Support workers’ union rips U of S as strike talk heats up
CUPE complains requests for meeting with top officials have been spurned
The union representing hundreds of University of Saskatchewan support workers is ramping up pressure on the institution amid an ongoing pension dispute that could lead to a strike as early as this spring.
Around 200 Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1975 members packed a classroom in the Health Sciences Building on Tuesday as the union’s leadership blasted the university’s “puppetmasters” for ignoring them.
“Those are the people that make the decisions. … We’ve asked them numerous times and they have refused to meet with us,” CUPE Local 1975 president Craig Hannah said, referring to president Peter Stoicheff and the university’s board of governors.
Hannah acknowledged that seeking a meeting with the president and board deviates from the normal course of negotiations, but CUPE national representative Ann Iwanchuk disagreed.
“This is the only time that I’ve ever experienced this,” said Iwanchuk, who is also the lead negotiator for the union, which includes clerical staff, caretakers, food service employees and technicians.
“It’s very common for the employer, at the highest level, to have high-level discussions with the union and it’s not happening here. We are getting shut down every time we try to set up a meeting,” she added.
Asked why the university declined the meetings, Iwanchuk said the institution wants to keep discussions going at the bargaining table. The U of S agreed to resume talks while the rally was in progress on Tuesday, union officials said.
CUPE Local 1975 has been without a contract since the end of 2015. Attempts to negotiate a new one have stalled repeatedly, largely due to differing views on the union’s defined-benefit pension plan.
While the university insists the plan is not financially sustainable and must be replaced with a target date defined-contribution plan or a target benefit plan, the union has proposed a jointly funded defined-benefit plan and said it won’t compromise further.
According to a brief sent to the university’s board and provided to reporters, the pension pays retired union members an average of $18,100 per year, leading Iwanchuk to say the union is not after a “Cadillac contract.”
The union is also unhappy about the university’s proposal to provide two-per-cent wage increases in 2019 and 2020 but no retroactive increases for 2016 through 2018.
Although CUPE Local 1975 has leased a strike headquarters since early December, neither it nor the university can take job action until two matters in front of the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board are dealt with.
A hearing on essential services in the event of a strike is set for Thursday.
A request to interview Stoicheff, who also sits on the board, was declined.
In an emailed statement, university spokesman Gord Hunchak said the board and “senior administration have been kept fully up-to-date throughout this entire process and are supportive of the direction the university’s bargaining team has taken.”
Hunchak’s statement went on to note that the university “remains committed” to bargaining, and that its goal is “competitive wages and a good pension plan for the members of CUPE 1975 that is financially sustainable for the university.”
CUPE Local 1975, which last went on strike for four weeks in late 2007 and early 2008, is likely to receive support from other campus unions if its members are locked out or go on strike in the coming months.
The CUPE local representing sessional lecturers has confirmed it will advise its members of their right not to cross the picket line, while the Administrative and Supervisory Personnel Association will also provide support.
“We have advised our members not to perform our CUPE 1975 brothers’ and sisters’ work voluntarily” if there is a strike, ASPA president Joanie Crandall wrote in a Nov. 30 letter sent to Stoicheff and the board.
“And we respectfully request that the employer not ask our members to do the work. To do so would only place ASPA members in an awkward and difficult situation and would only serve to increase the already heightened unrest on campus.”