Strike brings SFU to a halt

Strike brings SFU to a halt
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published April 5, 2003

The labour dispute at Simon Fraser University has escalated into a full-scale strike.
Pickets were up at all entrances of SFU's three campuses on Friday morning after a Wednesday bargaining session ended with little movement from either side.
"We've got traffic backed up as far as I can see," CUPE local 3338 business manager John Bannister said while standing on a picket line at the Burnaby Mountain campus.
While students are able to get onto campus, many faculty members are refusing to cross the picket lines for the last day of classes. Final exams are scheduled to begin on Monday (April 7) and, while faculty do not have to be in attendance, the strike could prevent many students from being able to write their exams.
"The university is making every attempt to ensure that students do not lose the semester," said Kathryn Aberle, director of media and public relations for SFU. "But obviously it is a huge concern that this kind of action is being taken at this point in the semester."
The university's board of governors rejected a union offer to go to binding arbitration before tabling their own "enhanced offer" on Wednesday, Aberle said. The union responded with a counteroffer which was, in turn, rejected by the university.
"Their counterproposal indicated that the union was still not willing to bargain within the constraints that both of us have to operate in," Aberle said. "At that point it was felt that they were not serious about bargaining."
Bannister said the university's last contract proposal contained nothing new.
"They just shuffled the shell game," Bannister said. "She should tell you that they walked away from the bargaining table."
While neither side was willing to disclose details of the latest offer, the university previously tabled a proposal that contained no wage increases for three years for the estimated 750 non-teaching staff at the university. The union said that offer was unfair because SFU administrators and faculty members both received wage hikes in their most recent contracts.
A press release issued by the university on Tuesday also said that a full-scale strike will likely disrupt summer classes, fall registration and the graduation of up to 3,500 students at spring convocation.
In other developments, a group of about 85 unionized tradespeople who work at SFU have also rejected the most recent contract offer from the university.