Bargaining Update

Current Status of Contract Negotiations

The MRFA is currently at Stage 5 – Alert of the Collective Bargaining Index.

The MRFA Negotiating Team will make regular updates to the membership throughout the process. And, members are encouraged to submit their input to the Negotiating team (negotiations@mrfa.net).

Statutory Mediation: January 24-25, 2022

• Let’s Make a Deal – Information for MRFA Members so you can stay informed and take action to support your negotiating team in reaching a fair collective agreement
• What is Mediation? See the Collective Bargaining Process 
• MRU Coalition Statement in Support of reaching a Collective Agreement through mediation
• Frequently asked questions for Faculty
• Frequently Asked Questions for Students

We are Workers: What it Means to be a Worker at MRU

As faculty, we all love our work. As professors and scholars, we generally consider ourselves incredibly privileged to be able to teach, read and write for a living. But even as we (mostly) enjoy it, the work we do is highly skilled, difficult, demanding, and often incredibly stressful. And like any other person in any other job, we wouldn’t do it without remuneration, which is how you know that MRU faculty are workers. We are labourers in an increasingly corporatized workplace in which the politics and processes of academic capitalism are paramount. 

This trend towards academic capitalism means that :

• corporate-style top-down management processes gradually overwhelm bicameral collegial governance,
• administration bloats to support this increase in managerial processes,
• increased government focus on the “economic function of universities as drivers of workforce renewal and industrial competitiveness,” which leads
• “’conditional’ funding initiatives […] to make universities more responsive to markets and the needs of the economy.”

Faculty and Administration at MRU are bound by a Collective Agreement, which outlines our responsibilities to our employer (the University), and our employer’s responsibilities to us. It is, as its title suggests, collectively negotiated between the MRFA and MRU’s Board of Governors. The process of collective bargaining is outlined in the MRFA’s Collective Bargaining Index.

• About the MRFA 
• What Faculty at MRU do for Students, in and out of the Classroom
• MRFA Labour Relations Services
• Collective Bargaining Index and Terminology
• How Faculty can Engage in Job Action – a Training Opportunity for MRFA Members

MRFA Job Action Information for Members

• Frequently asked questions for Faculty
• Let’s Make a Deal – Take Action and Stay Informed (MRFA Member restricted content)
• Links to social media
• Strike Contacts
• Headquarters Information
• How Faculty can Engage in Job Action – a Training Opportunity for MRFA Members
• Support the MRFA – the MRFA will launch a petition soon to get you to show support to help us reach a fair collective agreement!

MRFA Job Action Information for Students

• Frequently Asked Questions for Students

Standing in Solidarity with Faculty and Staff Across Alberta

Standing in Solidarity with other Alberta Public sector workers – Alberta Wide Rally on November 5 to support Healthcare workers and speak out against cuts.