STRIKE 2000: FINAL MOMENTS

On Thursday, November 9th, via the conciliation officer, the MUNFA Negotiating Committee offered compromise proposals on outstanding matters. This was done to hasten an end to the strike and facilitate a return to our classrooms, laboratories and libraries. The administration responded on Friday, again through the conciliator, with positive responses on three of the items proffered.

The administration agreed to compensate tenure-track non-PhD lecturers with a special, two-year, $750 per year, Professional Development Expense Reimbursement (PDER); even in its last proposal, the administration had denied any ‘occupational adjustment' to this small group. The administration also agreed to PDER reimbursements for professional memberships for all members, an entitlement long denied. On the matter of paid vacation carryover, the administration conceded that, upon retirement, payment for unused vacation shall be made if notice of retirement is given two terms in advance, and teaching or other responsibilities prevent the taking of vacation before retirement.

It should be remembered that these improvements in our Collective Agreement are additional to the others that have come about over the course of negotiations, many of them in the last few weeks. In some instances, we have resisted clawbacks to our current Collective Agreement. In many others we have made substantial gains, especially in the important areas of collegial procedures. The new Collective Agreement will provide:

• a far more equitable distribution of salary than that initially proposed by the administration;
• substantial salary increases and an earlier implementation of the so-called ‘occupational adjustments' to salary;
• implementation of salary increases for colleagues who have retired or resigned since September 1, 1999;
• language that makes clear that total salary (basic annual salary plus market differential) cannot be reduced;
• procedures to initiate pension reform;
• an increase in PDER from $200 to $400 per year;
• language on Research Ethics Boards;
• a limit on parking fee increases (the administration had demanded no limit);
• for colleagues refused LTD benefits by the insurer, the option of taking reduced duties and responsibilities;
• a duration clause which prevents the administration from abrogating the Collective Agreement as it attempted to do in 1995.

The administration also agreed, contrary to their initial proposals, that there shall be:

• course remissions for scholarly activity;
• procedures for determination of course equivalencies for non-standard courses;
• accumulation of banked time;
• no contractual cap on the university's employee benefits premiums;
• no roll-back of distance education course stipends;
• no limitation on the use of the medical defence in discipline cases.

On the other outstanding issues, the administration refused to negotiate. They would not consider our modified proposal on reducing teaching norms from 6 courses to 5 in particular units, even though the proposal had involved collegial committees with purely advisory roles. They rejected severance and refused further movement on front-end loading of salaries. Earlier we succeeded in negotiating an increase in the per-course stipend from $3519 to $3800. We had hoped to increase it still further, but the administration refused to move on this point.

We decided, though, that the time had come to balance the gains made against the possibility of a protracted strike which might or might not have yielded further improvements. The Negotiating Committee therefore decided, in the interests of getting back to work and making sure that student concerns are met, to finalize the Collective Agreement. The final set of meetings between the two negotiating committees began at 1:00 pm on Saturday, November 11th and concluded at 10:00 on Sunday morning.

Throughout the final two weeks, the Negotiating Committee's hand was enormously strengthened by the many people who organized the strike, walked the picket lines day after rainy day, and performed all the other jobs around MUNFA Strike Headquarters that made the strike a success. We also appreciate the overwhelming support we received from the community, various student organizations and their individual members, retired colleagues who came out in support, other faculty associations across the country, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the CAUT Defence Fund.

Our objective throughout was to move towards a fair and equitable settlement, and to resist the administration's attempt to weaken practically every article of the Collective Agreement, often in significant ways. Rather than submit to the administration's ‘take it or leave it' approach, we pressed for and negotiated better contract language, better working conditions, and better salaries for all.

MUNFA Negotiating Committee:

• Bill Schrank (Economics) - Chief Negotiator
• John Bear (Medicine)
• Elizabeth Browne (Library)
• Jon Church (Medicine)
• Malcolm Grant (Psychology)
• Clar Matchim (Business)
• Eric Mintz (SWGC)
• Jim Overton (Sociology)
• Elizabeth Yeoman (Education)
• Chris Youé (History)
• Marian Atkinson (MUNFA Executive Officer, non-voting member)

All issues of Negotiating News are accessible at http://www.mun.ca/munfa/negnews.html