Upcoming Bargaining Dates:
- January 29, 2025
- February 27, 2025
Past Bargaining Dates:
- November 12, 2024
- November 13, 2024 (cancelled)
- January 9, 2025
- January 10, 2025
- January 16, 2025
- January 17, 2025
Updates:
January 17, 2025: As agreed to on Jan 16, TAs spent most of the morning in the caucus room to review and revise articles to address the employer’s concerns. TAs agreed to the following components of the Employer’s proposal:
- Preamble (Parties to the Agreement and General Purpose)
TAs proposed revised versions of the following components of the Employer’s proposal:
- Definition of Supervisor
- Grievance Procedures
The employer was not prepared with any counter-proposals for TAs. Observers were present throughout the day without incident.
January 16, 2025: SMU provided their response to the remaining Articles (21 – 26, Schedule B) in our proposal, rejecting them all. Again, it was clear they were reading our proposal for the first time at this meeting as their rationale was unclear and/or contradictory. TAs questioned SMU further about their rationale for rejecting to gain clarity. TAs informed SMU that we would need more time to discuss their response and the parties agreed to spend the next morning in caucus to prepare counter-proposals.
Observers were present throughout the day without incident.
January 10, 2025: TAs provided an overview of our responses to the employer’s proposal. TAs agreed to the following components of the Employer’s proposal, which were reasonable:
- Definition of Academic Year
- Definition of Bargaining Unit
- Definition of Employer
- Definition of Year
- Use of gender neutral pronouns (they/them) throughout the collective agreement
- No strikes/lockouts
Bargaining was temporarily stalled because SMU wasted 30 minutes on the use of “sign off sheets” – a very common and uncontroversial bargaining procedure to record tentative agreements to articles. After pressure from the TAs, SMU eventually provided responses to Articles 1 – 20 of the TA proposal and rejected them all, including our definition of union. It was evident SMU still had not read our proposal and their rationale for rejecting our articles were unclear and/or explicitly contradicted what we had written.
Observers were present throughout the day without incident.
January 9, 2025: For the first two hours of the meeting, SMU raised concerns about TAs having four observers (not members of the bargaining committee, but all TAs at SMU) attending to witness the negotiations. SMU felt that the presence of the observers created an uneven power distribution against SMU and requested we remove all but one observer to maintain “confidentiality of negotiations”. TAs declined to remove the observers, exercising our right to an open and transparent bargaining process per Nova Scotia legislation. At the persistence of the TAs, SMU eventually agreed to continue with bargaining for the rest of the day (one hour remaining); however, it became clear that SMU had not reviewed our proposal despite having two months to do so. We agreed to adjourn for the day to give SMU additional time to prepare a response.
November 12, 2024: First bargaining date with the employer. Proposed collective agreements were exchanged and four additional bargaining dates were scheduled. The November 13th bargaining date was cancelled.
November 5, 2024: Proposal Ratification Survey closed. TAs overwhelmingly voted in support of our priority article proposals:
- Proposal Article 4: Harassment & Discrimination (96% in favour)
- Proposal Article 8: Wages & Pay (96% in favour)
- Proposal Article 11: Duties (91% in favour)
- Proposal Article 18: Job Postings (87% in favour)
October 29, 2024: TAs were surveyed to ratify our proposed priority articles.
March 15, 2024: The negotiating committee was formed. Drafting of the collective agreement began.
February 22, 2024: Results of the bargaining priorities survey were released. Our top 5 priorities were determined to be:
- Increased wages
- Protection from exploitation
- Clear role expectations
- Support for international students
- Protection from discrimination & harassment
January 8, 2024: TAs were surveyed to determine bargaining priorities for our first collective agreement.