Mediation with UBC breaks down – escalating towards job action is necessary

On August 13th, your negotiating committee attended a mediation session with UBC at the Labour Relations Board (LRB) in an attempt to move closer to a negotiated agreement. UBC remained unwilling to meet the needs of our membership, especially those of providing Extended Health and Dental benefits.

Your negotiating committee does not see any path forward without placing additional pressure on UBC, up to and including escalating towards a strike.

The negotiating and executive committee will be working together to coordinate our next steps. Additional information on escalating towards job action will be sent out in the coming days.

Strike training for stewards and committee members was held this past weekend. Additional information on training opportunities and other ways to get involved will be circulated next week.

Please continue reading for a more details on what occurred during mediation.

Details on August 13th Mediation

In mediation, we reiterated the importance of our members' top issues, which include obtaining employer-paid healthcare, establishing fair wages for GAAs, maintaining reasonable class size to TA ratios, ending minimum funding clawbacks, protecting academic freedom, and providing paid breaks for workers at the Centre for Accessibility (CfA).

Employer-paid healthcare:

Our latest position included 75% employer-paid extended health and dental premiums. UBC has at no point objected to our costing in this proposed package. Through our discussions in mediation, it became clear that UBC's position on healthcare is to instead refuse to provide a benefit to CUPE 2278 members that they provide to almost every other group of workers on campus.

UBC acts as the insurer on extended health and dental plans for all other employee groups at the university. This allows UBC to have complete control over the plan, providing them flexibility in the plans they choose to provide. It is not that UBC is unable to provide a plan for our members, it is that they are unwilling to do so.

Teaching Assistants at SFU have employer health and dental benefits. These are workers of a similar demographic, in a similar location, doing similar work. We know it's possible and yet UBC remains insistent on not providing a health and dental plan to student workers that they provide to all other employees.

We do not see a way forward at the mediation table on this issue that remains central to our membership.

Fair Wages for GAAs:

At mediation, UBC maintained that GAA wages should start at $27.50/hour, well below comparable TA wage rates.

GAAs unionized in July 2023 and deserve wage increases that accurately reflect the interim time since their unionization. Additionally, GAAs have qualifications and duties comparable to Teaching Assistants and should be paid in line with equivalent classifications on our pay scale.

Allowing for GAA wages to be set so low would set a dangerous precedent for our local -- not only due to the already limited nature of wage increases for our membership, but also because of what it would mean for the eventual setting of GRA wages. The initial wages set for GAAs will be subject to the same wage increase limitations we see throughout the public sector. We also know that many GRAs are currently misclassified and should be working as GAAs.

Though there are fewer GAAs than TAs, this issue affects us all. For anyone who will work as a GAA, or possibly as a GRA in the future, this issue affects you directly.

Class sizes:

UBC refused to explain what is preventing them from addressing our members' concerns.

Ending minimum funding clawbacks:

UBC refused to explain what is preventing them from addressing our members' concerns.

Academic freedom protections:

UBC refused to explain what is preventing them from addressing our members' concerns.

Paid breaks for workers at the CfA:

As with employer-paid healthcare, our latest position on paid breaks for workers at the CfA had a fully costed proposal that UBC has not objected to. However, this monetary item was not included in UBC's latest proposal; they indicated that if we are interested in getting this, we need to decide what other monetary item(s) we are willing to give up on. These issues are central to our members. We are not willing to give up on them because we are not willing to give up on our members.

Since employer-paid healthcare is still outstanding, we do not see a way forward for negotiating over this relatively less expensive monetary issue at the mediation table.