Colleges offer long-shot arbitration offer as fall semester remains safe amid faculty bargaining

Nov 26, 2021 | Campus News

College faculty are poised to reject an offer from the employer council to engage in selective arbitration.

It marks the latest apparent escalation in the ongoing negotiation process between the CAAT-A faculty bargaining team and the College Employer Council, or CEC.

The CEC proposed a Voluntary Binding Final Offer Selection Interest Arbitration, an approach that would see the two sides present their most recent bargaining proposals to an arbitrator who would offer an agreed settlement, if possible.

The latest offer from the CAAT-A team came on Nov. 18 and the CEC tabled their own deal on Nov. 23.

If the arbitrator is unable to find a compromise between the two sides, they would select either one of the most recent CEC or CAAT-A proposals in its entirety as the new collective agreement.

“The Colleges are committed to preventing labour disruption and providing stability to students, employees, and the greater College community,” Dr. Laurie Rancourt, CEC bargaining team chair, said in a statement.

The council argued that its Nov. 23 offer is “fair and provides constructive mechanisms to address concerns in the system.”

CAAT-A called the CEC’s offer “problematic.”

The union bargaining team offered to enter into voluntary binding arbitration last week, but the CEC’s Thursday proposal differs from this approach.

“This is different from the more common practice of ‘interest arbitration’, where arbitrators select which parts of each offer they believe are the most appropriate,” CAAT-A said in an initial statement late on Thursday.

The bargaining team is expected to release a formal response to the selective arbitration response on Friday, likely refusing the offer.

Despite the latest turmoil in the negotiations, the fall semester is apparently safe from any labour disruption caused by the collective agreement negotiation process, the head of the faculty bargaining team told Humber Et Cetera on Wednesday.

“I can’t imagine a world in which faculty would be on strike during the winter break or during the end of the semester into the winter break,” JP Hornick said.

Hornick confirmed this was still the case as of Friday morning.

Students who had heard they’d be able to finish out their fall classes without interruption were relieved.

“I’m grateful that the fall semester is safe and that we can complete the semester successfully,” said Emily Salvatore, a second-year early childhood education program student.

The bargaining team called for a strike mandate vote last week after the employer council requested a “no board” report.

The last round of talks occurred in the presence of a government-appointed conciliator and only lasted a day.

A “no board” report is the last remaining step before the colleges could legally lock faculty out — a tactic the CEC has insisted it would not use — or impose terms and conditions of employment.

The imposition of terms and conditions forces faculty back to work under any contract the colleges want until a new collective agreement is reached.

If the faculty support the bargaining team in the strike mandate vote expected in the coming weeks, it strengthens the union’s position in the face of CEC action.

While such a mandate leaves open the door for a strike that would bring classes to a halt and professors hitting the picket lines, the union would also be empowered to take on other, less disruptive avenues.

Work-to-rule is one of the options that comes with a strike mandate, a labour action where faculty follow the current collective agreement precisely, without spending any extra time on helping students or grading assignments.

‘NO BOARD’ REPORT

Though the fall semester is apparently safe from an interruption of classes, labour disruption remains a possibility for the winter 2022 semester.

As the union organizes a strike vote, the “no board” report is still expected. Upon release, the conciliator’s report will kickstart a cool-down period between the two sides before either CAAT-A or CEC will be able to further escalate the process.

That cool-down period will run out the majority of December.

The last time college faculty and the employer council were at the table negotiating a new collective agreement was in the fall of 2017.

That year, faculty ended up going on strike for a record-breaking five weeks. The strike came to an end when the provincial government legislated binding arbitration that addressed most faculty concerns.

This time around, the union’s requests are centered around workload limits, equality in the workplace and intellectual property rights.