WUFA delivers 236 faculty letters to Wildeman

Photo above, from left: Jeff Noonan, WUFA President and Stephen Pender, WUFA VP Internal

July 19, 2017

Today WUFA's President and VP Internal delivered 236 letters, signed by faculty members who  are concerned by the lack of progress in contract negotiation talks, to University President, Alan Wildeman.

The letters read:

Dear President Wildeman,

I am writing as a member of WUFA concerned with the current state of contract negotiations. Since January, you have stated several times, publicly, that you wished to see bargaining resolved quickly, ideally by 30 June, without 'public tension' or 'apprehension.' After developing and refining our contract proposals over the course of a year, this was also WUFA's goal. Yet the contract has now expired without a substantive discussion of many of WUFA's important proposals, and there has been little progress otherwise.

I wonder why your negotiating team chose, prematurely, to call for conciliation, which has the effect of slowing down negotiations considerably? I write, then, to urge you to motivate your negotiating team to implement your aspirations: a fair agreement --- one that respects, supports, and compensates our members --- swiftly concluded.