Brandon University staff are on strike

Staff at Brandon University are on strike. They hit the picket lines at 7:30 a.m. this morning.

Negotiations between the Brandon University Faculty Association and the administration ended at 5 a.m., reports CBC News. BUFA represents 240 professors, instructors and librarians.

The university says that classes for roughly 3,000 students are cancelled until at least Oct. 14. Deandra Tousignant, who speaks for the Brandon Students Union, said the faculty association communicated their support of students who cross the picket line for school work.

Jim Forsythe, a professor, told CBC that faculty asked for wage increases of four per cent for each of the next three years, but that the university offered two per cent in year one, two per cent in year two and no rise in year three. Taking into account inflation, the offer amounts to a pay cut, he said.

A recent Statistics Canada study of 27  universities showed that the median salary for associate professors in 2010-11 at Brandon was $95,220. The highest paid associate professors in the study were at York University ($123,959) and the lowest paid were at Vancouver Island University ($82,946). Brandon’s professors were the 20th best paid out of the 27 schools in the study.

BUFA was last on strike in 2008 for 17 days.