Your bargaining team met on Wednesday, May 21, again to continue to work on getting you a fair deal. Some updates from the meeting:
Defence Fund By-Law
A proposal to update NASA’s defence fund by-law passed 1st reading at the NASA Executive meeting on May 21st. The 2nd and 3rd readings are scheduled for the June 12 NASA Executive meeting. The proposal would stipulate $100 per day of strike pay for up to five days each week, which would usually require five hours of picket and/or support duties per day.
If you have not already done so, it is crucial that you provide your personal contact info to NASA. This is important because NAIT has already made it clear to members that, should job action occur, you will lose all access to the Staff Portal, including access to email. Your personal email will also be used to process picket pay should a lockout or strike occur.
Essential Services Agreement (ESA)
NAIT and NASA met on May 21 to discuss the ESA – the required agreement that determines which jobs and specific duties are required to be performed by NASA members, if any, to protect life, limb, and the rule of law. Generally speaking, the talks with NAIT went well, with NAIT providing a counter-proposal to NASA’s “Schedule A” proposal, which is where the general terms of the ESA are set out. Some initial discussion was held on “Schedule B” which will discuss which staff are designated essential, for which duties, and under what terms. NAIT has named Counsellors as well as Instructors acting as Biomedical Safety Officers, Radiation Safety Officers, and Power Engineers. These may not require regular scheduling, but possibly on-call or periodic work. A follow-up meeting with NAIT on the ESA is scheduled for June 10.
Picket Captain Training
This Sunday, June 1 NASA held its 3rd round of picket captain training in person on the main campus from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. The Grant MacEwan University Faculty Association also took part in the training!
NASA is still seeking members to volunteer to be picket captains.We have set a goal of two picket captains per school, and two at each of the larger satellite campuses. There are still vacancies for picket captains in the following areas:
Patrica Campus
Souch Campus
School of Construction & Building Sciences
School of Manufacturing & Automation
Informal Mediation – postponed?
NASA suggested working with NAIT to complete the ESA by May 26,in which case NASA would be able to proceed with informal mediation while the labour board reviewed and likely approved the ESA as filed. That process can take a few weeks.
NAIT did not agree and said that they felt it was not possible. NAIT was told by NASA that this information would be brought to the next bargaining committee caucus and NASA would get back to them after that.
After an email exchange with mediator Greg Francis, where NASA confirmed we would still be available to bargain on May 27, NAIT replied and stated they had taken May 27 as well as the June mediation dates off of their calendar and were no longer available. NAIT claims that they understood NASA was not interested in continuing informal mediation unless an ESA was completed.
NASA is working with NAIT to determine if other dates can be scheduled in June, August, and September. Please stay tuned.