You may have woken up the other day to a headline in the Ubyssey claiming that the Faculty Association bargaining team bargained away the “right to strike earlier this year.” We’re still wondering who provided them with this information. From the inception of a collective bargaining agreement between the Faculty Association and the University, which occurred in 1974, there has been no provision for faculty members to go on strike. Rather the two parties agreed on interest arbitration as the mechanism for settling bargaining disputes over thirty five years ago. The only thing that was said to the Ubyssey reporter was “When we started bargaining with the university last January, both the Faculty Association and the university agreed that we would not bargain our issues in the press. To honour that agreement, I think it’s probably best that the association not provide commentary to The Ubyssey at this time.” We continue to hold that viewpoint.
If you have questions about bargaining, please feel free to contact us at any time.
Update, October 14: The Ubyssey removed the statement about the Faculty Association bargaining away its right to strike from the online version of the story after we contacted them. The subhead still suggests otherwise, of course.
