = 6,211. Compare that with other universities. That's after six months of negotiating, twice as long as it should, and nearly non-stop negotiations on Monday and Tuesday until 6:00 am in the morning today.

That's not an offer - that's a slap in the face! It is the opposite of keeping Laurier competitive or providing academic quality or, for that matter, caring about the concerns of the students! It says just how poorly they think of our part-time faculty and they have every right to be on strike.

As for the "challenges we face" - I heard of those, and those are very valid challenges. However, that's no excuse on dumping the brunt of those challenges on already the most overworked and underpaid individuals on our campus. It's neither fair nor responsible.

Ladies and Gentlemen - my own words:

Hypocrites.

Key words are bolded.

Review of Administration’s Response

After reading and analyzing the administration’s counter-website, I have to describe it by one word – disappointing. I’d give them an “A” for effort, though beyond that I wouldn’t substitute their grade for even what I have in French right now.

The moment you click on it, it jumps out at you as more of the same sterile hogwash they have been trying to pour down our throats in their statements to The Cord in the past – “We care about our students and we’re trying to do the best we can to resolve this situation.” Some sentences seem to be recycled from the stock mass e-mail they have been shooting out to anyone who dared to even e-mail in a valid concern. Further they make no effort of trying to address the real issues that concern students – our tuition, our grades, and our profs in exchange to simply shoot off noise in full apathy of the issues that trouble us.

Once you get deeper into their website you encounter the sort of loopy, closed-circuit logic you might hear on the Fox News channel if you’re a fan of painful American television. It’s the sort of logic that only makes sense if you’re running on six shots of whiskey at two o’clock in the morning. It even claims to provide “factually-based information” – an echo to Fox News that offers such fair and balanced news that they have to remind you of that fact before and after every commercial break.

Their website contains a massive contradiction – their claims to the value of the CAS workforce butt up against in how little care they actually show about their input by stating how their job is basically delineated to be mere plugs in helping “the university meet unexpected increases in demand for particular courses and/or programs.” This is exactly what one of the problems WLUFA has with the administration – the use (and abuse) of a flexible workforce to fill in the holes that might arise without due compensation and while providing not a thought to their job security by freely admitting that their applications won’t be considered until the very last moment without seniority. Maybe they should be honest and admit that they value the CAS primarily for the amount of money they save them. If anything, the level of value the administration places on its CAS workforce is about the same as the value the Chinese military places on its foot soldiers.

With this, they also overlook how the CAS do not “reduced teaching loads” of the full time faculty, but in fact enhance them by forcing them to serve more time on hiring committees for the CAS labour force due to their unwieldy system of seniority. They overlook the extra burden their money-saving scheme places on full-time faculty.

Another contradiction arises when they fully agree that there are many CAS who are recently-graduated Ph.D.s and academics looking to get into full-time positions (who also sit on committees) while claiming that their role and responsibility is 100% teaching. It is impossible to get a full-timed position without the service on committees and the research, which the administration seems to deny that many CAS even do, let alone supply them with time and research grants while freely accepting the benefits that comes from their research. While being hopeful and open to CAS seeking full-timed position, they wilfully deny them the tools to achieve so. While claiming that their job is 100% teaching, they also offer (a pitiful) amount to help with their research. This is hypocrisy in action. Even with their closed-circuit logic, the 100% teaching idea fails to account for the research needed to keep classes fresh with updated information of the developments in that particular subject area – a key point in keeping Laurier’s education competitive.

Further, they overlook many key tidbits in these negotiations – like, despite the wish for 33% of the Laurier faculty to be CAS, 65% of the communication studies department is staffed by part-timers. They make no notice on how they can address that. They also repeat their claim on the “standing offer” of meeting to bargain more often with the CAS negotiating team – a noble offer, even though through the history of these negotiations they have been incompetent in their bargaining (case and point – it look them two hours to prepare with the conciliator last Friday) and they fail to acknowledge that the CAS team is busy conducting their lives as full-time instructors, even though they fail to admit that too.

