As many of you are aware, on Wednesday the UPEI Faculty Association sent a letter to the UPEI Board of Governors, inviting them to come back to the table on Monday, April 3. The FA did not put any preconditions on this invitation and subsequently made it clear that students, political leaders, and the Island community expect the parties to get back to the table and negotiate.
Unfortunately, the Board of Governors, rather than accept this offer, instead claimed that they were willing to meet this weekend, on April 1 and 2, but only if the FA sent them proposals via email by Friday March 31 at noon, and only if their Chief Negotiator judged those proposals to show “substantive movement” towards agreement.
To be clear, this kind of unilateral dictation of terms and bad faith behaviour has been standard throughout this round of negotiations, and is the primary reason why we have been unsuccessful in making significant movement through direct bargaining, conciliation, and mediation, despite the fact that the FA has repeatedly shown a willingness to reconsider, withdraw, and compromise in the interest of making progress – progress that UPEI’s Board of Governors refuses to make.
The FA has in fact responded in writing to many of the emailed proposals from UPEI, asking for clarification and requesting more information in order to understand the proposals before we can formulate a response. UPEI has refused to answer questions or provide any of the information requested via email. This makes it clear that they are still not prepared to address your significant concerns.
It’s important to note that in the past when the FA has significantly modified our proposals in order to reach a mutually acceptable agreement – including dropping half of our proposals in conciliation and reducing our wage proposal by 50% – our employer’s Chief Negotiator has acknowledged these modifications but declined to accept this as “real movement.” Accepting our employer’s precondition that we demonstrate what they view as real movement before they will return to the negotiations table would enable the UPEI Board of Governors to exercise a degree of control in negotiations that would severely erode our remaining proposals. This is simply unacceptable.
The FA’s initial invitation to the UPEI Board of Governors stands, and the UPEIFA Negotiations Team will be ready to meet the Board’s team on Monday, April 3, without preconditions on either of the parties.
If the Board of Governors is serious about its responsibility to students and to Islanders, they will direct their Chief Negotiator to meet with us and to be prepared to work towards a compromise that will end our strike and get faculty and students back into the classroom.
Solidarity!
