Faculty at TRU issue strike notice

Image Credit: Thompson Rivers University via Flickr

January 11, 2016 - 10:43 AM

KAMLOOPS – The union representing faculty at Thompson Rivers University have issued 72-hour strike notice this morning.

The 650 instructors, librarians, counsellors, educational coordinators, and learning specialists on campuses in Kamloops and Williams Lake are prepared to walk off the job on Thursday, Jan. 14 as part of their labour dispute with the university, according to a media release from the TRU Faculty Association.

The membership gave the union an 80 per cent strike mandate following a vote back in November, and after a negotiating session last week, the job action notice was authorized by the executive.

“Unfortunately the employer remains unwilling to acknowledge or address the issues that faculty have maintained are critical,” union president Tom Friedman says in the release. “Before Christmas, the union submitted a bargaining package that included significant concessions from our original positions, but we have not seen any real movement from the employer.”

The faculty association and the university have been at the bargaining table for 11 months.

The union is demanding the administration hire full-time faculty to perform full-time, ongoing work and institutional accountability when it comes to budget decisions impacting the students’ educational experience.

“Sufficient resources are not going to assist faculty in meeting student needs or in providing much-needed services that foster student success,” Friedman says. “Instead, a significant portion of the TRU budget increasingly goes into administration.”

He says the union is open to mediation, but notes the parties are very far apart.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.