Report on YUFA Executive Meeting of March 9 2009

11:00am-1:10pm, Monday, 9 March 2009
Location: YUFA office (261 HNES)

Present:
Exec members: Arthur Hilliker, Mary Kandiuk, Suzie Young, Didi Khayatt, Debra Brock, Jay Rahn, Ray Rogers, David Cabianca, Ildiko Kovacs, Alex Murray
Staff: Jill Flohil, Monica Mulvihill, Heidi Bishop
Regrets: Livy Visano, Louise Ripley, Walter Whiteley, Brenda Hart
Observers: Tereza Barta, Martin Muldoon, Viviana Patroni

Once again, YUFA observers were excluded from much of the meeting, an action not mentioned in the Constitution. The first (hour-long) exclusion was during the discussion of an agenda item entitled “Personnel Committee Standing Report”. This committee has to do with the YUFA office staff. The Chair said there would be no report but that a staff member or members had something to communicate. It was at this point that the observers were asked to leave. On being challenged, the Chair entertained a motion, which was carried, that the meeting should proceed “in camera”. During the discussion, a motion to allow an observer to speak was passed with one negative vote. The three staff members present were not asked to leave.

[The excluded observers had an interesting discussion of their own, much of it rather distant from YUFA business.]

The second exclusion came during an item “Appointments” in the report of the Vice President Internal. This was challenged, but a majority (vote 5-3) of the Committee thought that it was appropriate to go “in camera” for this. The rationale had to be pieced together from various comments, some refreshingly frank. Some members want to have the freedom to reject applicants based on their “reputations”, without having to deal with the consequences of their actions being made public.

During the parts of the meeting which we were able to observe, a number of other reports were presented, some of them in writing:

o Arthur Hilliker reported that the Contract Review Committee is close to completing its work. It is expected that members will be able to vote on the final proposals in April.

o It was agreed to proceed with the formation of a Subcommittee on Casualization.
o This would be a subcommittee of YUFA Exec but the members need not be members of Exec. It was agreed that a subcommittee of seven members would be appropriate.

o Arthur Hilliker proposed the establishment of a subcommittee to evaluate and recommend amendments to the YUFA Constitution an By-laws. There was some discussion of the appropriateness of inviting of inviting former YUFA Chairs to be members of this subcommittee.

o There was some discussion of implementing recommendations from the Special General Meeting of March 3.

o Mary Kandiuk proposed “that YUFA explore electronic voting”.

o During the early part of the discussion of the report of the Vice-President Internal (before the observers were excluded) there was an interesting discussion of the requirement (Constitution 4.3): “No Chairperson or equivalent of an academic unit may serve as a Steward.” The consensus was that the exclusion applied to those in a supervisory role.

o A budget update, postponed from the 23 February 2009 meeting was circulated by the Treasurer. This gave the actual figures for Income and Expenses at January 31, nine months into the budget year.

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