CityU Staff Association Executive Committee

Confirmed Minutes of the 6th meeting of CityU Staff Association Executive Committee 2006-08 session held on 20th December 2006.

Present: John Tse, Lorna Fullgrabe, Robin Bradbeer, W W Fung, Lam Yeung, Dai Ting Long (Tyler)

In attendance: Adrian Siu (DCO), Mak Hoi Wah (SS), Kit Chow (HRO), Catherine Ng (COMO)

1. / Apologies for absence:
Apple Cho, Liu Chiu Kui, Godfrey Liu, Yu Choi Man, Freda Ho, Tony Upham, Lindsay Miller
2. / Confirmation of minutes
Minutes of 5th meeting held on 28th November 2006 were confirmed. / ACTION
3. / Report from Chairman
All items already on agenda / ACTION
John Tse
4. / Vice-Chairpersons’ Reports
Noted that all items included in the agenda already and would proceed to the agenda. / ACTION
John Tse/W W Fung/Robin Bradbeer
5. / Pay rise and bonus
Noted that a highly successful flash protest had been conducted on November 2006. Some 300 staff protested in favour of a pay rise and a letter was presented to Dr Ellen Ko, VP Administration, by Chair and Vice-chair (C) requesting the senior management to give all staff a pay rise.
Purpose of this item was to (a) decide on follow-up action as many staff had requested a signature campaign and a march to the President’s office; (b) to determine action in view of the lack of senior management’s open response to the protest and the EBS from the Chair angrily condemning the deception of the University’s official response reported in the media.
Decided that as there had been no proper response that a signature campaign would be conducted at the beginning of semester B when all staff were back on campus. It was agreed to take the case to the Council Chair direct. Campaign would include a public campaign with space to be booked so that staff could sign to show their united and uncompromising stance on achieving a pay rise. / ACTION
John Tse/W W Fung/L. Fullgrabe
6. / Staff dissatisfaction with Increments
Noted that some eligible staff do not receive increments. Criteria is stringent with excellence the only way to qualify for a full increment. System has been abused with some staff receiving half an increment and other receiving nothing. When this system was first proposed by HRO, CityU Staff Association disagreed with the criteria of outstanding performance as the only way to receive the full increment. In addition around 70% of staff are at the top of the scale and thus ineligible so what happens to them?
Whole system raises a number of issues including unfairness about how the criteria are applied and the fact there is no appeal process. Determined to request a meeting of SCC and Chair would write to the Acting Director, HRO on this important matter. An EBS would be sent to staff about CityU SAEC’s position and pointing out the inequities in the current system. / ACTION
John Tse
7. / Redundancy (case)
Lack of job rotation for clerical and minor grade staff in the university was criticised. There is no internal policy requiring this yet it was noted that in the civil service, staff rotate every 3 to 4 years. Chair, CityU SA handles numerous staff complaints that occur as a direct result of this lack of job rotation. The end result is a loss to the institution if a person is made redundant. CityU is not a small organization so good management should look for places for those on the redundancy list.
In the specific case being handled by Chair, HRO’s position of asking departments if willing to accept an individual staff member has ended up nowhere since without a proper policy in place the end result is Dept. Heads unwilling to take on someone who may be at the top of the scale. With no job rotation policy and no prospect of redeployment then voluntary redundancy is the only option and this is a pure waste of good resources that could be avoided if there was a policy to rotate periodically.
Chair noted the seriousness of the situation as there are a number of cases being handled at the moment, which my go public, end up in the law courts and all due to no policy of redeployment and job rotation. / ACTION
John Tse
8. / College Transition to 2008
Meeting was held between the Liaison Group (LG) and the Council appointed working group on 8 Dec. 2006. LG reiterated the four key demands but noted little response from the WG. Council representative in attendance warned of the danger that not all staff want to be bought out with a voluntary retirement scheme. Most important outcome of the meeting was that Mr Vincent Chow, Chair of CCCU Board of Management agreed that the College staff concerned are staff of City University.