Finally, the biggest insult to the intelligence of an average student comes from their chart comparing salaries of Laurier and other universities. To starters, they’re using data of the 2006-2007 year – last time I checked we were living in 2008. For a real comparison, we must think that other universities are paying now and will be paying in the future in order to stay competitive – there’s no point in using old data to argue your point. Then, they fail to add the HCSA and other benefits to the total summary while freely adding on the 4% they fork over to the CAS right now. Then, they list distant (or brand new) universities like Trent or Nipissing with whom Laurier does not need to compete since they are too far for commuting travel. Then, they (deliberately?) ignore UW and how, for just a fifteen-minute walk, it offers their profs 700 dollars more at least (in the arts) for teaching the same stuff or how their grad students make more than our Ph.D. profs – the numbers are listed on their faculty association’s website. Finally – they neither list nor provide links to other benefits like job security, office space, large class subsidies, professional reimbursement, research grants, tuition benefits, and etc. that are offered at other universities; which is simply disingenuous when you’re trying to make a valid comparison between Laurier and other universities. Lastly – they ignore the real issue at stake of people trying to make a living, especially when doing all the things full-time faculty are doing while getting paid almost half as much.

Are you furious at them, yet?

As I said, this ploy by the administration is petty in its attempt to catch up to the information victory we and WLUFA achieved in the past weeks. Their hollow words do not address the key student concerns nor offer valid arguments for why should they continue to treat the part-timers like they have been. It’s a shameless ploy that only displays the disconnection they have with the concerns of the average student. It is the faculty that has been upfront to talk to us about it through these negotiations especially when Herbert Pimlott, the Media Relations executive of WLUFA, sacrificed his lunch break to eloquently address our concerns in the concourse on Friday. No administrator has done that, not with this website, not in the concourse, not through sacrificing a lunch break for mere students. By their respective actions, I think we see who is more honourable and deserving of our full support in these negotiations.

The Joy of Sue

I think they said the same thing on the Titanic:

"we will work absolutely with your interests in mind"

So says Sue Horton here, here, and oh, here... about the issues that concern us the most. Has anyone been following up in The Record? Maybe I'm missing out on something. Before I started doing this, I was not quite sure how to react to Sue Horton or why did most faculty members really dislike her. A little bit of her own words can always clarify that statement... you know... stuff about "our" interests in mind and how they are "front and centre."

Well Sue here are our interests - give our part-time profs what they deserve, now. Right, that's settled it then, expect to see an update on the WLUFA website how they have concluding bargaining, beer at the pub at 6:00. Oh? That hasn't happened yet. Odd... well ok then, moving along - there's always the quality of our education they should consider (since you know, we're stupid and don't know better). Well our education falters under the current deal when some departments, like Communication Studies, can barely man all their courses - so we should pay our profs more in that scenario. Then there are the interests of the full-time faculty (I see "Full-timers support the CAS" on every single door I walk past), staff (the ones who strongly support WLUFA), alumni (from whom we've gotten encouraging e-mails), donors, and community members. Well, I don't know about these mysterious donors and community members but the support of the entire campus for the part-timers cause kinda weights the balance in their favour, y'know... just a tad. If you are ignoring what we say then you are not being "cognizant" of your "roles and responsibilities" as an administrator. (You're also not being "cognizant" in your math skills by ignoring to add health and other benefits as well as to account for the current academic year when comparing Laurier's pay to that of other universities but more on that later).

Moving on:

“It’s like high-stakes poker,” explains Sue Horton, VP: Academic. “You want to make your best possible case before you fold. And everyone wants to calculate it right; no one wants to miscalculate in those last minutes.”

Hold on a sec... you're saying that 365 people fighting for their livelihoods to afford shoes, socks, and gas for their cars is... a game. That is beyond mere slip of words - it shows the pompous nerve of this woman who is gambling with peoples lives by equating it to something one does in a stuffy jacket in some secluded room in Vegas. The poker chips are hundreds of people who have suffered under the previous regime and led our education to suffer and it's all a game? Wow... Sue certainly is a classy lady. Maybe high-stakes poker isn't quite her game in this situation - it's Russian roulette and she's holding the trigger toward the heads of the CAS while they're frantically try to gather up some scraps before the right bullet finds them.

