Mark Burnham/The Peak

More than two months after the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) locked out its unionized staff, the atmosphere between the two remains as tense as ever.

“As people learn what’s going on, it’s absolutely dividing the community,” said Richard Overgaard, national communications representative for CUPE, which represents the 15 locked-out workers.

The lock-out began on July 10, after the SFSS walked away from negotiations that had been happening intermittently since the collective bargaining agreement expired in 2009.

“There [wasn't] much incentive for the union to bargain because they have such a favourable collective agreement,” said SFSS President Jeff McCann. “Negotiations had completely stalled, and the board said…there need to be changes because we’re in an [$800,000] fiscal deficit.”

Since then, the gulf between workers and management has remained as wide as when the dispute began, with both sides arguing that they are looking out for student interest.

The two main sticking points between the union and the SFSS are wages for new workers and the number of permanent employees. The SFSS is looking to lower wages for new hires while maintaining the previous agreements for current workers, which the union argues would put a large divide between future and current employees.

The second point of contention is that the society wants to cut down the number of full-time positions currently stipulated in the collective agreement.

“Of course the membership sees that as an attack on their job security,” said Overgaard.

McCann, however, believes that if the society doesn’t start spending less on salaries for its workers, the SFSS will have to continue to cut services for students.

According to McCann, staff salaries make up 54 per cent of the society’s budget, with the average employee being paid $30.48 per hour.

“We recognize that we want to reach a fair agreement, but there’s been cuts and cuts and cuts to the budget, and we need to put a stop to that,” he said.

“Our constitution says that we’re supposed to organize events for students, we’re supposed to represent students and we’re supposed to advocate for students, and that’s exactly what we intend to do. It doesn’t say that we should employ people at all costs.”

Service cuts

CUPE points to the fact that as long as the lock-out continues, students will be deprived of many of the society’s services, including the copy centre, the Women’s Centre and Out On Campus, the SFSS’s LGBTQ support centre.

“They do a lot of advocacy work, peer-support and in some circumstances, even crisis support,” said Overgaard of the two support centres. “So for example, if a student were in crisis, they would have a safe space and a support network to tap into.

“And because of the lock-out, the trained staff who run these centres aren’t available to students. And I think it has had a significant impact on both women who need a safe place and a peer support network they don’t have and also to GLBTQ students at SFU who, some of them might be in the closet and some of them might be out but not very supported at home, and that was just a safe space for them.”

McCann said that the board of directors has been forced to make cuts to the programming for both centres in the past few years due to budgetary concerns.

The lounge space for both centres remains open—although students would have to cross the picket line to access them—but staff services are no longer being provided there.

Picking up the slack: doubling hours for executives

Last week, the SFSS board voted to double the number of hours any of the directors or executives could work for the rest of the lock-out. However, an agreement that CUPE and the SFSS came to in July states that only two of the directors are able to perform work that was previously done by locked-out workers. Overgaard said that this latest action indicates to the union that the SFSS may not be holding up their side of the agreement.

“So let us get this straight: you chose to lock out your employees, you chose to send them out on the picket, you chose to walk away from collective bargaining, and now you want to be paid because it’s been an inconvenience for you,” he said. “It’s just disingenuous, and I’m running out of adjectives, to be honest.”

CUPE has taken their case to the BC Labour Relations Board and expects a ruling within the next few weeks.

Without an end in sight

Both sides claim that they want the lock-out to end, but no end appears in sight. The SFSS states that they’re waiting for a counter from the union on an offer that was made by the board on September 1, but was rejected by the CUPE membership.

“As far as I’m concerned, the ball’s in their court,” said McCann. “I had contacted one of their national representatives and they said that they were crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.

“They’ve said that they have a counter just sitting there and they’re not willing to give it to us.”

Overgaard maintains that the union won’t present a counter until the SFSS ends the lock-out.

“What the union has said to the board is that we cannot negotiate with the members locked out, because all they do is wave a proposal at the members, who are under duress, who are sitting on the picket line with no wages. So what we have told the board is that we will absolutely bargain and present counter offers, but get these people back to work, end the lock-out.”

Correction: We originally reported that 78 members were locked out by the SFSS. The number is actually 15. We apologize for the error.

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