The academic staff union at Saint Mary’s University will vote this month on a tentative agreement reached Dec. 17 with the assistance of mediator Kevin Burkett.
     
Under the three-year agreement, the university will cease controlling benefits for academic staff. Instead, a union-controlled trust will oversee the benefits plan, to which the university will contribute 2.2 per cent of salaries in the first two years and 2.4 per cent in the third year of the contract. The trust will also receive the full amount of the current benefit surplus attributable to its members.
     
The agreement also calls for three per cent annual scale increases and higher step values, which secures about 11 per cent of salary increases for academic staff over the life of the agreement. Other positives include new language on employment prospects past age 65 and a new retirement incentive program that will pay a maximum $225,000, based on the saving from a lower replacement salary multiplied by the number of years to normal retirement.

Faculty union president Larry Haiven said both sides had been negotiating since June and the deal was reached weeks after his membership voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike if the talks failed.