Finally, to add an asinine cherry to the icing of insult upon the sundae of injury, here's what one of Laurier's alumni (you know, the sort that she cares about), received when she showed her concern to one of her favorite profs:

Thank you for your email. I am happy to tell you that Dr. Haxell has a full time appointment this winter. I expect your time at U of T is giving you a good understanding - the part-time faculty at U of T also do not have permanent offices even though U of T is better funded than Laurier. We are working hard to reach a fair and sustainable agreement, and thank you for your input.

And then a little bit later, another e-mail:

My apologies. I should have written Prof Haxell not Dr Haxell.

Yep... so let's summarize - Dr. Haxell is part-time full-timer, woo! He gets paid a bit more and he can't go on strike. Congrats... oh but it ends in the fall. U of T's part-time faculty's treatment sucks also - that means we're not as bad! (Via Horton-logic: Just because Nike has sweat shops too, Wal Mart's sweat shops aren't bad.) "We will work absolutely with your interests in mind." Oh and since he doesn't have his Ph.D. (and its true) and since it doesn't matter that he worked here for 18 years, we should still make sure to not call him "Doctor"... in case he'll get offended.

Wow... The nerrrvvveeeee of this woman. And that's the person dealing with this situation? Fortunately, she won't be around for much longer - she's "retiring"... to academia. After this petition, we can start a new one to Max Blouw - to rehire her as a CAS worker. We'll be nice and ask WLUFA to invite her to their union.

Do the Math

From Herbert Pimlott, Media and Public Relations executive of WLUFA, a little math lesson:

There are 1300 classes taught by CAS.

In those classes, the average amount of students is 49 per course.

Let's say 40 students, since some classes in the music department are more individualized.

40 x 1300 = 52,000 "bums in seats" in CAS classes.

Each student pays 507.35 dollars per half credit course. Let's say 500.

500 x 52,000 = 26,000,000 (26 million) dollars from students taking CAS classes.

The government subsidizes the same amount (actually more). So 26,000,000 x 2 = 52,000,000 (52 million) dollars.

A CAS person makes 6,000 dollars for teaching a classes, there are 1,300 classes. So - 1,300 x 6,000 = 7,800,000 (7 million) dollars.

52,000,000 - 7,800,000 = 44,200,000 (44.2 million) dollars, and that's rounding down. That's what the administration makes from CAS profs. Where is the rest of that money going?

The current CAS proposal will shift 1,500,000 (1.5 million) dollars to them. So the administration will still have 42,700,000 dollars... and they are refusing to agree to that?

Dr. Horton, you don't scare me

Dear Students,

Here is a small piece of truth:

The administration can choose any resolution for our credits that they may desire. One common one is to grant everyone a "P" (pass). The implications of this are not ideal as it does devalue our degree, and any work that we may have done. A few other options exist and every academic facility in our position that I have read about has come to some sort of resolution for class-time lost due to labour disputes.

Dr. Horton's comment in the Cord outraged me. After a week of trying to explain that "losing" our terms wasn't likely, and demanding the administration for an answer, she attempts to scare us! You can't make us "lose our semester" due to a labour dispute. This isn't the answer we were looking for or the one we deserve.

Dr. Horton, I Don't Buy It. You have to do better for us than that.

Is this the rearing of the force that the WLUFA negotiating team has been up against? Is this a pitiful tactic to draw support away from the CAS? Is this administration really going to make us pay for the damage that they have done, e.g., punish us?

Students, be outraged. If they think that we are so simple minded as to not see through this, then they had better reconsider the true value of the Laurier student. They are training us up to be some of the best thinkers on the planet, and well, here we are, actually thinking and evaluating critically.

Fellow students, if the issue with the CAS doesn't make you angry, then this abuse of power should. They hold all the cards when it comes to our time here at Laurier, but making us lose our term is one thing that they cannot, and won't do.

Laurier administration,

What will you do if some of us have ethical issues with crossing a picket line? Will you penalise us for evaluating, thinking critically, and making an ethical decision by failing us?

York University faced a similar issue, and decided that they couldn't penalise students who in good faith could not cross a picket line. I challenge you to do the same for us.

Also, when are we going to get some answers from you? We rely on you for keeping our university a safe, sane, and reliable place. All I feel right now, is scared, nervous, tense, and a lack of confidence that we will be at all protected by those who have the power to do so.