Students are calling on the province to speak up and help get a deal made between UNBC’s faculty and administration.
The Advanced Education Ministry is refusing to comment on the job action while we’re at the collective bargaining stage.
MLA Kathy Corrigan is the NDP’s Advanced Education Critic and she has been watching the drama unfold on University Way.
She says collective bargaining should be allowed to continue, though she also points out a “Deeper problem” of the province cutting funding for post-secondary education.
“That means that colleges and universities around the province are being caught,” she says. “Tuition is going up, tuition is a greater part of college and university budgets, the provincial portion is less, that’s putting a squeeze on institutions.”
“Not only have they not kept up with inflation, they’ve actually cut the funding for post-secondary, it’s being felt all across the system and I feel that students, if they’re blaming the provincial government for that, they’ve put their blame in the right place,” Corrigan says.
Even though there are no negotiations scheduled in the near future, the university stresses that talks have not broken off and that the plan is to end this semester on schedule.
(UNBC picket photographed at their 3rd Ave. office, one of five locations around the city).
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