Well, here we are one week after the Dalhousie Board of Governors locked almost 1,000 faculty, librarians and counsellors out of our offices, email, and other online accounts. Students have begun to arrive on campus for what they have been told is a normal fall semester, while faculty members worry about the lost teaching time–especially in classes with labs (e.g. nursing, chemistry, GIS).
Today, the lead negotiator for the DFA received notice from the Board of Governors that they have:
“extended an invitation to the Dalhousie Faculty Association (DFA) to engage in interest arbitration to reach a new collective agreement…Interest arbitration would end the current labour disruption, allow both parties a fair and impartial hearing over compensation issues, and ensure the fall academic term could begin on schedule. Faculty members would also regain access to their work email, office spaces, and campus buildings.”
What they did not state publicly is that the offer to proceed to interest arbitration is conditional on the DFA dropping all unresolved proposals: it would be an interest arbitration on the sole issue of wages.
As I discussed in my last post, wages are a significant issue as we have not even come close to keeping up with inflation, and our newest hires are taking second jobs to afford the insane Halifax housing prices. However, the union has many other concerns: conversion of “long-term” limited-term appointments to career-stream appointments, expanded parental leave benefits, expanded access to childcare, increased flexibility in class scheduling policies to acknowledge caregiving responsibilities. Our members, especially those just starting their careers, have asked for these changes to our collective agreement and would benefit from them. The Dalhousie Faculty Association includes many limited-term instructors (with one- to three-year contracts) as well as those on the tenure track/tenured faculty members.
The Board seems determined to limit the bargaining process to the narrow issue of compensation, abandoning everything else to try to paint themselves as the victims–this letter was made public within a few hours of delivery to the lead negotiator. Worse, the Board states how much they care about students starting the fall term on time, placing the blame on DFA members when they could have avoided this situation by staying in the room to bargain fairly. Instead, they walked out of negotiations, instituted a lockout while DFA members were still voting on their last proposal, and refused to discuss anything with the union since August 11.
This behaviour is so out of line with contract negotiations that the DFA has received donations and letters of support from faculty unions across the country; many of them, and our staff unions CUPE 3912 and NSGEU 77, have been walking with us in support. One of those unions is APPBUSA (Association des professeurs, professeures et bibliothécaires de l’Université Sainte-Anne), which has been bargaining with their employer since November 2024. Their administration refuses to honour the agreement on collegial governance signed by both parties in January 2025. APPBUSA filed a complaint against the employer for failure to bargain. They and other unions are looking to the DFA as an example. Our fight is their fight.
The public perception, which the Dalhousie Board of Governors is betting on, is that university faculty members are making high wages and “do nothing”. But it’s pretty easy to find out how false that narrative is: in 2018, 54% of faculty across Canada were precariously employed, mostly in four to eight-month contracts. Articles in the Walrus (“When Tenure Never Comes“, by Stephen Black), University Affairs (“The Struggle of the Young Professor“, Gianluca Agostinelli), and The Conversation (“With precarious jobs, work identities shift–including for contract academics“, Natalie Adamyk), illustrate the reality. The fewer tenured faculty remaining are now overburdened with service activities, keeping programs and faculties running as well as the university as a whole (e.g. research ethics committees, senate, equity committees, search committees, endless media interviews). The precariously employed faculty members deserve permanent contracts–we need them as our colleagues for the long haul, and our students need them to have the time and energy to teach and do research rather than taking second jobs.
We cannot allow the administration to threaten the quality of education students receive or the labour rights of our workers under the guise of “saving the university”…the same university that had a $55 M surplus last year and is building a new hockey rink (well over budget, but the Board secretly found money for the difference). The same university that gave faculty members a 0% increase during the COVID years when Dalhousie saw a 3% increase in enrolment. The same university that has consistently overspent on capital projects by moving money over from their operational budget…which pays for little things like salaries.
If you want to keep on top of this story, follow the DFA on Instagram and X (@dalfacultyassoc), on Bluesky (@dalfaculty.bsky.social) and on Facebook (Keep Dal Strong). There is a special Q&A document for our students here.
