Classes for UNBC students, including those in Quesnel, were cancelled today due to a labour dispute.
The Faculty Association is on strike.
While picket lines were up in Prince George, they were not at Quesnel’s shared campus, which allowed College of New Caledonia students to go to class.
Barb Daigle, the Interim Vice President of Finance and People and Chief Negotiator for UNBC, says wages continues to be the main sticking point…
“What’s happened is that over time our faculty, because of the compensation structure which has been negotiated over the years, their salaries were falling behind our competitors so our commitment to them was to get them as close as we could, fix the structure and then get them as close as we could to their competitors over the life of this agreement.”
Daigle says they were able to get 90 percent of the way there over the three years, and she says they’ve gone as far as they can go…
“We believe we have met the goal, there is only so much money and UNBC has its share of financial challenges, so we feel we went as far as we could. There was no movement on their part and they are out on strike this morning, and their material all talks about how we’re not paying the faculty fairly. There is no more money for us to put on the table.”
We have reached out to the Faculty Association for comment but have so far not received a response.
At this time no new talks are scheduled.
UNBC is providing daily updates for students on its website.
The faculty also went on strike for two weeks back in 2015.