NDP wants province to cover U of M’s $2.4-million penalty

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This article was published 23/04/2018 (3035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NDP leader Wab Kinew demanded Monday that Premier Brian Pallister cover the potential $2.4-million penalty the University of Manitoba faces for bargaining in bad faith in 2016.

Kinew told the house there’s no way the money should come out of students’ tuition or through program cuts after the premier interfered in collective bargaining with the U of M Faculty Association.

“We know the premier wanted a strike at the U of M — the premier got his wish,” Kinew said.

The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled — a ruling subsequently upheld on appeal — that the U of M bargained in bad faith when it followed Pallister’s secret orders not to disclose to the union that the province was imposing a wage freeze.

The labour board has ordered the university to apologize and to pay each UMFA member up to $2,000; however, it also ruled the unfair labour practice did not cause a three-week strike in late 2016. The board concluded the UMFA knew about the wage freeze when it decided to strike for better working conditions.

“He’s stuck them with a two-and-a-half-million-dollar bill, completely unnecessary,” Kinew said.

Pallister said Kinew is wrong in his assertion.

The premier did not give a direct answer about the money, but instead attacked the NDP for putting Manitoba in a deficit situation without ensuring taxpayers were ever represented at the bargaining table.

“A bargaining table needs someone on one side standing up for taxpayers, and that was never the case,” Pallister said.

The U of M board of governors will set its budget May 22 for the academic year starting in September.

The provincial government has cut operating grants by 0.9 per cent, while allowing tuition fees to be raised by a maximum five per cent plus cost-of-living, which the university estimates will allow it to raise fees 6.6 per cent. The university has not said how and where it will find the money to cover the labour board’s penalty.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca