Having not met since July 7th, bargaining resumed on Monday September 18th. At that time we finally received a response to our workload proposal.
On the one hand, we have seen some real movement on the general proposals we’ve made to better frame Teaching Faculty workload. Unfortunately, there has been absolutely no movement on the core issues of workload assignment. We have sent a very clear message that a vague 80% Teaching assignment is not sufficient. We have never agreed to a course load assignment of 8 courses or the equivalent thereof, and we still do not agree to this. The status quo is not working for many of our members.
We have therefore decided to take the next step of the bargaining process, and have filed for conciliation. This is a normal part of bargaining and a mandatory step towards being in a position to legally engage in job action. Upon receiving our application, the Ministry of Labour will appoint a conciliation officer whose role will be to try and help the Association and University reach an agreement. Should these efforts prove futile, the conciliator may issue a “No Board.” On the 17th day following the issuance of this “No Board,” and provided a strike mandate has been secured by a vote of its members, a union is then in a legal position to strike. A strike mandate does not necessarily mean we will strike.
More details on a strike mandate vote will follow. In the meantime, you can find more information on these general processes on our Bargaining 101 page. Your bargaining team remains committed to securing a fair deal as quickly as possible, and will continue discussions with the employer We are committed to working together towards achieving a fair and equitable Agreement.
We will continue to update you and hope we can soon report that we’ve reached an agreement. But we must also be prepared for further action, if necessary, to realize the kind of agreement we’ve worked so hard to build over the past year of discussions and consultation.
Finally, thank you for your amazing support of our letter to the University. The vast majority of Teaching Faculty has now signed on and we will be delivering the letter next week. If you have not signed on already, you can still do so here.
We are delivering a stronger message because of you.