Not sure if this should be in MB+SK or Labour and Consumption...
Regions:
MB gov't forces vote on offer, BU professors slam forced strike vote
Tue, 2011-11-22 17:15
#1
MB gov't forces vote on offer, BU professors slam forced strike vote
Tue, 2011-11-22 17:19
#2
From the Winnipeg Free Press
BU professors are calling the Selinger government's decision to force striking faculty to vote on the university's last offer an "end to free collective bargaining."Brandon University Faculty Association president Joe Dolecki said the government's move is dangerous and outrageous.
"It confirms for us the pro-employer bias shown by this allegedly ‘labour-friendly' government throughout this round of negotiations," Dolecki said in a news release.
Dolecki said the NDP government also decided that the conciliation process between the striking faculty and BU administration is still ongoing, adding this will help the administration to end the strike and send the dispute to binding arbitration.
"While pretending to be neutral, the NDP government has, in our view, systematically aided and abetted the employer's ‘arbitrate at all costs' strategy, reinforcing the employer's incentive not to seriously engage in the bargaining process -- prolonging the strike and putting the future of our university and our students at risk," Dolecki said.
The Brandon U faculty association has been on strike for 42 days.
The faculty association said the vote, which will be conducted by the Manitoba Labour Relations Board, could take place as early as Thursday.
"I have reviewed the circumstances of the dispute and the negative effect of the work stoppage on the students of Brandon University and the city of Brandon," Labour Minister Jennifer Howard wrote in a letter to university president Deborah Poff and BUFA president Joe Dolecki yesterday. "I am of the opinion that a vote of the employees in (BUFA) to accept or reject the last offer of the employer, respecting all matters remaining in dispute between the parties, is in the public interest."
Also in the article: some bullshit commentary from Grant Mitchell, BU's $300 an hour anti-union hack.
Tue, 2011-11-22 17:22
#3
A friend told me that at one election forum, Jen Howard sais that she wouldn't intrerfere in the collective bargaining process on MB campuses. It seems to me like as the global economy goes to shit, and workers are going to be pressured into taking connections, the Manitoba NDP might not be able to keep a lid on the class struggle, and there could be some severe contradications coming to light regarding our "labour-friendly government" and most of the labour bureaucracy in this province.
Tue, 2011-11-22 17:32
#4
Thanks genstrike. I was wondering why rabble had been silent on this matter. Why isn't BUFA "In Cahoots?"
Tue, 2011-11-22 20:44
#5
I've been reading about this on the [url=http://www.policyfix.ca/2011/11/so-what-happend-to-free-collective.html#... CCPA website[/url]. There were actually some indications (I thought) that the government didn't want to be the willing tool of BU management. But that appears to have changed.
Thu, 2011-11-24 18:05
#6
Administration, province will wear this one.
Rather than burning the midnight oil to reach an agreement, however, BU's bargaining team effectively took the summer off and waited until students were settled in their classrooms before approaching the negotiations with any degree of seriousness. It was part of a reckless strategy that dramatically increased the likelihood classes would be disrupted.Repeated efforts by BU management to entice BUFA members to cross picket lines, along with inflammatory and misleading comments made by BU representatives to the media and on BU's website, have only exacerbated the situation and prolonged the strike's duration. BU's demand that faculty members work for free for several weeks after the strike -- and then accusing them of greed in the media when they refused -- is a new low in this dispute.
The Selinger government doesn't escape culpability in this debacle. It dictated BU's initial salary stance and refused to take reasonable steps to pre-empt the strike. Through their appointees on BU's board of governors, they control both BU's bargaining stance and the conduct of its bargaining team.
Thu, 2011-11-24 22:33
#7
Well I'm all for demanding that Profs' wages be boosted while, and at the same time, complaining that PSE tuition fees are way too high and just in the NDP province of Manitoba. Something doesn't smell right. Could it be that PSE across Canada is chronically underfunded by the feds and class conflict is actually escalated by the feds since, oh, 1995 or so? Where are the national purse strings located, in Winnipeg?
