A new collective agreement covering faculty members at the University of Manitoba was ratified May 10. The deal, restricted to compensation issues, was reached without third party intervention.

The three-year agreement calls for an increase to salary scales of 3 per cent for each year and a $5,000 increase to salary floors, thresholds and maxima for assistant professor, lecturer, instructor II, instructor I, assistant librarian and general librarian categories in year one. In addition, the contract provides a special fund for salary adjustments of $400,000 over the next three years — $200,000 in the first year and $100,000 in each of the following two years.

The agreement also puts additional funding into the university's health care plan and caps market stipends - salary supplements paid to faculty members in market sensitive disciplines — at an annual maximum of $600,000.

A letter of understanding on faculty renewal assures a minimum of 1,045 faculty members by March 31, 2007, including 793 tenured and probationary members.