600 Concordia University employees on strike in Montreal

600 unionized Concordia University employees are on strike in Montreal, after nearly a year of failed negotiations.

Talks between the Syndicat des employé-es professionnel-le-s de l’Université Concordia (SEPUC-CSN) and their employer remain at a standstill.

The union represents a variety of employees at the university, including counsellors, information technology specialists, as well as coordinators, psychologists, and nurses.

“We were given a 10 day mandate. We are on strike today. We really hope to get back to the table and resolve the issue. That is our intent,” said SEPUC/CUPEU President Shoshana Kalfon. “We don’t want to be on strike, but we need the university to move closer to what our demands are.”

They began picketing at 9 a.m. on Wednesday at the corner Bishop and Maisonneuve, near the downtown campus and will continue until 1 p.m. They are also picketing on Sherbrooke outside the Loyola Campus in NDG.

The Concordia office employees have a two-week strike mandate.

“It was very difficult to get them to the table to talk about hybrid. And so in May, we received a strike mandate from our membership to strike. And when we saw over the summer that it wasn’t moving, we decided it was time. They provided an offer. We had an assembly yesterday. And our membership rejected their offer,” said Kalfon.

The union president noted that the Concordia’s current offer doesn’t meet their demands.

“We were really looking to go back to what we had, which was like a 30-20 split. We were on campus three days a week and off on a weekly basis. Their current offer was a 70-30 split. We don’t want to impact the operations of the university. We are professionals. We understand how we impact the university. Hopefully though, the university understands that we are a part of the institution. How what we do is important.”

Concordia university said that negotiations with CUPEU are ongoing.

“We remain hopeful that there will be an agreement that addresses the needs of both the union members and the university,” reads an email statement from university spokesperson Vannina Maestracci to CityNews.