The Mount Allison Faculty Association set Thursday, January 21, as the date for strike action in support of its demand for improved salary scales comparable to other small Canadian universities.
Currently Mount Allison’s faculty salary scales are near the bottom of the 23 small Canadian universities with which Maclean’s Magazine compares Mount Allison, says Roger Wehrell, spokesperson for the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA).
“The Administration has refused to even admit this is a problem after 45 bargaining sessions,” says Wehrell. “Job action is apparently our only recourse.”
In a related move, the Mount Allison University Administration took the unprecedented move threatening to cut striking MAFA members off of medical, dental, long term disability and life insurance. Other university and industrial employers always allow striking workers to cover the costs of these plans rather than simply having workers cut off. “Mount Allison professors and librarians cover the costs of these plans even when they are working,” says Wehrell.
These tactics will make it harder to settle the current labour impasse, according to Wehrell. “What we’ve heard from our members is that this will generate bitterness that will take a long time to heal, even before a single day of picketing,” Wehrell says.
For more information,
call Roger Wehrell
- (O) 536-2968
- (H) 536-2470