Media Release · For Immediate Release · February 3, 2020
Sackville, NB – At 8:30 this morning full-time and part-time faculty and librarians set up picket lines after seven frustrating months of trying to negotiate new full-time and part-time collective agreements.
“Our negotiating team has been doing its best, but the administration is refusing to address the legitimate concerns of our membership,” says Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) President Matthew Litvak.
A strike deadline of 12.01 am on Monday morning came and went following the administration’s tabling of a take-it or leave-it offer on Saturday morning. In recent strike votes full-time faculty and librarians voted 74% in favour of a strike while part-time faculty voted 93% in favour this past Thursday and Friday.
“This round of negotiation is about protecting the quality of the education that we offer at Mount Allison,” says Litvak. “Our working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”
He said that the key issues are job security and compensation for part-time faculty, academic resources and workload, disability accommodation, and administration demands for concessions bearing on tenure, promotion and sabbatical processes.
“This can only be settled at the bargaining table,” Litvak says. While no new talks are scheduled, Litvak says he expects that the two sides will be meeting soon with the assistance of the provincially-appointed mediator.
MAFA represents approximately 150 full-time and 60 part-time faculty and librarians, and has been in negotiations since early June 2019.
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For more information contact:
- Dr. Matthew Litvak, President
- (506) 364–2289 (office)
- [email protected]