Thu, 2011-11-24 22:45
#8
Could some mod please move this into Labour and Consumption, so that we can avoid the anti-worker and anti-union toxic comments? Thanks. I'll message the mods so that they can be aware of the problem.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:02
#9
I resent that remark. They are anti-Ottawa comments. If you want to defend the federally managed neoliberal setup in this country since Mulroney and Chretien, then let 'er rip. Tell us how you really feel about the two dirty old line parties and what they've done to PSE across Canada.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:05
#10
Fidel - get a life. We elected 59 NDP mps in Québec, without your assistance. Now go do something positive for them in Canada, please - without running interference for the neo-liberals in power in Manitoba. Thanks for your time and attention.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:45
#11
Fidel - get a life. We elected 59 NDP mps in Québec, without your assistance. Now go do something positive for them in Canada, please - without running interference for the neo-liberals in power in Manitoba. Thanks for your time and attention.
I resent this second personal insult as well. I know that I am an NDPer. I contributed to the party's overall efforts in the last campaign and every other one before that back to 1984, well before Quebecers decided to pull the pin on a bunch of do-nothing backbencher MPs by May of 2011. I knew in 1995 that something was wrong when the federal Liberals pulled $5 billion from core PSE funding and tens of billions of dollars more in health care funding across the country. I didn't blame Manitoba for it then, either. But the feds have left you no alternative but to either blame weak prairie provinces for a lack of finances in general, or to think something's rotten at the federal level. So which is it? Is a lack of program funding in general a common theme across Canada? Yes, Yes it is. What a coincidence you say that twelve provinces and territories would all be pointing out twelve similar problems with a lack of funding from Ottawa over the last 16 years.
But you say this larger problem can be reduced to this: That a single stingy, prairie province with a tiny economy can easily afford pay hikes across the board, even though recent reports suggest that a lack of wage increases not keeping pace with inflation is a retroactive problem across Canada in general and for a number of years. Hmm? What does the union have to say about this?
Some of us here really are singing from the same hymn book as right wing neoliberal ideologues in case no one has noticed. And if you're feeling insulted right about now, the feeling is mutual.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:50
#12
Catchfire
Unionist, I don't see how Fidel's comments are anti-Union. I'm inclined to agree that they are anti-Ottawa--although I don't buy that high tuition is motivating the draconian MB gov't measures. At any rate, I don't think it needs to be moved atm.
Apologies for anti-union gov't policy--no matter who enacts it--can't be tolerated. But I don't think anyone's crossed that line yet.
ETA. Cross-posted with Fidel. Fidel, your last post reads like it's excusing the MB government's actions over the past week. I respect where you're coming from, but please keep babble policy in mind.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:56
#13
"The Manitoba government has to destroy free collective bargaining with professors because, well, because, ya see, they're not getting enough money from the feds. Not our fault!"
Actually, why am I bothering to explain this? I bow to your wise decision.
Thu, 2011-11-24 23:57
#14
Catchfire
Unionist: winning hearts and minds since 2005
Fri, 2011-11-25 00:15
#15
Hmm? What does the union have to say about this?
Well, the union has posted the same articles on their website that myself and Unionist posted, and are clearly unhappy with the Manitoba NDP right now.
Fri, 2011-11-25 00:32
#16
ETA. Cross-posted with Fidel. Fidel, your last post reads like it's excusing the MB government's actions over the past week. I respect where you're coming from, but please keep babble policy in mind.
Absolutely. Everyone deserves a living wage. I am pro-union, but I also have the temerity to question why our federal leaders have done a lousy job of being overall uniters at the federal level. In fact they have worked diligently at peeling back everyone's allowance in this family of twelve. They go cavorting and catting around nightclubs with rich friends of the party spending wildly on tax breaks and free rounds for their corporate and banker friends while defunding everything from health care and basic infrastructure to PSE. Meanwhile the wife and eleven kids are at home squabbling and throwing dishes at one another because there is less and less food on the table every week and bill collectors pounding on the door. It's been a dysfunctiional, neoliberalised family for a long time.
Fri, 2011-11-25 16:37
#17
[url=http://www.brandonsun.com/local/toews-concerned-about-ongoing-professors... who called upon the provincial government to intervene - which they did the next day?[/url]
Fri, 2011-11-25 16:44
#18
Somebody call the children's aid society. They are home alone in Manitoba and every other province and territoire.
Sat, 2011-11-26 10:09
#19
Could be very good news - it's up to the members now - but any negotiated deal augurs better than the heavy hand of the state taking away workers' rights:
[url=http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Deal-reached-in-Brandon-Un... reached in Brandon University strike[/url]