After 26 days on strike, members of the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) returned to work on Feb. 15, as a result of a mediated settlement.

"This has been a very difficult situation from the beginning," said MAFA President George De Benedetti. "But we were able to do so well because of the solidarity of our members and the support of CAUT, the Defence Fund and faculty associations across the country.

"Especially important," De Benedetti noted, "was the effect of the two rounds of solidarity visits by Defence Fund trustees and other association members. That colleagues were willing to travel thousands of miles to Atlantic Canada for the experience of walking on a freezing picket line is a moving realization, and greatly added to the resolve needed to end the strike."

The situation was resolved after New Brunswick's labour minister appointed Douglas Stanley, a nationally renowned mediator and former deputy minister of labour in New Brunswick, as a special mediator in the dispute on Feb. 8.

Although Stanley had no authority to impose a settlement, the government gave him the mandate to try and bring the parties to a resolution and to submit a report to the minister of labour.

The mediation session which lasted through Feb. 10-12 did not produce a settlement at the table. The main outstanding items were salary and how to deal with perceived bias by administration representatives on the tenure and promotion committee.

In his report to the labour minister on Feb. 12, Mr. Stanley recommended a three-year agreement, that the faculty association's position on the issue of bias be accepted, and that the employer's salary scale for the first year be accepted on condition the salary scales for the remaining two years be negotiated in June 1999, and if the parties could not agree by July 1, that the matter be submitted to binding arbitration. The report further recommended that a back-to-work protocol be negotiated before striking members returned to work.

On Feb. 13 MAFA members endorsed the report, as did members of the Board of Regents. On Feb. 14 the parties were to negotiate the back-to-work protocol.

But when the employer's team came to the table on Feb. 14, they declared, in spite of their having accepted the terms of the Stanley Report, that they would not negotiate a protocol. Simultaneously, the university media relations department announced on their web page and through media releases that faculty members and librarians would be returning to work at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 15.

After eight hours of negotiations by telephone on Sunday between the department of labour and the parties, an entente was reached.

The faculty association would propose to its striking members on Monday morning that they return to work that afternoon, that Mr. Stanley would be recalled for mediation/arbitration on Feb. 16, and that if a back-to-work protocol could not be negotiated by 6 p.m. on Feb. 16, Mr. Stanley would arbitrate the outstanding issues based on final offer selection.

MAFA members agreed to return to work because of the safeguard of compulsory binding arbitration at the end of the negotiating process on Wednesday.

A back-to-work protocol was negotiated on Feb. 16 except for the "signing bonus" which ultimately had to be arbitrated. The arbitrator found in MAFA's favour. All members of the bargaining unit would receive a special research grant of $1,800 with a cash-out feature of a maximum of $500 on each June 30 of the collective agreement.

This award was given in partial recognition of the extra work striking members would have through an extended teaching term for the 1998-99 academic year and for the subsequent encroachment on their research time.

In their written summation to the arbitrator on the issue of final offer selection on the signing bonus, the employer suggested the arbitrator could be changing the terms and conditions of employment of the new collective agreement by accepting either signing bonus proposal. This was effectively putting the arbitrator and MAFA on notice that the administration might subsequently mount a court challenge.

"We hope that common sense would prevail among the Board of Regents to accept an arbitrated settlement to which its administration was a willing party prior to the arbitration," said De Benedetti.

MAFA members had declared well before the start of the strike that they would accept binding arbitration to settle the outstanding issues. From the outset, the administration had refused the option of binding arbitration on the grounds they could not allow an outside party to determine a salary settlement that could jeopardize the future financial well-being of the university.

In accepting the Stanley Report of Feb. 12, the employer did in fact agree to binding arbitration to settle salaries for the remaining two years of the collective agreement.

"In this respect, they could have avoided the strike by accepting the principle of binding arbitration before the strike, as was asked of them by MAFA, the students, and the public," said De Benedetti.

The strike has ended but the conflict continues. The employer had agreed at the table to increase sabbatical salaries from 85 to 90 per cent, which it now denies. MAFA will send the issue to arbitration, and may launch an unfair labour practice before the New Brunswick Industrial Relations Board.