Hello NASA members,
The Bargaining Committee met again on the evening of May 2.
NAIT’s Unnecessary Complaint
The process of NAIT’s unnecessary complaint continues, and has caught the attention of an independent reporter in Lethbridge.NASA had already responded to NAIT’s complaint and are awaiting either a case management meeting and/or a resolution conference where the labour board can help us come to a solution without needing to go through a longer process of a formal hearing and then a written decision. We are prepared if necessary to argue that it is actually NAIT who has been bargaining in bad faith.
NAIT still hasn’t proposed any compromise to their position.
May 1 rally a success!
Who had fun at the rally? It was wonderful to see everyone out. I appreciated the congeniality, connections, and conversations. This is exactly what we need to see to build a stronger NASA.
You can read the Norquest College Faculty Association’s perspective of the rally here.
Some proposals adopted, others not
The committee had many lively discussions that night.
One proposal was adopted to require NAIT to look at pay and job status equity around factors of age, race/ethnicity, disability, gender, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation where that information is collected voluntarily, and to review every three years. This data would put us in a better position to assess these issues and take appropriate action to help improve situations where equity is lacking. Other institutes have already undertaken similar work, which has included an identified gap at the University of Alberta that required a 5.8% pay increase for women Full Professors.
Another proposal approved included ensuring that policies adopted by NAIT would be grievable, where the Distributed Work policy currently is not; and having spring and summer assignments filled through volunteers.
The committee declined to bring forward a proposal that borrowed from Olds College’s agreement on having a process for some Temporary staff being able to have a guarantee of returning work at NAIT for 2 years, with a preference on improving rights for all Temporary staff across the board instead.
The committee also discussed the idea of additional pay for credentials. Reviewing the survey from December and January, it was clear that this proposal had the highest level of strong opposition, and the lowest level of support overall. Past discussions around the idea were referenced, with a similar understanding that the focus would be across the board wage increases for all NASA members, so this proposal will not be pursued.
More proposals to be discussed – poll on proposals to be sent in fall
The committee should be meeting again in June to finalize more proposals, and will be sending out a poll that includes each proposal in the fall to help the committee gauge the level of support among NASA members to inform prioritization of the proposals that will be exchanged with NAIT.
We remain committed to negotiating with NAIT and are still open to negotiations throughout the summer. It remains to be seen if NAIT can come to a compromise so that we can all get down to work to improve our working conditions.
Please remember to provide us with your personal contact information at this link, and encourage your coworkers to do the same. We still have a few hundred more contacts before we can make the switch to non-NAIT communications.