Canadian Union of Public Employees picketers shut down Vancouver Community College and the British Columbia Institute of Technology yesterday in the third one-day shutdown of the union’s drive to resume bargaining talks with the provincial government.
The union also staged strikes on November 1 and on November 7.
Members of the VCC Faculty Association, which is a certified trade union, does not cross picket lines.
“These VCC employees have been bargaining for two years,” said VCC Faculty Association President Frank Cosco. “They see other settlements in post-secondary [institutions] going up to 2014. They legitimately ask, ‘Why not us?’”
Classes are expected to resume today at BCIT and VCC, although SFU staff are planning job action later this week. Unlike at BCIT and VCC, however, the SFU job action is not expected to cancel classes.
