Claims decision is “seriously flawed”
By Alison Roach
SFU administration has announced last week in a letter to CUPE 3338 that the university intends to apply for reconsideration of the BC Labour Relations Board (LRB) bad faith bargaining decision.
The previous Monday, Jan. 23, the LRB announced that they had found SFU guilty of bargaining in bad faith in their collective agreement talks with CUPE 3338, citing the university’s attempts to keep the employee Pension Plan on the table as a breach of the LRB Code. CUPE has stated that they are willing to discuss changes to the pension plan — which is current $64.5 million in debt — but only once they have come to their own collective agreement.
The Pension Plan affects all SFU Employee Groups: CUPE 3338, Poly Party, APSA and Excluded Staff. The plan is widely acknowledged to not be sustainable in its current form. Following the LRB decision, CUPE officials received a written response from Dario Nonis, SFU’s executive director of human resources. “You should be aware that the University has received a legal opinion that the [Labour Relations] Board decision is seriously flawed on both procedural and substantive grounds and therefore wrongly decided. As a result, the University is proceeding with an application for reconsideration of this matter,” wrote Nonis.
Nonis went on to state that SFU plans to file the application this week, and will contact CUPE’s council in regards to next steps. SFU has 15 days from the date of the original decision to file the application for reconsideration. The LRB will then ask for submissions from each party to be put together in two weeks. Upon receiving the submissions they will make their decision to either uphold the original ruling or to reconsider.
CUPE 3338 business agent John Bannister said he hopes the LRB will come resolve the issue by mid-February. Of SFU’s decision to apply for reconsideration he stated, “We’re disappointed . . . We think this is delaying the whole process to nobody’s benefit.” Banner continued, “We’re confident that the decision will be upheld.”
Keeping the silence they have maintained throughout the bargaining process, officials for the university declined to comment on the situation.
