Faculty vote on contract offer will take three days next week

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2011 (5410 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Striking Brandon University professors will vote whether to accept the university’s ‘final’ contract offer over three days next week.

Voting will take place Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning in Winnipeg and all day Thursday in Brandon. (The university’s school of health offers classes in Winnipeg.)

The dates were set by the Manitoba Labour Board after a meeting today in Winnipeg involving representatives of the BU administration and the Brandon University Faculty Association (BUFA).

Labour Minister Jennifer Howard ordered Monday that the 240 profs vote “immediately” on the administration’s latest offer. She put the labour board in charge of the vote.

The action, unprecedented by the NDP in 12 years in office, drew scathing criticism from the faculty association, which said it had been close to reaching a negotiated settlement with the university administration. It also caused dismay in union and left-wing circles over concerns that it undermined the collective bargaining process.

If professors vote to accept the contract offer, they could be back at work by Dec. 5, said Elisabeth MacDonald-Murray, an executive member of the faculty association.

She said a back-to-work protocol has not been worked out in the case that the offer is accepted.
BUFA has said several questions need to be addressed as profs go back to work, including how sessional professors with contracts ending in mid-December are treated. It’s likely that the first term of the university’s school year would be extended into January to make up for lost class time this fall.

Also to be decided is the status of professors who are set to retire or go on sabbatical as of Jan. 1, the union has said.

Faculty members have been on strike since Oct. 12. Their contract expired this past March.

More than 3,000 students attend the Brandon U.

If the faculty association rejects the university’s offer, the administration will be in a position under Manitoba law to force BUFA into binding arbitration as early as Dec. 10. That would end the strike.

The administration has said that if a deal were not in place by then, it would apply for arbitration on Monday Dec. 12.

Wages had been the biggest sticking point between the two sides, although progress had been made on that issues in recent days. The university offer calls on wage increases of one, one, three and three per cent over four years. BUFA had countered with proposed percentage increases of one, two, three and three.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) expressed its displeasure with the NDP government’s decision to force BUFA members to vote on the administration’s offer. In a letter to Howard on Tuesday, the national group said its executive had voted unanimously to condemn the forced vote.

“The effect of the government’s intervention is to undermine the collective bargaining process by taking away the employer’s incentive to negotiate, and thereby likely prolonging the strike,” CAUT said.

“We call upon you and your government to live up to your commitment to collective bargaining by allowing the parties to resolve the matter themselves. To impose arbitration will have the effect of rewarding the employer’s recalcitrance and cause long-term labour relations difficulties at Brandon.”