AMPL forced back on strike by McGill

MONTREAL, Aug. 26, 2024 /CNW/ - McGill University today forced its law professors back on strike. After promising for over three months to meet with the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), McGill senior administrators reneged, refusing to engage in good-faith negotiations with its first faculty union.

The distance between the union's and McGill's bargaining positions is not major and could be addressed through a few days of solid negotiations. Nevertheless, McGill refuses to negotiate. Instead, McGill is seeking to decertify AMPL and is fighting off two other faculty unions, the Association of McGill Professors of Education, and the Association of McGill Professors of the Faculty of Arts.

McGill is delaying settlement of a collective agreement in order to use its own refusal to bargain as a reason not to have a union. It has asked for binding arbitration but, while arbitration may be useful for salary disputes, it is not useful to protect faculty interests in designing and implementing McGill Law's world class program. "Our issues have to do with whether faculty – the experts in their fields – should decide what an academic program should contain or administrators who are far away from teaching," said Kirsten Anker, a McGill Law professor and Vice-President of AMPL.

"The lesson that McGill has pounded into us," noted Richard Janda, a McGill Law professor and Secretary of AMPL, "is that unless we are prepared – against our training and desires – to put student education at risk, McGill will not respond. It is shameful that McGill is so cavalier with students' wellbeing and education in direct contradiction to its claims of advancing education."

Students are required by McGill to pay their school fees by August 30. "Many of us have moved from far away, left our jobs, and signed leases and are now being asked to pay school fees for a term that may not occur. It is shocking that McGill would choose not to attend negotiations, despite knowing how much students have invested, both professionally and financially, to be part of this institution," stated Kate Pundyk, an incoming McGill law student relocating from England.

SOURCE Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL)

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