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Brandon University Position on Locking out Faculty

October 13, 2011

The Brandon University Students’ Union (“BUSU”) has recently issued a communication to its membership and to the wider community urging the University to lock out its faculty rather than allowing them to return to work, should individual faculty members choose to work during the strike.

Prior to this communiqué, representatives of BUSU met with the Administration and expressed the same request. We provided our reasons to BUSU orally, but these have not been passed on in the BUSU press release. We offer the following explanation.

There are a number of reasons why the President and the Board of Governors decided not to lock out faculty during this strike:

1. A lockout is a weapon some employers use to get concessions from the union and employees to accept lesser working conditions than they previously enjoyed. Brandon University is not seeking concessions from BUFA at this time.

2. Many professors have told the Administration that they do not support the strike and want to teach during the dispute. Consistent with this, according to BUFA’s announcements, over 28% of those professors who voted on whether to give the Union a strike mandate voted “no”. Taking into account those who did not vote, the Union’s mandate is less than 70%.

3. If professors want to teach and students want to be taught, it is difficult to justify denying them their right to choose. The Labour Relations Act gives employees the right to work during a strike conducted by their union, unless they are locked out by the employer. If all of the professors support the strike, then the opportunity to teach is a non-issue.

4. Although most universities do not ever lock out their faculty, BU did this in the last round after a strike was declared, and it led to the longest dispute in BU’s history.

5. The option of locking out was thoroughly discussed with all aspects of the administration of the University and the unanimous choice was not to lock out.

6. Each student makes a contract with the University that they will pay their tuition fees and dedicate their time and effort to pursue their course studies, in exchange for the University providing them with the instruction outlined in the calendar. The University feels honour-bound to fulfill that contract to the extent that it reasonably can, despite the withdrawal of service by the Faculty Association.

Hopefully, this provides some insight into why the University will not lock out its faculty. We remain committed to make every reasonable effort to achieve a fair and equitable collective agreement.