McGill University threatened Monday to cancel law classes for the rest of the semester if it could not reach an agreement that day with a professors’ union that launched the strike in August. But the union has responded that it will not give in.
The Montreal university says it will drop its legal challenge to these professors’ right to unionize – a key demand of the McGill Association of Law Professors – if the union agrees to negotiate its members’ working conditions at the same time than other McGill unions.
But the law professors’ union calls the proposed agreement a “no-offer” and says that by agreeing to end the strike, McGill would hold all the cards.
McGill’s ultimatum marks the latest development in an unfolding saga since law professors opted not to return to class at the start of the fall semester, leaving students uncertain about the impact that this strike could have on their academic future.
The McGill administration sent an email to law school students Monday morning, telling them that the union must agree to end its strike that day, otherwise the university would cancel classes taught by these students on Tuesday. teachers.
“I am aware […] that the uncertainty surrounding the semester weighs heavily on many students, to the detriment of their well-being, writes McGill’s senior vice-president of studies, Christopher Manfredi. I never wanted us to get to this point. But […] I cannot consider it plausible that the courses taught by members [du syndicat] can start in the eighth, ninth or tenth week of the session and finish on time. »
McGill sent the union an offer on Sunday that included a promise to withdraw its certification challenge “as long as progress is made over the next five weeks in good faith negotiations toward a ‘federated’ system.” , which would see certain working conditions established on a university-wide basis, rather than on a faculty basis, Manfredi explained.
“Nothing in return”
But Kirsten Anker, vice-president of the union, argued in an interview that McGill was asking law professors to return to work without offering much in return. “The counterpart is that we definitively abandon our right to strike, while they will eventually be able to decide whether or not they want to abandon the challenge” of the accreditation, she declared. “We cannot accept this. »
The Quebec Administrative Labor Tribunal accredited the McGill Association of Law Professors in November 2022, but the union has not yet concluded its first collective agreement.
The university had planned to contest union accreditation in Superior Court next December.
The union, which represents more than 40 law professors, said its members will not return to the classroom until McGill drops the legal challenge. It also demands better salaries and greater involvement in faculty governance.
McGill’s law faculty is the first group of professors to unionize at the university, although most non-teaching staff are unionized.
Since the creation of the law professors’ union, their colleagues in the education and arts departments have also applied for union certification.
According to Mme Anker, the union is open to jointly negotiating portions of its collective agreement with other faculty unions.
The McGill Law Students’ Association says the offer is “nothing more than window dressing” and says the university and union need to be more flexible.
“It is now clear that McGill is recklessly jeopardizing our semesters and the quality of our education to serve its own interests,” the association said in a statement. But she also adds that the union had “clearly made it known […] that he was willing to sacrifice the semester and that taking our interests into account is not relevant in how the situation was to be handled.”
Mme Anker maintains that there is no specific point at which the semester becomes unsaveable. She said it would be possible to extend part of this semester into the next, to make up for lost weeks over a longer period.