Fredericton — The union representing 51 staff members at St. Thomas University in Fredericton has turned down a contract offer from the university and given the consulting team a strike mandate.
The administration, comprised of the president and her lackeys, refuses to go back to the negotiation table, as there are roughly 26 chairs both standing and overturned in the way of that table. The union’s group, which includes recruitment, financial services, office administration, academic advising and facilities management, among others, said that negotiations had been strained from the beginning.
“First off, we wanted to talk salaries, and they took us into this dusty old board room that probably hadn’t seen the light of day since the ’80s,” said union president David Strang. “We stood around the table and didn’t come to any real decision concerning our employment contracts.”
When the disgruntled employees attempted to revisit the table last week, there were chairs left askew surrounding it — probably the result of negligent students meeting in the board room to work on a group project. The STU administration, a flotilla of old, predominantly male, well-fed white people, are refusing to move the chairs out of the way, because it is beneath them.
“Well, darnit, we’re not payed enough for this,” huffed vice-president of academics Bernard Carr. “Let’s get some of these nimble young students in here to get the chairs out of the way. Maybe make the men’s hockey team work for their free ride.”
The union reps simply moved a few chairs out of their way to get to the table in question, but the admin will not sit down until someone moves the chairs for them. The union refuses to do it for them out of principle.
“If we give them this one small victory, it will set a dangerous precedent,” said Strang.
A strike date has not been set, and both the union and STU must provide a full day’s notice of any lockout or strike. Neither the university nor the union is hopeful that anyone will give in and move the chairs out of the way in order to resume negotiations around the table.