Mount Allison University administration and faculty returned to the bargaining table Feb. 5 amid an ongoing strike.
The strike by the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) began Jan. 27 after 86 per cent of its members voted for it.
The strike vote was instigated by six months of contract negotiations where the association claimed university administration “rejected . . . most of MAFA’s proposals,” according to the MAFA collective bargaining website.
A conciliation process from August to December 2013 was unsuccessful.
A provincially-appointed mediator has been working with both parties since Jan. 5.
The association said its proposals provide “greater support to the academic mission of the university” and improve working conditions for its members.
University provost and vice-president (academic and research) Karen Grant said the university is prepared to continue negotiations, but the faculty association would only return if the university “abandons all of its key proposals.”
“The University’s key proposals aim to protect our students’ interests in obtaining a top quality and sustainable education,” she said via email. “They represent important matters that should be discussed.”
The university’s proposals include salary increases of 6.25 per cent over four years, increasing its contribution to the pension plan from 7.5 to eight per cent, linking performance to annual career development increases, and incorporating student evaluations of teaching.
The association said the university proposed changes that “would undermine fair process in decisions over tenure, promotion, and sabbaticals, and erode academic freedom by increasing the power of the administration to control how academic staff conduct teaching and research.”
All classes including labs, tutorials, seminars, and correspondence courses, have been suspended until further notice during the strike.
However, all other student services, administrative buildings, and public facilities at the university remain open. Both the university and the association are asking students to carry on with their academic work to be ready for when classes resume.
Grant said the university plans to complete the academic term.
“Within five days of a strike being over, the registrar’s office will formulate a new schedule, to be approved by Senate, which will re-schedule missed course work,” she said.
Melissa O’Rourke, president of the university’s student union, said students viewed the first few days of the strike as an “extended weekend.”
“They didn’t really notice too much of a difference, but I know that the atmosphere of the campus today has started to shift,” she said. “A lot of students are realizing that this is an incredibly serious circumstance . . . that’s going to have some fairly serious implications on our academic year.”
O’Rourke said students aren’t simply worried about the strike, but about the future of their education.
She said many students from the Maritimes have already gone back home, but there are other students such as those from other parts of Canada and abroad who haven’t been able to do that.
“All housing for any students that are on campus will remain open for the duration of the strike, simply because this is their home right now and it would be inappropriate to take that away,” she said.
O’Rourke said the university has been emailing students updates on the strike and negotiations, and that the association has been providing updates via Twitter.
The number one concern for students, she said, is getting back to the classroom.
“At the end of the day, this is our education, and we’d like to receive it,” she said.
Mount Allison is the second university in New Brunswick to have classes suspended due to a strike in the last month. A strike at the University of New Brunswick ended Jan. 30.
