Lately, the turbulent teacher negotiations have been viewed as drawn out, obscured, and bleak at times. Luckily, in the past few weeks, the downward trajectory has been bucked as university and union negotiators approach a temporary agreement. Many students found out on Twitter that their doubts and concerns over the possible future of MUN under strike ought to be paused after MUNFA announced a tentative agreement on Jan 11th.
Although some have criticized the school’s level of silence during the November-January period, MUN made three posts via the Gazette to update the public where possible in tandem with negotiations. Additionally, on December 6th, an email from the Office of the Registrar had been sent out to students, linking to an “information hub for labour relations news”.
Currently, the page lists the accurate status of a reached tentative agreement with MUNFA and LUMUN, stating “No details of the tentative agreements will be released until both unions have had an opportunity to conduct their ratification votes.” There is also an included list of public updates from the University Negotiating Committee dating as far back as March 8th, 2018, until December 20th, 2018 (the most recent alert). MUNFA has also been publishing their updates on the negotiations.
While the university seems to have been making an effort to update the public, some argue this was not enough. Bailey Howard, Executive Director of External Affairs at MUNSU, described the line of communication between the school administration and the student body as “disheartening”. This was in reference to two postponed and cancelled meetings that had been scheduled between MUNSU and the University Provost & Academic Vice President, Dr Noreen Golfman. Furthermore, MUNSU had found it “very difficult” to garner a response from the school and obtain information about the strike, adding that they “don’t know” if the tentative agreement is a stable option. MUNSU stated they do not have an official stance on the issue, the organization has a “longstanding, pro-union commitment” and cited a list of challenges faced by per-course instructors (PCI’s) and other less seasoned teaching staff, including equally stagnant and low wages and dubious contracts trapped in perpetual renegotiation. As some contracts themselves are renewed/discontinued on a per semester basis, this leaves the staff in question unsure about their occupational standing.
Since some students were completely unaware of teacher-administration squabbles until just prior to exams in December of 2018, some lecturers announced to their classes that they would answer questions while others declared they were unwilling to speak out on the matter. In one extreme instance, a since debunked rumour circulated amongst students that in the result of a strike during final examinations, students would be automatically given a final 50% grade in their course in order to avoid outright failure. Such misunderstanding might bolster MUNSU’s accusations that the MUN administration failed to meet adequate standards of transparency by publicly stating a contingency plan.
David Sorensen, Manager (Communications) at the Division of Marketing & Communications at Memorial, had this to say:
“The students’ union is not a party to either of these agreements but, like many others, are affected by the outcome of negotiations. The university has made clear in all its communications that its primary goal has been to minimize the impact on students of any potential labour disruption. As part of the planning for a possible strike, the university struck a planning committee to oversee the operational decisions that would need to be made at various points in the semester should classes or research be interrupted. That planning work required dozens of scenarios to be considered.
In response to MUNSU’s request for a meeting with the Provost, the planning group was delegated to establish an ongoing relationship and met several times with representatives of students’ unions from all campuses to hear students concerns, answer questions as answers were available and keep an ongoing channel for direct communications between the students’ unions and the Registrar as negotiations continued. Those meetings were scheduled into 2019 and were only halted with agreement from the students’ unions once the tentative agreements had been reached.”
While the current relationship between students and administration might seem fogged and contentious, the dynamic between Memorial University and MUNFA-LUMUN might forecast sunny ways after this winter’s long icy standstill. LUMUN and MUNFA are expected to vote on the agreements in February 2019. As various negotiations in the past have led to subsequently improved contracts, one can only hope the decade’s long trend continues.