Acadia University, faculty reach last-minute deal to avert strike

Acadia University and its faculty association reached a tentative deal early Monday morning after a marathon conciliation session that lasted almost 24 hours.

“A tentative deal was reached between AUFA and Acadia U at 5:50 a.m.,” association spokesperson Rachel Brickner said in a text early Monday.

Acadia spokesman Jeff Banks said details will be released later in the week.

The two sides started talking Sunday morning.

Banks said in an interview the university is happy that a deal could be reached.

“We negotiated all a night ... and ended up getting to a spot where we could both agree.”

He said there was give and take on both sides.

“Each side got to where they needed to be,” he said.

The only break in the talks was for supper at about 6 p.m. on Sunday.

“We were pretty confident all along that we could get (a deal),” he said. “We have a great faculty and we know they didn’t want to go on strike, and we wanted to be able to come to an agreement, so we were both really happy that we got there.”

He said there is some language cleanup to be looked after in the deal, and he expects the board of governors will have its ratification vote in a few weeks.

Brickner said in an interview that faculty were glad to have reached a deal.

“I think everybody’s pretty happy this morning,” she said.

She said while the negotiations were ongoing overnight “everybody was just watching their emails for hours.”

She said some people probably didn’t get a lot of sleep waiting to hear some news.

“I think people were anxious wondering” what was happening, she said. “We knew there was a good chance that it would go to the 11th hour or that we would be on strike the next day ... but in the end I think everybody is relieved and mostly proud of the negotiating team for doing a pretty amazing job.”

Brickner said her 8:30 a.m. class Monday was not well attended, but thinks that was a combination of the looming strike and a typical Monday morning and bad roads.

“Some (students) said anecdotally that some people didn’t think we would have class today,” she said.

The students who were in class seemed relieved, Brickner said, and were curious about the process going from the tentative deal to ratification.

She said no date has been set for the association to ratify the deal.

The provincial conciliator contacted both sides Friday and suggested the meeting for one final attempt to hammer out a deal.

The faculty association represents 331 full-time and part-time professors, instructors, librarians and archivists. Members voted two weeks ago to go on strike Monday morning if a new deal wasn’t reached.

The old contract expired over the summer.

The university said it couldn’t sign an agreement that threatened the future finances of Acadia.

The union said it wanted to see full-time positions restored and salaries in line with the average wages for professors at similarsized universities in the region.

Several previous rounds of conciliation talks had failed.

Acadia Students’ Union president Grace Hamilton-Burge said students are relieved, especially those planning to graduate this semester.

“This is really good news,” she said. “Now it’s settled, and even though it’s a tentative agreement, hopefully the respective parties will sign on to it as things will back to normal.”

“We have a great faculty and we know they didn’t want to go on strike, and we wanted to be able to come to an agreement, so we were both really happy that we got there.” Acadia spokesman Jeff Banks