This update is to specifically to let you know that at the very end of negotiations on Thursday, December 12, 2024 NAIT informed NASA that they will again be going to the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) to “seek clarity” as they do not think there should be a continued obligation to bargain in the evenings. NASA feels NAIT’s position is not in the spirit of the Board’s decision, wherein the parties bargain half of the time during the day, and the other half outside regular business hours.
NAIT is providing only limited evening availability “without prejudice” for less than 25% of the time scheduled in January and February to NASA, until the ALRB weighs in and confirms the intent of it’s earlier decision. What is undeniably clear is that the decision had nothing prohibiting NAIT from agreeing to evening bargaining sessions, and so they are making a choice not to meet NASA halfway on what would be a compromise on both parties’ original positions.
In justifying their actions NAIT stated it was “exhausting” to have to bargain into the evening, that it was hard for their managers to deal with their duties during the day and come into bargaining. NAIT has shown they are capable of managing those duties on the days where bargaining takes place during the day, and they could do the same when bargaining takes place during the evenings if they are concerned about their managers workloads.
NASA members on the bargaining committee have been volunteering their time for evening sessions while managing their normal workloads, and are not seeing the same “exhaustion” NAIT claims is caused by those evening sessions.
Having now been through evening sessions with NAIT, it’s the belief of the NASA bargaining committee that those sessions can actually be more productive as it puts the parties in a position to focus their discussions. We also know that observers were able to join sessions in the evening, but none during the daytime this semester.
NAIT has decided yet again to take the matter to the labour board rather than try to work out a solution through discussion, which, in our opinion, is an unwise use of NAIT, NASA, and the ALRB’s resources and time. NASA maintains that the spirit of the Board’s decision is to have both parties compromise with a 50/50 split on preferred timing of negotiations, and will defend this view at the ALRB if necessary.
In the meantime NAIT and NASA are still scheduling bargaining dates into January and February which we will share in the next update. We will let you know when there is a resolution to this situation and when more evening dates become available for observers.