Next step is to request a meeting with the Council and a formal letter would be written to the Council Chair to this effect. If this was not forthcoming then CityU SAEC would demand a meeting with the full Management Board to discuss and finalise the College Transition to 2008 as quickly as possible. Members also agreed that the matter should be raised again with LEGCO Education panel. The composition of the WG was also questioned as this was a University matter and it was unclear as to why the College Principal was on the WG. / ACTION
W W Fung/ Billy Ho/ L. Fullgrabe/ John Tse
9. / Federation matters
Federation Executive has issued statements and held a press conference demanding that Unviersity staff in the College should be transferred back to the University. This is based on the Teacher’s Union stance only. Decided to write to the Federation that this is counter to the position of CityU Staff Association’s Liaison Group.
Council member in attendance noted that a strong statement should be issued that the Federation Executive has not consulted with CityU SAEC on this matter but taken only the position of a small TU which is not representative as it is reported to have only 18 members. This would make working together with the Federation difficult as lack of consultation would severely jeopardize the long-term partnership. / ACTION
John Tse/W W Fung
10. / Senior University appointments
Appointment of a VP Administration was criticised as inappropriate as the current President will leave within four months. This ties the hands of the incoming President. SAEC determined that there was a need to review the appointment procedures. It was of concern that the Council treated the appointment of such a senior post as an AOB item at their meeting. This would send a message that this was not properly handled and be unfair to the appointee as it would taint her reputation as well. Many complaints had been received that this was improper. Discussion then ensued about staff acting in senior posts that
Were then turned into permanent positions without going through the due and rigorous process that all other staff in the University had to go through e.g Assistant professor to Associate Professor required a number of steps and time to process properly.
Decided to make discontent known via an EBS message.
. / John Tse
11. / Taskforce for review of teaching evaluation
Quality Assurance committee set up a taskforce to review TFQs and abuse of these for appraisal and promotion of staff.
Robin Bradbeer is leading the WG to give staff feedback and will conduct a staff satisfaction survey. This has to be in by Chinese New Year. SA will help organise the staff input and reflect to management that the system designed to aid teaching and learning has been abused. Management are aware of the problems. / R. Bradbeer
12. / Newly elected CityU SAEC representatives
New reps. were welcomed after being elected in the By-election held on 15 december 2006. Tyler Dai (MS) is the Vice-chair research and Chen Sheng (Eric) is the representative Research. Rita Takahashi is the elected representative for the College constituency.
13. / Search for a new President
Meeting was held on 21 December to short-list several candidates. Chair stated that he had asked for the Search Group to set up another panel of elected staff representatives who could listen to presentations by the short-listed 2 or 3 candidates and give their views to the Search Group. It should not be too large to avoid leaks but could comprise 30 people (25 staff from across the University and 5 students from the SU).
CityU SAEC’s position is that this should be an open and transparent process. EBS would be sent regarding this issue so that suggestions could be made by all staff. For instance if an Open Forum was held then the feedback could be channelled back through our staff rep. on the Search Group (John Tse). / John Tse
14. / Evaluation of the President
Comments made on the form. Still receiving feedback and Chinese translation to be arranged asap. / R. Bradbeer/L. Fullgrabe
15. / Medical Insurance for staff after retirement
Director (FO) not interested so CityU SAEC decided to co-ordinate this important benefit for staff. Godfrey Liu appointed as the Co-ordinator of the Taskforce under the SAEC with other posts of actuaru, secretary, medical doctor to be appointed. Lam Yeung submitted information on the Chinese university scheme. / G.Liu/Lam Yeung
16. / Feedback on Superannuation
Trustee to be invited to an SAEC meeting. / Lam Yeung
17. / Social activities
Tickets still for sale for the boat trip on 1 January 2007. / Freda Ho
18 / AOB
Member in attendance suggested rotation of acting head of HRO.
Bank of East Asia offers a special deal on credit cards.

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