The 245 professors at the University of Quebec at Rimouski launched a strike on Tuesday.
At the very end of August, they had a mandate for an indefinite general strike, supported by 93.5%.
Negotiations were to continue in the following weeks with the university management. The union members then set October 10 as the deadline to reach an agreement on the renewal of the collective agreement, failing which a strike would be called.
And this strike was indeed called on Tuesday morning, confirmed the UQAR Professors’ Union.
For the moment, the strike is planned for at least Tuesday and Wednesday. A general meeting of members is then planned to decide on the next steps.
The dispute mainly concerns remuneration and “recognition of overwork”, the union president, Marc-Denis Rioux, indicated in an interview. Union members complain about salary gaps with professors at comparable universities, such as UQAT (Abitibi-Témiscamingue) and UQAC (Chicoutimi).
When the strike mandate was adopted, university management said it wanted to reach an agreement with the professors’ union “while respecting its financial situation.”
Furthermore, the UQAR Professors’ Union received the support of the Laval University Professors’ Union. The latter had held an indefinite general strike for a few weeks last winter.
“Achieving the public interest mission of universities is inextricably linked to the ability of its faculty members to work freely and calmly in all academic functions. We therefore hope that the mobilization of its professors will allow the management of UQAR to better understand the legitimacy of the requests” of its professors, said the president of the professors’ union of Laval University, Louis-Philippe Lampron.