Nova Scotia college faculty set to hit the picket line on Monday

After months of unsuccessful negotiations, hundreds of Nova Scotia Community College faculty members and support staff are officially set to go on strike on Monday morning.

According to a news release from the Atlantic Academic Union, the organization filed a 48-hours’ notice to the provincial minister of labour and its members are now in a legal strike position.

“We had one sort of last-ditch meeting to try to get an agreement yesterday. It was a very frustrating day, “said Susan Thompson Graham, an NSCC faculty member and the lead negotiator for the union.

The union says it represents 1,081 faculty and professional support staff at NSCC. They’ve been negotiating a new collective agreement since August 2023.

Pay equity is one of the main issues at the bargaining table.

“The first few offers very much disrespected our senior members,” Thompson Graham said. “Fifty per cent of them have been with the college a long time, they have been sitting on top of their salaries, some for decades, without any kind of in-step increases.”

Some of the members’ salaries are 14 per cent behind inflation, she continued. “This is a college that put a lot of money into hiring more and more managers and giving large increases to managers when we have counsellors and accessibility specialists and faculty dealing with hundreds and hundreds of students on the front lines.”

Thompson Graham also said the union is concerned about what it says is a lack of support for members who face discrimination or harassment at the college as well as hiring practices.

“There is a lot of bias that happens with the college in terms of hiring. We see a lot of our members who are very qualified for positions being (screened) out by managers who hire their friends.”

Nova Scotia Community College declined a request for comment from Global News. In a post on its website, it said, “The College remains focused on reaching collective agreements on behalf of Faculty and Professional Support colleagues that strengthen the working and learning environment.”