Don’t cross picket line, striking BU professors urged

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/11/2011 (5455 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Don’t jump ship, the Brandon University Faculty Association is urging striking professors who may be considering crossing the picket line and going back to work.

A letter posted Wednesday on the BUFA website from music Prof. David Playfair says, “Some of you have made it known to me that you are planning to relinquish, or are considering relinquishing, your support of BUFA during the strike.”

The strike enters its 37th day this morning, with no end in sight.

BUFA president Prof. Joe Dolecki insisted Wednesday there is no mass exodus planned.

Four members of the bargaining unit crossed the picket line in the early days of the strike, but a general membership meeting earlier this week showed strong solidarity, Dolecki said.

“If you go back to work, there’s not much to go back to,” Dolecki said, pointing out anyone crossing the picket line has no access to offices, mail, computers or research.

The strike protocol signed by both sides allows strikebreakers only to park their cars and go to a classroom to teach, he said.

Dolecki said there are no immediate plans to resume bargaining.

Both BU and BUFA continue to tell students the semester can be extended — though there are no details forthcoming — and no Canadian university student has ever lost an academic year because of a labour dispute.

The Labour Relations Act allows the government to force the dispute to binding arbitration and resume normal operations after 60 days, but that won’t take effect until Dec. 10.

The Selinger government said Labour Minister Jennifer Howard and Advanced Education Minister Erin Selby still intend to let matters play out without their intervention, though the province has urged both sides to go to binding arbitration.

That was the recommendation mediator Michael Werier made to Howard when he reported recently mediation efforts had failed to produce a deal.

BU is willing to take everything to arbitration — wages, benefits, working conditions and contract language — but BUFA is resolute it wants to reach a deal at the bargaining table.

While the two sides appear to be close on wages, that can be deceptive, because of timing in paying out the money, and a split over annual increments.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

 

What the letter says

 

EXCERPTS from a letter Brandon University music Prof. David Playfair has sent to colleagues considering crossing the picket line:

“If some of us go back to teach on Monday, and some of us do not, what does that say to the students? What does that say to colleagues at BU? To colleagues at other universities in the province? Across the country? In the many universities around the world with which we are all, to varying degrees, affiliated? What kind of position are we then putting all these people in?

In terms of students alone, there are several questions. Would returning profs be requiring them to go to classes/lessons, or is it their choice? What position does returning faculty take on those students who don’t, in their turn, also cross the picket line? What affect do the choices of the returning profs have on the students who choose to support the position of BUFA and the majority of the BU faculty? And what kind of perception will the students have of a prof who crosses the line and does not stand in solidarity with their colleagues?

What affect will students’ crossing the picket line have on their relationships with their peers and colleagues? Ultimately, will crossing the line not create even more division, on all kinds of levels? And then there’s the bigger picture. In the current political climate of neo-conservative ideology, a mindset that is both, at a fundamental level, anti-union AND anti-art, the fact that the Board of Governors (in contravention of its own bylaws) chose to create an ad hoc bargaining team headed by a lawyer who is an adviser to the Canadian Labour Watch Association (a Vancouver-based anti-union organization) should raise many warning flags, if it hasn’t already done so.”