Bargaining resumes Monday between U of R and faculty

The University of Regina and its faculty return to the bargaining table on Monday and Tuesday in hopes of avoiding job action.

On Friday, the faculty association served strike notice, which means a strike could happen on Thursday morning should conciliation not result in a deal.

The university also disputes the validity of the strike notice.

Still, the possibility of a strike has students like Hayley Wagman feeling worried.

Wagman is a final-year education student and said if there’s job action, a term that refers to anything from withholding grades to an actual strike, she won’t be able to get her teaching certificate.

“And if that happens, then we won’t be able to obviously teach. A lot of people have their jobs on hold,” Wagman said.

Last week, the University of Regina Faculty Association (URFA) held a question-and-answer session with students, where chief negotiator Jason Childs emphasized that their intent is to get a fair deal while causing as little disruption for students as possible.

While Childs said he couldn’t say anything that would be construed as bargaining in public, he claimed that a pay freeze was asked of them.

That is something business professor Shelagh Campbell cannot accept.

“I’ve been at the university not quite seven years and in the last two of those years, my pay has been frozen,” Campbell said.

“And I am not looking forward to another two years of frozen pay, which would make four out of nine years — or almost half of my time here — with no increase, falling behind on cost of living.”

URFA is also concerned about issues regarding pension contributions, faculty ratios and hiring permanent teaching staff.

The university and union have been without a deal since 2017.

Reacting to the provincial budget last week, university president Vianne Timmons said the school faces rising costs and a growing student body.

“We’re a big enterprise here, it’s like a small city. We have to look, really, at everything we do to try to mitigate the financial challenges that we have,” Timmons said.

“I want to reassure students that the University of Regina is very concerned about the labour situation and that we are confident in the bargaining process.”

The labour strife would also have an impact on international students. Jermaine McKenzie is one of them, set to graduate. While he has secured his work permit, others are wondering if they will be able to stay in the country.

“They will need those final grades submitted so that they can get their transcript and send that off to Immigration Canada. I am certain they are very apprehensive,” McKenzie said.

“I would hope that there would be some appeals process in place and that Immigration Canada would understand that this is no fault of any international student.”

The situation has got Aislinn Roske, a second-year business student, feeling caught in the middle.

“In a way, I think they’re kind of using us as leverage just because we have finals coming up and it’s so high-stress right now. I’m not a big fan of it but there’s nothing I can really do about it,” she said.