MEMBER UPDATE #1
February 13, 2013
There will be another meeting today with university administrators to get a fair and equitable agreement for all our members.
At the beginning of the strike, the administration implemented policies that effectively locked out members from research facilities, funds, and insurance: (http://sites.stfx.ca/hr/negotiations/AUT/FAQ/Faculty). It also appears the Research Services Group may have stopped or slowed work on some funding agreements. These are policies unilaterally adopted by the administration. As a reminder, the AUT did not ask members to withdraw research services, but only to avoid use of campus facilities.
As the strike continues, the AUT is aware that members’ research could be suffering. In the spirit of assisting one another, we seek input on the following:
Negative Impacts: How, or how badly has your research been impacted, specifically by the lock-out of funds or facilities? Please let us know. In specific cases, there may be certain instruments available to help.
Proposals: Let’s keep them moving and try to ensure success. It would appear that administration is not blocking funding proposals, so we would offer to connect members with a second or third set of eyes, where necessary. In particular, we would like to target younger members who may need assistance. We are also interested in hearing from people willing to act as reviewers or mentors.
Questions: Do you have questions about research agreements, processes, timelines, contract research, intellectual property, copyright, and/or commercialization questions? We can find answers within our membership.
Dave Risk and Russell Wyeth have offered to field these emails initially. If there is wide response, they will strike a small working committee that could respond appropriately, based on the types of responses from different disciplines, etc. If anyone is willing to help, please let them know. A new email account has been created to receive your messages: [email protected].
It was a full house at yesterday’s first free teach-in at the new Unionversity in town. On the course list today from 2-5 pm is the Protest Reference Desk: The Librarian is in! at the People’s Place Library. The session will focus on how to locate reliable, authoritative online answers to questions regarding strikes and union rights specific to the AUT strike. The member initiative got a shout-out on The Current and Q on CBC Radio yesterday. Organizers are hopeful the collaboration between academic workers and students can keep going after this strike is behind us!
You can follow ongoing developments in the strike on the StFXAUT website www.stfxaut.ca and via Facebook and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/StFXAUT and https://twitter.com/StFXAUT