Universite Sainte-Anne professors, librarians walk off job
Professors and librarians went on strike March 3
The president of Université Sainte-Anne says for the sake of the students, the hope is a strike by professors and librarians that started March 3 will not last too long.
“Our main focus is to make sure that we find a way to resolve this for our students,” Allister Surette, the university's president and vice-chancellor, said in an interview the day after the strike began.
Forty unionized professors and librarians at the university's campuses in the province went on strike March 3. Their collective agreement was originally due to expire June 30, 2020, but was extended to June 30, 2021.
Surette said the university was a bit taken aback by the timing of the strike. He said the university feels there is still much negotiation that hasn't happened.
“The collective agreement expired at the end of June of last year. We didn't exchange positions until Oct. 12, and we were only at the table five times after the exchange of documents, in October/November, for about six weeks, where (the union) declared an impasse and called in a conciliator,” he said.
A conciliator was appointed by the province in December. Surette said the sides went back to the table on Jan. 20. “We were only at the table three weeks where they had declared another impasse,” he said.
By that time the union had received a strong strike mandate. That came on Feb. 10.
“We still have over 50 per cent of the agreement that we haven't even discussed,” Surette said. “Some of the key elements that they're being quoted (in the media) as saying – which are monetary items and workload – we never even discussed those things yet.”
The Association des professeurs, professeures et bibliothécaires de l'Université Sainte-Anne (APPBUSA), is the union representing the faculty and librarians. “After several months of talks, it is clear that the negotiations are at an impasse,” the union/association posted on its website on Feb. 17.
“From the start of this process, collective bargaining consisted of an almost systematic refusal by the employer
to take an objective look at the proposals submitted by the APPBUSA – to recognize that these demands stem from the need to conform working conditions and the relationship between the parties with those that exist in other universities in the province and elsewhere in the country,” the website posting reads.
The union applied to the Nova Scotia Labor Board for a conciliator in November 2021 but said that didn't resolve things.
“Some progress was made on the demands submitted by the administration, but the majority of the proposals of APPBUSA were not responded to with serious counter-proposals, if they were responded to at all. An end to conciliation was requested on Feb. 10,” its website reads.
During a 24-hour secret ballot that ended on Feb. 10, APPBUSA said its members gave the executive committee the mandate to begin a strike “if necessary.” Of the 40 members, 39 cast a vote. Of the 39 who voted, 36 voted in favor of the strike mandate, representing 92.3 per cent of the votes cast.
In a Feb.18 open letter to the university, APPBUSA president James Crombie, emphasized the association still wanted negotiations to resume.
“Contrary to what the administration's email message to the university community on Feb. 11 suggests, the end of the conciliation and the filing of the conciliator's report do not at all mean the end of the negotiations,” he wrote.
“We want our proposals to be taken seriously. We want an improved collective agreement. Our negotiating team has, so far, the impression that our proposals are rather completely ignored.”
Asked how long negotiations on a collective agreement tend to take, Surette said it varies. He said the university doesn't understand the urgency to be out on strike when more negotiation could have continued.
He said the union/association has put a lot on the table. He also said there have been changes requested in parts of the language structure of the agreement for which grievances have never been filed.
“There's a lot of significant items on the table,” he said. “They seem to have much difficulty prioritizing items. We have to figure out a way that we can get the process back on track.”
“Of course, we're always trying to improve the agreements – that's part of the work we have to do,” Surette said. “But we have to be at the table to do that and we have to identify priorities.”
Surette said this is the first time there has been a strike of professors and librarians at the Francophone/Acadian university.
“We're kind of surprised with the different approach on their end,” he said, comparing these negotiations to past ones.
The current term at the university runs to early April. Then students move into exams.
With the COVID-19 pandemic it's been a difficult couple of years. For the most part, classes were offered on a hybrid basis, giving students the option of doing classes in person or online. However with the Omicron wave, in January the university moved to being completely virtual.
“We're doing this whole term virtually, hoping to ride out the Omicron wave,” Surette said.
He said there are only around 50 students living on campus.
During the strike, nonunionized lecturers are still offering their courses and most student work-terms are continuing.
“It's very unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation after two years of living with COVID,” Surette said about the labour dispute.
“It's been challenging for all of us, the entire university community, including professors – they all had to be able to adapt, they had to be able to be flexible. The same thing with the students, same thing with administration. There have been so many unknowns, so many public health measures introduced that we had to abide by."
“Like the rest of society, everybody is quite tired of the pandemic days," he said. "The last thing that anyone from our university community needed was a strike over and above everything else.”