A word on job action - strikes and lockouts

 As faculty associations across the province continue to negotiate with their employers many members may have questions related to job actions such as strikes and lockouts as these are new elements to the post-secondary bargaining system in Alberta after the passage of Bill 7 in 2017. Given that the negotiations and job actions parameters contained in Alberta’s Labour Relations Code will be unfamiliar to many members, Lethbridge Polytechnic Faculty Association has constructed the following frequently asked questions document to help address some of the most commonly occurring questions that we are hearing from membership at our various member associations.

As educators ourselves, members of Lethbridge Polytechnic Faculty Association’s Executive take the possibility of job action incredibly seriously, both as a matter of professional responsibility and as it relates to the quality of education that our students will receive in a situation where job action becomes necessary. Our students and the broader communities which we serve have always been and will continue to be our most important relationships – we want to be in the classroom doing our jobs and helping our province’s economy move forward and grow. Over the few academic years, Alberta’s post-secondary faculty have done just that, showing incredible flexibility and resiliency in addressing the challenges of teaching through the pandemic, often with increasingly stringent restrictions on the resources available to us. We have in many instances gone above and beyond to ensure that our students and communities have been able to benefit from the institutions that are our employers.

It is that same commitment to high quality, accessible education and to preparing students to take their place in the economy of tomorrow that underlies our negotiations and conversations with the administrations of our individual institutions. We strongly believe that in order for us to do right by the students and communities we serve that teaching and learning need to be emphasized, and that our employers need to help us ensure that our work environments are places where students can continue to have access to the best instruction possible. Just as we have throughout the pandemic, we will continue to put the quality of education we offer first – even if that means frank conversations with administration on the supports we need to do our jobs properly. While we do not wish to take job action in order to achieve these goals, our new legislative framework gives us these tools and faculty associations will use them if it becomes necessary to protect the interests of members, students, or the communities that we serve.

Please note that this document is meant to orient Lethbridge Polytechnic Faculty Association members to the basics of job action and work stoppages, and is not intended to take the place of formal legal advice.