Technically, week 2 ends with Monday, since we started on Tuesday the 2nd. But in my head it's the end of week 2.
This week, live picketers concentrated on the Leg/Ledge/Legislature Building and the constituency offices of various MLAs and ministers, primarily from the "Progressive" Conservative party, which gets less and less progressive as time goes on. (The analogous federal party, known simply as the Conservative Party (of Canada) went through a few pains on their way from "Progressive Conservative" to just "Conservative". Lately a new party, the Canadian Citizens' Party, has popped up to fill the nationalist void, but that's another random political story I don't know enough about.)
As readers of this blog will be aware (for instance, from my Open Letter to the Premier, and elsewhere) the PCs have been illegally (technically 'unlawfully', but I'm not sure of the difference at this point, or whether I care) interfering with collective bargaining for basically as long as they have been in power this time. They are smart enough not to have put anything in writing (which is what usually qualifies something as a 'mandate' coming down from above (as opposed to a 'mandate' from the voters upward, which requires only enough votes to get into power). Since such mandates constitute unlawful interference, the new PC trick is to communicate its wishes by telephone, backing up any contravention of those wishes by reducing the province's financial contribution by the same amount.
This is precisely what happened recently with the city of Winnipeg's negotiation of the contract with aS 7ambulance services. The province funds an outfit called Shared Health, which doles out money to local agencies for contracted ambulance service. The city recently agreed to a 2% increase in salaries. In order to ensure 'sustainability' (which is apparently the PC buzzword meaning 0 growth in expenses), Shared Health reduced its ~$50 million coverage of Winnipeg ambulance services by $861,854? Does that number look suspiciously specific? It should. It's exactly the amount that the salary increase costs. It amounts to something similar to 2% of the actual Shared Health contribution, but it is transparently an effort by the province to not pay for salary increases for public sector workers.
So it's pretty apparent that what the province is telling employers is that not only will they not pay for salary increases to unionized employees, but the employer is going to be penalized by the same amount. You spend an extra couple million on salaries? Kiss four million goodbye from you operating funds. (That's the amount of money the salary increases will cost you, plus the additional penalty pulled out of your operating funds.)
Because these things are conveyed 'informally' through direct conversation, rather than in writing, apparently indemnifies the province (thinks the PC party) from unlawful interference. But just because they avoid creating the paper trail, doesn't mean they aren't interfering. It just makes it harder to prove, since they can claim 'there is no mandate', any advice 'privately' conveyed to the university administration through conversation is presumably protected speech, and anyway, when they reduce the budget, it won't be because of salary increases, it'll be because of 'sustainability'.
It's been about a week since the university admin rejected UMFAs latest offer, but according to the mediator, they haven't put forward a new proposal. They're sticking to their previous proposal. We're sticking to ours, and frankly it's up to them to counteroffer at this point. They've also announced what kind of 'repair measures' will be taken if the strike ends on this date, or that date. Upshot is they are now advertising that classes will continue to 23 December, with finals and stuff happening in January. This is what they did in 2016 after three weeks. Even though this is sort of the end of week 2, there were no classes scheduled for this week (midterm break or reading week, or something) so technically they've only lost one week of classes. Sounds like they're settling in for a long one. And so, so am I.
5 comments:
Speaking of the long game, do you have any information/thoughts on the 60 day arbitration thing? I have no clue what that is, but I'd like to hear your take on it. Maybe that's better suited for later on in the strike though.
As I understand it, there is a unique-to-Manitoba law that allows the striking union to force binding arbitration after 80 (rather than 60?) days of strike action. Thus strikes in Manitoba are unlikely to go on and on and on, and why, for instance, the nurses worked without a contract for over four years, rather than begin strike action.
Binding arbitration is complicated, but basically (if I've understood it--no guarantees) both parties submit their final offers to the arbitrator (I think there are rules about what those final offers can/can't be, i.e. must they be whatever was on the table at the time, can they be totally new, i.e. can we suddenly demand coffee machines in every office or can the administration suddenly revoke an offer of coffee machines in every office, but I have no idea about this). The arbitrator (who by the way is a professional person who does this for a living, or as part of their living, i.e. a lawyer or something) then has to select one of the two offers. Wholesale. Can't take the salary package of one but the governance issues of the other. Or whatever. Yes/no, on/off, contract-binary. Traditionally, binding arbitration favors employers, because employers inevitably have the more conservative offer.
Mediation is much preferred; a mediator (again if I understand it) is sort of a disinterested third party that acts as a go-between at the table--they receive the offers and transmit offers and I think they moderate the discussion at the table. (I don't think they can suggest anything, i.e. they can't suggest a compromise at X between the employer's offer of Y and the union's offer of Z. I'm not really sure how mediation is a step beyond bargaining, beyond being a third party to enforce a 'no screaming across the table' rule or something like that. I should ask my colleagues in Labour Studies about this.
Anyway, bargaining, where the two parties scream across the table at each other, or however it works, at least results, in principle, in a mutually acceptable, even if neither side is particularly happy about it, result. Hard to do when the administration has rejected our latest offer and so far has failed to counter, and has not asked the mediator for a new meeting. Which, at this juncture, is where we are. But like I said, since there were no classes and the university was effectively closed this week, there wasn't any particular pressure on them to bargain. We'll see how next week goes.
UPDATE: It is 60 days, not 80. I don't know what I was hallucinating.
UPDATE: I've since heard explained to me that in binding arbitration, both sides present their case, whatever it is, and the arbitrator does whatever they want (if I've understood things, which is not obvious). So one side puts in 0.4% salary increase, andd the other side puts in a 20% salary increase, and the arbitrator decides the issue. They could go with the 0.4%, the 20%, or anything in between, or really, anything. Now both sides have agreed on a disinterested arbitrator, and the chances the arbitrator is going to go rogue and suddenly decide on 150% increase, or 0, or I guess even a decrease, is presumably vanishingly small. But unlike I understood previously, the arbitrator could balance say, a less generous salary proposal with a more generous health care proposal, or vacation time, or whatever they can with the issue they are presented with. That's the key part of this last dispute. The Dark Side wants 'unconditional' arbitration. UMFA has some conditions, i.e. that certain governance things be settled and therefore would not presented to the arbitrator.
In 2013, the Dark Side offered to got to arbitration, and when they got there immediately pulled some stuff off the table because they 'thought they should be arbitrated'. UMFA objected, and their response was basically, 'If you cared so much about X, you should have gone on strike.' And they wonder why we think the Dark Side is full of weasels.
Here we are at the end of 5 weeks (I'm counting them the same as you even though we started on a Tuesday :) ) and everything is still up in the air. I saw on twitter that there is a rumour going around that Admin will write off the whole term if the strike isn't over by Tuesday. I don't know how that would work at all -- would students get their tuition money back? Would we lose our teaching credits, thus delaying our next opportunity to take a sabbatical? So much stress and uncertainty, and to what end? Our goal as a union is clear: fairer salaries and better working conditions or protection from worsening working conditions. What is the goal of the "Dark Side"?
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