As of 12:01 am on Monday August 15th, 2011, the administration of Queen’s University will be in a legal position to lock-out faculty, librarians and archivists. At the same time the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) will be in a legal position to call a strike or other job action. QUFA has been at the bargaining table since January. While the collective agreement expired on April 30th, QUFA agreed to continue talks to negotiate a new agreement.
On June 7th the administration unilaterally applied to the Ministry of Labour to appoint a conciliator. Conciliation is a process, which can be ended by either party at any time, with a request for a “no board report.” Once this is received by the Ministry, the clock starts ticking towards a crisis point in the bargaining process. The terms and conditions of employment as set out in the collective agreement are frozen in place for 17 days, after which there is no collective agreement at all. Lock outs and strikes as well as unilaterally imposed changes in the terms and conditions of employment become legally permissible at that point. On July 25th the administration, unilaterally, requested a no board report. QUFA learned on August 2nd that the “no board report” was received by the Ministry on July 29. Between now and August 15th the parties will meet with a mediator in order to try and reach a negotiated solution.
The recent steps taken by the Administration are legally permissible. QUFA will continue its efforts to negotiate. We cannot predict what the Administration will do. We recognize that lock-outs and strikes are drastic steps which are costly to the employer and to employees as well as all of those who are served by them, most importantly students.
Students are, quite rightly, asking how they will be affected by a lock-out or a strike . In the case of a lock-out of faculty, librarians and archivists, normal operations of the university would cease. There would be no classes, library services would cease to function, graduate supervision would cease and faculty supervision of graduate student research and teaching appointments would cease. What access students and non-QUFA staff would have to university facilities and services, how it would honour contracts with graduate teaching fellows, how it would deal with students’ questions about ensuring missed class time is made up, or tuition returned is entirely up to the university administration. A lock-out would mean that all members of the QUFA bargaining unit would be denied access to their offices, labs, and other Queen’s facilities. Indeed, they would be regarded as trespassers on the Queen’s campus. They would lose their Queen’s net id and all of the facilities to which their NetID provides access (email, electronic library resources, databases and so forth).
In the case of a QUFA strike, normal work done by faculty, librarians and archivists would be suspended. Graduate and undergraduate classes taught by QUFA members would not run. Graduate student supervision would be suspended. In exceptional cases “picket passes’ may be issued by QUFA to permit members access to their laboratories to protect research and equipment that needs regular monitoring but this degree of access
needs to be approved by the Administration.
If QUFA members are on strike, the university administration may choose not to honour QUFA picket passes; it may also choose to prevent students and others from accessing facilities and services normally supervised by faculty librarians and archivists.
Strikes and lockouts are not normal. They are extreme measures in the bargaining process and reflect serious difficulties and failures of negotiation. QUFA does not want a strike on August 15th or at any time in the fall or winter terms, though it may come to that.
QUFA encourages students to inform themselves about the issues that have brought its members, along with other unionized employees at Queen’s to the situation they now face. Student governments have formulated positions for their own employees and offices in case of labour disruptions.
You can find information about the AMS and SGPS stances at their websites: http://www.myams.org/component/content/article/41-rotator-news/643-labour-negotiations and http://www.sgps.ca/downloads/2011-july-exec-statement-cupe.pdf .
Fuller information and discussion of bargaining issues can be found throughout the QUFA Job Action Readiness blog pages http://qufa.ca/jobaction/ . Discussions of the issues as they affect other employee groups at Queen’s can be found on their webpages at: http://psac901.wordpress.com/ (PSAC 901 representing teaching assistants, teaching fellows and post-docs) http://local254.cupe.ca/ (CUPE locals 1302, 229, and 254, representing library technicians, industrial trades workers, custodial staff, food workers, and Technical and Lab support technicians) and http://www.qusw.ca/ (USW 2010, representing administrative assistants, secretarial and other staff) .
Questions about QUFA’s positions can also be sent to QUFA President Paul Young at paul.young.qufa.ca
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