The Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) and Laurentian University ratified a new collective agreement, ending a 10-day strike, according to LUFA’s website.
The association represents 373 full-time and 304 part-time faculty members at Laurentian University’s campuses in Sudbury and Barrie, according to its website.
On Oct. 6, LUFA members voted 98 per cent in favour of a three-year extension of the collective agreement, which expired on June 30. Laurentian’s Board of Governors later unanimously accepted the agreement the following Tuesday.
“This agreement will provide our faculty with the stability and supports to continue providing our students with a world-class education, and will provide organizational stability as we finalize the University’s 2018-2023 Strategic Plan,” Laurentian University’s interim president, Pierre Zundel, said in a LUFA press release.
The strike began on Sept. 28 after the university left the negotiations, declaring an impasse and was the first time professors walked the picket line since 1989, according to a previous article by the Charlatan.
David Leeson, a history professor at Laurentian University, volunteered as picket captain during the strike.
“It seemed like they thought we weren’t serious, that we wouldn’t or couldn’t actually walk out. Obviously, they were mistaken,” he said.
Leeson, who is also the chair of the university’s history department, said he was becoming “disturbed” at the “increasingly arbitrary way in which our university’s senior administrators have been running this place.”
According to an article by the CBC, the main reasons for the strike were pensions and workload.
Under the terms of the three-year contract extension, LUFA members will get a standard annual salary increase. Both the university and LUFA also agreed to start discussing pension and workload equity.
Leeson said he was pleased with stronger language that was won in this collective agreement.
“I was also pleased that we won better compensation and benefits for our sessional members, who are the hardest working and most poorly paid of all academics,” Leeson said. “These are the kinds of things that are worth going on strike to win.”
The new collective agreement will expire on June 30, 2020, and Laurentian students returned to their classes on Oct. 16.
Graphic by Manoj Thayalan
