Day 28

 Well, Happy Monday. Also Happy Hanukkah, for those who partake. I had a good weekend. Slept about 12 hours Friday night-Saturday noonish, and seven hours each last night and the night before, in the case of yesterday accompanied by about five hours lazing in bed, watching videos and catching up on the curling trials.

So before we get into strike stuff, many congratulations to Team Jones and Team Gushue, who yesterday won the women's and men's team curling trials and became the first Canadian athletes named to Team Canada for the 2022 winter Olympic games in Beijing. Apparently. I'm not sure how most sports work in most countries, but I know there are a few teams who were selected to represent their countries at the Olympics some time ago. In a similar vein that some countries put all their eggs in one team basket for the European Championships.  Which, by the way, were also decided this weekend, with Team Muirhead and Team Mouat, both of Scotland, one the women's and men's championships respectively. First time both winning teams represented one country. But back to Olympic curling talk. Jones won gold in curling in 2014 in Sochi. Gushue one his gold medal in Torino in 2006. So this is gonna be fun.

Bargaining update: Intensive bargaining happened this weekend, which is interesting because the mediator issued a report repeating his recommendation of binding arbitration and promptly resigned.  I don't know how many weeks or months this mediator had been engaged, and I know nothing about mediation, but it seems to me to be bad form to resign before the parties agree to move to the next step.  Reportedly, some progress (tiny steps) was made this weekend. 

UMFA is willing to arbitrate money (i.e. salaries, grids, scales), but wants governance language locked down. The mediator, in his recommendation, tried to assure us that the arbitrator, whoever it ends up being, would not be (or feel) bound by provincial mandate or fear of provincial reprisals, and that they would give fair hearing to outstanding issues of governance.

However, UMFA has reason to believe that the arbitrator, whoever it is, might well be swayed by provinicial mandate, and might choose to ignore the outstanding governance issues.  Issues of contractual language guaranteeing, for instance, time away from the classroom to research and retool courses, are famously not something that get arbitrated. Arbitrators tend not to mess with language.  If it's in the contract, and you're trying to change it, is one thing. Adding new language to a contract, for instance a guarantee that faculty cannot be forced to teach online or at distance (absent public emergency), is not something that arbitrators like to do. Which makes total sense.

But of course, we've been on the losing end of arbitration before. We care about these issues, and taking the advice of previous administrating bargaining teams, we're staying on strike to make sure we get these things settled. Or at least heard.  If these issues aren't included in the contract now, they will just get argued again in the future.

And I am skeptical of assurances that 'we don't need language like that in the contract' since we've never needed it before, and anyone everybody wants the best for everyone.  This may be true, but we can't grieve something that isn't in the contract.  So if some future administration or administrator chooses to ignore established extra-contractual 'understandings', we have no recourse.

This, as I understand it, is the power of the many 'letters of understanding' that seem to accompany collective bargaining. For the duration of the contract, one side assures the other that something will hold. (In the past, this has included things like the administration pledging to keep the number of UMFA members constant, or to replace X out of Y positions, or whatever--so if someone retires or resigns, the administration can't, or at least promises to not, replace all those positions with temporary, sessional positions, but with permanent, tenure-track positions. Or that the admin cannot simply close or eliminate programs, or do so without preserving the positions in question.  Or whatever the issue is.

I've never understood why these things aren't included in the contract, but now I get it. Eventually, it may turn out that the historically significant program in basket-weaving is just of no interest to students, and maybe it should be eliminated, or folded into fine arts or architecture or something.  It's easier to do away with or rewrite letters of understanding than to bargain these things in the contract.  So I get it.

So propaganda to the contrary UMFA has not rejected arbitration.  We have just rejected unconditional arbitration on non-salary related governance. There is no reason for the strike to continue, except that UMFA and the administration cannot agree on what will be put before the arbitrator and what will be settled through bargaining. And UMFA has put forward comprehensive proposals (which may or may not have been communicated properly to the administration--whole other can of worms), but the ball really is in admin's court, to come up with a counter proposal.

And word from the weekend is that bargaining has not reached a standstill. So I'm less anxious than I was that a resolution is possible in the near term. Although my acid stomach from last week hasn't subsided. Nor, actually, has the headache. But maybe another good night's sleep will sort that all out.