Students at the University of Manitoba (U of M) no longer need to worry about a potential disruption in their fall semester as the faculty and school finally reached an agreement to not strike.
The University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) has been threatening a strike to regain the right to bargain for a salary increase since early October.
The UMFA voted to ratify the agreement reached between the union and the school earlier this week, by a slim margin of 55 per cent.
For three years, the provincial government has restricted professors, librarians, and archivists from negotiating their salary.
This issue was initially sparked in 2017 when the Manitoba provincial government passed the Public Service Sustainability Act (PSSA), preventing faculty members from negotiating their salaries.
In June 2017, the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba ruled that PSSA preventing faculty members from negotiating their salary was unconstitutional.
UMFA members will receive a one-time payment due to extra work caused by the pandemic with the new agreement between the UMFA and U of M.
Michael Shaw, UMFA president, said he was hopeful a strike would bring about change, explaining that withdrawing the staff’s labour from the university would impact students’ semester.
U of M faculty are currently the lowest paid of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, which Shaw said makes it more difficult for the university to retain long-term staff.
“We lose colleagues all the time,” Shaw said. “They work [at U of M] for four or five years […] they meet [someone] and find out that they are making $32 to 33,000 a year more than they are because they’re at almost any other university.”
U of M continues to be one of Canada’s most profitable institutions. The school’s former president, David Barnard was one of the highest paid university administrators in the country.
Jelynn Dela Cruz, University of Manitoba Student Union (UMSU) president, said she was concerned for the student body when the threat of a strike was looming.
Dela Cruz said she hoped to “eradicate any potential of academic disruption.”
Dela Cruz said learning from home is a stressful experience on its own, and some students feel that UMFA is to blame for the added weight of a possible strike.
“UMSU is working to ensure that there [are] academic considerations for students in the event of potential academic interruption this year,” Dela Cruz said. “If you don’t complete the course content and get the credits this term, then maybe you deserve a tuition refund.”
A UMSU poll conducted in light of the potential strike and labour dispute revealed that mental health was a primary concern for over 60 per cent of students. Students were also concerned about the quality of their education, with tuition costs at the university having increased by an average of 3.75 per cent this year.
A #SaveTheSemester petition by U of M students, pushing for university-faculty negotiations to protect the education of the university’s 29,000 students, has received over 2,000 signatures in three weeks.
Danielle Cherpako, a first-year graduate political science student, ho said she understood why UMFA threatened to strike.
“I know for a lot of students, they have been finding the possibility of a strike during the pandemic really difficult and challenging, and it’s easy to blame the professors,” Cherpako said.
“[But] the province is once again illegally interfering in the process of bargaining, and so it’s not really the fault of the professors.”
Cherpako said keeping informed on the matter can help to reduce the added stress many students are feeling, especially since she said the conflict could have a greater impact on the province as a whole.
“I’m more concerned about the state of public universities and education if professors continue to be treated poorly [compared] to their colleagues across the country,” Cherpako said.
“If professors aren’t standing up for themselves and if students aren’t taking their side, then this will have pretty concerning effects on the future of education in Manitoba.”
While students no longer need to worry about a strike during the fall semester, there is no guarantee 2021 will not bring the same challenges. The contract bargaining agreement between UMFA and the university expires March 31, 2021.
Featured image by Jaya Budhia.
