After months, negotiations between the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4600 and the university have a familiar threat hanging over them—that of a strike.
CUPE 4600, which represents teaching assistants and contract instructors at Carleton, recently requested a no board report. This means that if no agreement is reached between both sides within 17 days, a strike is likely to occur in early March.
A strike would have a severe impact on students. Assignments wouldn’t be marked, and classes taught by contract instructors —which are most of them—wouldn’t take place.
This would potentially delay graduations, and impact final projects and theses. OC Transpo buses would also no longer drop students off on campus in a show of solidarity with the union.
It would be ignorant to assume both sides aren’t aware of these potential impacts, since strikes are a last ditch effort to push home the severity of the situation.
However, these negotiations are nothing new. It seems that every couple of years, many of the same issues are being debated, and the same fear of a strike looms over students.
Although CUPE 4600 has never gone on strike in its history, it has come close. In 2014, the union and the university reached an agreement at 1:30 a.m. on the day that a strike would have been legally possible.
Stringing things along until a strike is the only remaining viable option, is not the way to conduct negotiations. The university should take the threat of a strike seriously, and engage in negotiations that would prevent the same issues from recurring year after year.
