Well, we've had a strike vote authorization, and a strike vote. We now have a strike deadline. Midnight (or 11:59pm) Sunday, 31 October. All Hallows' Eve. Perfect.
Mediation begins (began) today (Monday the 25th), and unless there is some kind of progress (exactly what constitutes progress, but presumably it means 'a reasonable offer', or at least 'an appearance of legitimate intention to reach some kind of mutually acceptable decision', is up to the bargaining committee).
If at that time mediation has failed, Monday will be spent 'setting up', and picketing (and other activities) will begin Tuesday morning.
The University of Manitoba Faculty Association represents full-time faculty (professorial), instructors, and librarians, so it is we (they) who will be withdrawing course-related and administrative (committee) work for the duration of a strike.
Part-time instructors, sessional employees, graduate student instructors, etc. are represented separately, and will not be going on strike. This might lead to the situation we had in 2016, where some classes (those taught by people who weren't on strike) went on 'as usual', while other classes were put on hold. Which in itself isn't a huge problem, except that the strike went on for three weeks, which made the university reschedule the remainder of the term for those classes. Which meant that we were having class meetings in December while other people were giving finals, we were giving finals in January, and the whole of Winter term was delayed by something like three weeks.
2016 negotiations were severely hampered by political interference the Public Services Sustainability Act, which was brainchild of the previous Premier (the not much missed by anyone as far as I can tell) Brian Pallister. Pallister was openly hostile toward a) education and b) unions, and the PSSA was his way of trying to dismantle collective bargaining. It mandated 0% wage increases across the board, among other offenses, for all public sector employees (road workers, elevator inspectors, tax collectors, and other people who work for the government, but also primary and secondary teachers, university faculty, nurses, police, fire and EMT services, and on and on and on.)
Even though the PSSA was never actually passed, the previous University administration took it as a binding directive, taking salaries off the table. Litigation since has found that the PSSA is/was/would have been unconstitutional (in particular the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which one way or another protects unions and unionized workers and their role in collective bargaining. UPDATE: On 13 Oct the Manitoba Court of Appeals overturned part of the lower court ruling, finding that the PSSA was not unconstitutional. However, they specifically found also that there was unlawful government interference in the 2016 negotiations, and that the government 'forcing' the university to withdraw salary offers on the table did violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protection of our right of assembly. IANAL but I assume that 'assembly' here means our write to have a union and have that union bargain for us.
The previous Premier (Pallister) rode into office a tide of anger at budgetary mismanagement by the previous government, which left some serious debt behind (don't want to overlook this, it was a b*ttl**d of deficit), and felt it was his mandate to balance the budget at all costs. The PSSA was his attempt to do so on the backs of public sector employees. Having been thwarted by findings about the PSSA, he introduced two bills, Bill 16 and Bill 64. Both would have introduced sweeping changes. Bill 16 was an attempt to break bypass unions' role in collective bargaining, in particular eliminating the unions' ability to call for binding arbitration if a strike has gone on for 60 days. (Apparently, Manitoba is the only province that allows unions to unilaterally force arbitration after 60 days.) Bill 64 also had a number of effects specifically related to the public school system. Among other things, it would have eliminated elected local school boards and essentially hand questions of curriculum, discipline, and collective bargaining to the province. Pallister resigned, thank &deity;, and his (interim) successor withdrew both bills.
So we have a new premier (at present an interim premier who has expressed no interest in running for leadership of the party, which should be decided on or after 30 October), if not a new government per se, and we also have a new university president. Word from the union is that nothing much has changed at the bargaining table, but hopefully the province will keep its authoritarian mitts out of university business, and the new president will insist on his own independence from direct provincial interference pressure as regards bargaining.
Stay tuned.
