Closing UW for the week of August 16-20 is a possibility as part of UW's plans for cutting some $11.5 million from its payroll. The provost, Dr. Jim Kalbfleisch, told a meeting of department heads July 7 that the five days would be an unpaid layoff for all faculty and staff, except those earning less than $30,000. Under the Ontario government's Social Contract Act, those people are pro tected by a "low-income cut off" from any loss of pay. They would have to take the five days of UW's shutdown as a week of their vacation time. The provost said essential services - police and the central plant, for example - will be maintained throughout such a shutdown, just as they are during the Christmas holidays. There may also have to be local exceptions and special arrangements where there's work that simply must be done during mid-August. As time grows short, there are many unanswered questions about how UW will deal with the Social Contract crisis. If worse comes to worst, staff and faculty will have to take 12 unpaid days between now and next April 30. In addition to the five days in August, there could be shutdown days February 21 and 22, the Monday and Tuesday of reading week. Another possibility would be to convert some of the "floating day" holidays at the Christmas and New Year's season into unpaid days off. The rest of the unpaid days would be "flexible", taken at a time that suits individuals. Lost pay would be deducted from paycheques at a uniform rate for the nine months left in this fiscal year (September through April) - about 6.1 per cent off each paycheque. Millions: Under the Social Contract Act, passed by the Ontario legislature June 7, and and as a result of other government cuts to university spending, UW needs to trim some $10 million from the 1993-94 payroll. The number could actually be more than $11 million, but a "discount" of $1.4 million will come if employers and employee groups can reach a written agreement by August 1 on how the cuts should be made. Otherwise, management will go ahead with pay freezes, unpaid days and "additional budget cuts" to reach the $11 million total. The 12 unpaid days would save UW about $4.9 million. Another $4.8 million would be saved by permanently cancelling the salary increases that had been promised for last May, but were suspended as the Social Contract loomed on the horizon. Add those numbers up and you get $9.7 million, just about enough if an employer-employee "agreement" is reached. Kalbfleisch said even more savings would be possible through a temporary reduction in the premiums UW pays to the pension plan. Currently, the university more than matches the premiums paid by employees (UW pays 117 per cent of total employee contributions), and the pension fund currently has a surplus. Kalbfleisch said he'll ask the pensions and benefits committee to consider what changes could be made without jeopardizing the security of pensions for UW retirees. The pensions and benefits committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow. With those possible savings, and any other economies that can be found, officials are hoping for significantly fewer than 12 unpaid days, and pay deductions of less than 6.1 per cent. Negotiations are only beginning in earnest this week, despite the August 1 deadline, because many of the rules governing the Social Contract cuts weren't clear until the Act passed the legislature last week. The day after it was passed, the government and university managements signed a "framework agreement", actually a set of virtually identical individual agreements for each university in Ontario. Those agreements bind the university to certain steps toward openness and "accountability", as well as financial measures such as a "review" of "goods and services procurement and contracting systems" to find any savings that are possible there. It also requires each university to give hiring preference to people who are laid off from the other universities. And each university, including UW, must create "a working group" to look at "elimination of waste and inefficiency". But primarily the provincial document provides a basis for negotiations about money: $6,449,000 in UW's case. That includes $298,000 that's the responsibility of the church colleges. In addition to that $6.4 million, UW needs to cut about $3.5 million from the budget because of earlier "expenditure reduction" cuts and tax increases imposed by the province, university officials have said. Now talking: Serious negotiations are starting this week about just how that should be done. The talks will hap pen partly in specific committees, such as the Faculty Salary Committee and the Staff Compensation Committee, and partly in a "stakeholders group" that has been meeting regularly since the Social Contract crisis erupted at the end of March. Its members: UW's top officials plus leaders of the faculty association, the staff association, Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793, the Federation of Students, the Graduate Student Association, and the church college heads. Participants in those meetings have noted a spirit of "open" communication, in sharp contrast to apparent acrimony at some other Ontario universities where such groups often can't speak civilly to one another. But they now face a short deadline for a tough task, one involving tradeoffs between the number of people employed at UW and the amount they're paid. There's also a complexity of questions about short-term versus long-term cuts - unpaid days off versus permanent salary changes, for example, as well as the need to make sure pensions are properly funded. UW president Dr. James Downey, speaking to the department heads last week, said the administration's priorities in the talks are "equity and fairness, and protecting those who most need protecting", and "the quality and the reputation" of UW and the services it offers. "Beyond that," he said, "everything is open for discussion." But he and Kalbfleisch have said repeatedly that they think job losses would be undesirable and should be unnecessary. "From the beginning," the president said, "the administration has assumed that this was a serious business." He noted that the province's move might have been "more carefully thought out and skillfully executed", but at least he had words of praise for the attempt to do things through consultation before the province resorted to passing Bill 48. "It's been a frustrating procedure because of the continuing changing of the rules," Kalbfleisch told the same meeting. "Certainly our hope is that by working with our employee groups we will come to something that is more acceptable than the fail-safe plan." But the management is ready to go ahead with its "fail-safe" pay freeze and twelve days off, if nothing better is found, he made clear. Some decisions could be made by the last week of July. UW's board of governors is scheduled to meet Monday, July 26, to discuss the crisis. And the faculty association will meet Wednesday, July 28 (2:30 p.m., Physics room 145), expecting to hear a report from faculty negotiators on what's been settled by that time. Details: In discussions last Wednesday, Kalbfleisch often found himself saying "I don't know" to questions about the details of how UW will cope. But he did have answers for some of the questions he faced: ù The pay freeze, days off and other measures will apply to "all employees, regardless of source of funding". In other words, not just people paid from UW's operating budget are affected. Research-paid staff would suffer the same cuts, with the money they lose going back into the research project, and staff in self- supporting "ancillary" departments would also be involved. ù If there are unpaid days off, whether through a university-wide shutdown, at the individual's own convenience, or both, the money to pay for them will be deducted evenly through the fiscal year. That means someone who loses a week's work in August wouldn't also lose a quarter of August's pay at one slash. ù Someone whose pay is just a little above $30,000 can only be cut (through days off or otherwise) down to the $30,000 level, not below it. ù University officials understand that faculty members (and presumably staff as well) will have less time to get their work done if there are compulsory days off, and evaluations will take that into account. "There's no way you can expect the same productivity from people with twelve fewer working days." ù Pension plan contributions, and pension entitlements when people get to retirement age, will be based on the "nominal" salary, with no reduction because of the days off. ù A complete pay freeze, including the "progress through the ranks" increases that bring young faculty members up to higher pay levels over the years, would certainly hurt those people, and that is "of major concern to the deans", Kalbfleisch said. Under the "fail- safe" rule, however, UW would be forbidden to give PTR increases. ù To give some older staff and faculty an opportunity to rethink their futures, the deadline for applying to UW's temporary early-retirement scheme, which was to be September 1, is being delayed to November 1. Fair? At the department heads' meeting, and then at a staff association "information session" the same day, several people brought up the issues of fairness and a general resentment at what the government is doing. "Fairness and equity are very much as defined by the government," said Kalbfleisch rather bleakly. And later: "There's no guarantee whatsoever that they won't do this to us again."