On January 18, with participation from 93% of the membership, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador Faculty Association members voted 90% in favour of authorizing strike action. A tentative agreement was not reached by the strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. January 30, 2023, resulting in the union taking job action in the form of a strike. A key issue for MUNFA is fairer terms of employment for the significant portion of MUNFA members who are contractual workers.
This strike comes days after Cape Breton University Faculty Association members walked off the job to support their union’s efforts to get a deal. Two substantial issues remained when the union entered mandated conciliation prior to job action, administration’s desire to circumvent the existing layoff clause in the collective agreement and money. CBUFA is bargaining for member issues (such as benefits, stipends, and workload); grievance issues (there are more grievances at CBU than at any other university in Canada, an indication of the extent to which the administration ignores the existing collective agreement between CBUFA and CBU); and monetary issues.
Learn more about the issues as well as ways you can support striking colleagues by:
- visiting websites, https://munfa.ca/2022-bargaining/ and https://cbufa.ca/,
- following on twitter, @MUNfaculty and @cbufa,
- facebook MUNFA and CBUFA.
The USFA supports CBUFA and MUNFA members’ efforts to achieve fair collective agreements.
These strikes occur in an atmosphere of increasing unrest amongst faculty associations across Canada. In December, 82% of the 1077 voters of the Queen’s University Faculty Association members voted in favour of a strike. QUFA is advocating for, among other proposals, improved job security and wages for adjunct professors, increased recognition for university service, and improved administrative and technical support for professors. According to QUFA’s December bargaining update, the university has denied 42% of their core proposals. More recently, on the 31st of January the University of PEI and UPEI Faculty Association completed mediation without reaching a collective agreement and will be in a position to hold a strike vote after seven days have elapsed. In addition to a range of issues that impact the quality of education such as larger class sizes, UPEIFA is also negotiating in the context of continued reliance on instructors who have little job security and no benefits, and inadequate research and administrative supports for professors (see Obstacles).