U of O professors, librarians to vote on four-year contract

Offer includes market catch-up pay, tenure-track jobs

Professors and academic librarians at the University of Ottawa are to vote Thursday on a tentative four-year labour deal that includes the creation of dozens of new tenure-track positions and salary increases of two per cent a year.

The tentative settlement would stretch until 2016 and includes agreement on five “fundamental issues,” the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa states in a slide show for members that’s posted to its website.

The settlement includes the creation of 60 new regular tenure-track positions and one additional librarian, the slide show states. Another clause would see 31 “limitedterm replacement professors” integrated into three-year “continuing renewal appointments,” with each position becoming a regular tenure-track position after the professor retires or resigns.

The university had wanted to expand the use of “teaching-focused” positions that would place heavier emphasis on teaching over research, but the union states that there would be “no new teaching-intensive faculty/teachingonly faculty, either permanent or temporary” under the terms of the tentative deal.

The financial side of the agreement includes a “market catch-up” fund to be distributed in order to align faculty salaries with other research-universities in the province.

Pension plan contributions would increase by 0.8 per cent in each of the last two years, and there would be no reduction in benefits, according to the union, which states that the settlement also includes provisions addressing eye care and psychological services.

The executive committee of the university’s board of governors has already ratified the deal.

University president Allan Rock stated after the tentative agreement was reached that it “addresses some of the key long-standing issues, such as pension and tenure track positions,” and “offers increased compensation that is in line with what other Ontario professors have received.”

The deal was reached during mediation at the beginning of August.

APUO members had given the union executive a strike mandate.