Potential NSCC strike could be first in college’s history: union

A union representing more than 1,000 faculty and support staff members at the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) says it will go on strike if no resolution between them and the college is reached this week.

According to a Monday news release from the Atlantic Academic Union, they recently rejected a post-conciliation offer from NSCC with a 75 per cent no vote. The union says it will go on the first strike in the college’s history if they cannot reach a resolution during a meeting this Thursday.

“NSCC’s offer would provide a 7 to 8 per cent economic increase to union members over a three-year contract,” said union president Barbara Gillis in the release. “This is behind what other post-secondary institutions have received and is not acceptable to our members who are over 14 per cent behind inflation.”

The release says the union represents 1,081 NSCC staff members. The union is seeking fair hiring, improved workloads, and protection of bargaining unit work.

“We’ve worked really hard through these negotiations. We’ve tried to get some really good changes to the contract and in some areas we have,” said Susan Thompson Graham, NSCC instructor and Lead Negotiator for Academic Union Lead.

Graham said faculty and staff have up to a 70-hour workload and despite them wanting to match inflation, the school won’t budge.

“It gave the biggest increases to brand new members at the bottom of the scale which are hardly any of our members, maybe less than five per cent. At the top of the scale where we have been sitting there with no instep, some for decades, there was basically nothing to those members," she said.

“I would like to see an equitable and fair offer to all of our members and recognizes how much everyone contributes to this organizations on the front lines. They spend almost a million dollars on one year of increases to 147 managers. They could have used some of that money to reward their frontline workers for all the hard work we do for our students and we don’t want to see the students be affected at all.”

Ninety per cent of union members took part in the vote.

Hasan Sinan is a first-year student at NSCC. He is anxious about the outcome this will have on his education.

“I don’t feel very confident about being evaluated by someone who is not my professor and I don’t know if exams are going to proceed or when they will be happening,” he said.

In his program, students are offered a practicum, however, that is facilitated between students and faculty. Without a facilitator he says he would not be able to fulfil the practicum portion of his program.

“There hasn’t been clear communication from administration. Our teachers are big experts and if we don’t get the practicum it would be a disadvantage for us coming into the field,” says Sinan. “It puts the experience jeopardy and the whole decision to come and do this program in jeopardy for not getting what we were promised.”

Sinan and people in his program have submitted a petition requesting the college meet the demands and needs of the faculty union. They are hoping for a resolution.

NSCC and the conciliator will meet once again on Thursday. If an agreement is not reached, the union says staff members could walk off the job as early as March 18 if a strike is declared.

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