On July 3, 2024, ULFA sent the Board a full proposal for an Essential Services Agreement (ESA). On July 31, 2024, ULFA sent the Board a note suggesting that we begin negotiating an ESA. We have now agreed to meet November 4, 2024. An ESA must be in place and approved by the Alberta Labour Relations Board before any constructive actions can be taken if the negotiation of a new Academic Staff Collective Agreement (ASCA) between the Board and ULFA reaches an impasse. Such actions include mediation and strike/lockout. Our previous ASCA expired July 1st, 2024.
It is important to note that our proposal is very similar to the last ESA, in place during mediation and lockout/strike. We learned lessons as a result of that experience. In particular, in our revisions to the last ESA, we increase the number of staff members deemed essential, based upon identifying more who supervise clinical practicums with vulnerable clients and based upon identifying critical ethics work by principal investigators on human participant research.
Developing an ESA should be a cooperative venture, since both sides have similar interests in reducing the possibility of public harm from job actions. In the previous round of negotiations, there was some disagreement about which of our members carried out essential duties.
In the end, the ESA last round did identify members supervising practicums with clients as being essential. We are hopeful that the negotiations this round will take place in an efficient and amicable manner.
For Members’ information we have included our ESA proposal here.
Note: ULFA originally published a blog on ESA negotiations on October 9, 2024. This revised blog was posted on October 23, 2024.