Bargaining talks moving slowly between Queen’s University, faculty

Talks at the bargaining table between Queen’s University and its faculty association have slowed to a crawl.

According to the Queen’s University Faculty Association, the two parties are seemingly far apart from an agreement.

The faculty’s contract expired in June, and negotiations have been ongoing for months.

“I would say we’ve given all of our proposals to the university a long time ago, several months ago,” says Jordan Morelli, president of QUFA.

“After the first pass, they came back saying no to most of them. No explanations, no counterproposals. It’s pretty hard to bargain against yourself.”

The QUFA is seeking better job security, relief from increasing workloads, and salary increases higher than the 1 per cent cap that Bill 124 has imposed on public sector workers.

Queen’s University remained fairly mum on the subject, and didn’t disclose any information surrounding the bargaining discussions.

“The current focus of university administration is on negotiating a tentative agreement with QUFA that is capable of being ratified by both parties,” says the university in a statement. “It would be inappropriate to discuss the details of specific issues that may or may not be discussed at the bargaining table.”

QUFA says the university needs to show up with proposals and solutions at the table.

If an agreement is not reached, a strike isn’t out of the question.

“We have the support of our members,” says Morelli. “We’re prepared to strike if necessary, but that’s not something we want to see happen. We want to be here teaching our courses, doing our research, and working in the community doing the service work that we do.”

The association represents about a thousand workers at the university.

Those workers include tenured and tenure track faculty, contract academic workers, librarians and archive members.