Message from CAUT Council:

Hi Joe,

I just read your message to the delegates of the CAUT Council. The following motion was introduced immediately afterwards.

“That CAUT Council send the Brandon University Faculty Association warmest congratulations on its successful job action, and Council’s deep appreciation to BUFA for standing strong in the face of employer intransigence, union-busting bargaining tactics, and interference by the Manitoba NDP Government.”

I am pleased to advise you that the motion passed unanimously.

Our Speaker, Ted Montgomery, summarized the sentiments of all of us in regard to your victory:  “It’s great to see courage rewarded.”

Every faculty association in Canada is in debt to the members of BUFA. Your members’ determination, courage and solidarity are now the model and the standard for all the rest of our member associations who will be facing the same challenges in their next round of bargaining.  Your members are an inspiration well beyond Brandon, beyond Manitoba, but across Canada. All of us are deeply in your debt for the sacrifices your members willingly made to achieve a remarkable victory under very adverse circumstance.

Yours in solidarity,

Jim

James L. Turk // Executive Director / Directeur général // Canadian Association of University Teachers / Association canadienne des professeures et professeurs d'université // 2705 promenade Queensview Drive / Ottawa, (Ontario) / K2B 8K2 // tél  613.726-5176 / téléc  613.820-7244 / mobile  613.277-0488 / turk@caut.ca  / http://twitter.com/jameslturk

Hi Jim:

Could you read the following (brief) message to Council delegates?  Thanks.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear colleagues:

As you know, last BUFA negotiators were able to conclude a tentative agreement at the table. For BUFA members, this represents a fundamental  victory and a tribute to our members’ inner strength, determination, sacrifice and solidarity during the 44-day strike. The significance of this achievement  is underlined by the fact that:

·         We were confronted by an Employer, led by a self-professed ‘ethicist’, who sought -- through a wholesale assault on our Collective Agreement -- to  ‘change the culture’ of our university from one based on collegiality and mutual respect to one based on the secrecy, fear and supplication;

·         We were confronted by an Employer who was willing to literally sacrifice our  university and our students to achieve this end;

·         We were confronted by one of the most aggressive and expensive anti-union lawyers in Canada, whose mission was to provoke and then break our strike, and ultimately our Union;

·         We were confronted by a hostile public and a continuous campaign of vilification in the local media; and

·         We were confronted by the hypocrisy of an allegedly ‘labour-friendly’ government whose interventions systematically aided and abetted the Employer’s efforts to destroy free collective bargaining on our campus and replace it with ‘collective begging.’

But the membership of BUFA prevailed.

We thwarted all of the Employer’s language initiatives and made some significant advances on our own.

We preserved free collective bargaining on our campus and served notice to the Employer that we will do whatever it takes to defend our members, our students, our university, and our Collective Agreement now and in the future.

Simply stated:  We won this strike.

In closing, on behalf of the BUFA Executive Committee, the Bargaining Team, and our membership, I wish to express our deep heartfelt appreciation to CAUT for you unwavering support, and in particular to the defence fund’s flyin’ pickets – who were absolutely crucial to our members’ morale.

Thanks to you all!

Joe Dolecki,