President’s Update

Today marks one week since DFA Members were locked out of our offices, research spaces, and technology, a day that will be burned in our memories forever. It is almost one week since we announced that we had rejected the Board’s best and final offer.

We have formally notified the Board’s bargaining team that we would like to meet to negotiate an improved offer that DFA Members would find satisfactory, and we are in regular communication with our conciliator. To date we have had no formal acknowledgment of our request to resume bargaining, and therefore no scheduled dates for further discussions. Our top priority is to resume negotiations – we want to work, and we want to talk. After all, we are academics and we love what we do.

It is not entirely surprising that the Board’s team is dragging their heels. Presumably part of the rationale for locking us out is to save money, at least in the notional sense: they are saving approximately $2.8M per week in DFA salaries alone during the lockout. That said, there are additional costs and expenses incurred by their reckless and disrespectful action such as the potential loss of student enrolment and tuition, the loss of grants that could not be submitted, and the reputational and relational costs that are far greater than any number of dollars and cents. And let me be clear: the Board’s cost of a settlement is growing as the lockout continues.

With each dollar saved on our backs, the Board will need to improve their offer by a proportionate amount, whether in the form of a stronger cost of living adjustment, or by agreeing to our other proposals on LTA conversion and benefits that will improve the working conditions of our early-career academics in particular.

As students return to our campuses in droves the pressure on the Board to return to the table will become immense, so I do expect that we will see movement on an improved offer in the next week or so. Of course, I cannot promise anything, and I would caution us all that a satisfactory resolution to the current impasse could take several weeks. This is why we need to remain strong and united on our picket lines, and to keep our energy and resolve as the Board continues to harm us and our families with their oppressive lockout.

Our Job Action Committee is working around the clock to make sure that we are all supported during this stressful time, and our Communications squad is doing everything possible to generate pressure on the Board to return to the table, and to respond positively to our demands. Each of you can use your networks and social media savvy to help us amplify messages and increase our reach and impact. If you have a creative idea for a media-based campaign, please feel free to share! With 1000 academic staff in our union, we have an unrivalled amount of intellectual and creative potential. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for an AMA (“ask me anything” – a live chat session with questions and answers) on Reddit geared towards Dalhousie students possibly as early as this afternoon.

Let me share my thoughts on the fate of the Fall semester. The timeline for a return to work is now a part of the negotiations at the table, and it is the DFA’s position that the time lost due to the lockout is now gone, and will need to be replaced by delaying the start of the Fall semester by some substantial amount of time. As you all know, it will take a significant amount of time to get your courses, labs, and practical experiences prepared, which is work you have not been able to do while locked out and deprived of your salary.

The analogy I have been using is that of an industrial context where workers on an assembly line are locked out by the employer: during the lockout the assembly line produces no widgets, and when the workers ultimately return to the line they begin to produce widgets at the usual pace and the widget deficit will require time to erase – if the employer requires more widgets to fulfill an order to a customer, then that order will be delayed by the duration of the lockout. Hopefully it goes without saying that I am not equating the nature of our work to the production of widgets, but I hope the analogy captures the reality that the lockout has produced a deficit in work that cannot simply be conjured up overnight when this dispute is resolved. We will all need time to get prepared for what promises to be a busy and challenging academic year.

Many of you have asked about the possibility of binding arbitration as an ‘off-ramp’ to the current impasse. Labour law in Nova Scotia requires both parties to consent to binding arbitration. It is possible that at some point binding arbitration might be attractive to both parties, but it is important for DFA Members to be aware that while agreeing to proceed to binding arbitration would resolve the issue of wages (i.e., the arbitrator would award a wage settlement based on arguments and evidence advanced by both parties), it is probable that none of our other “language” proposals would be addressed or resolved. This means we would likely not make any progress on issues that we know are priorities for the membership, such as a pathway to permanence for limited-term appointments, and expanded childcare and parental leave benefits. We need to return to negotiations at the table to make progress on all of our bargaining priorities since we know wages are not the only issue that matters. To put it another way, binding arbitration would be premature at this time, as it would short-circuit critical negotiations on important issues.

We will share updates as they become available. For now, please stay strong, and keep your energy and enthusiasm up!

Dave