Update on TSSU strike vote

The Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU) has conducted their strike vote and have announced a vote outcome in favour of strike. A resulting strike could result in four forms of job action including withholding student grades from the university. It is important to note that the strike vote does not yet mean that the TSSU is currently on strike.

SFU respects any union’s right to perform job action under the labour code, but we are surprised and disappointed TSSU stopped the negotiation process because there are over 200 outstanding items still to be discussed. 

This is the second time during the 22/23 collective bargaining period that TSSU has cancelled all bargaining meetings and walked away from negotiations since the commencement of the current round of bargaining.

The TSSU first paused negotiations between November 30, 2022 and January 12, 2023, and again suspended discussions earlier this month by voting to cancel all eight scheduled March negotiations and poll its members for a strike.  

Bargaining under the current mandate began on November 2, 2022 when the university tabled 87 proposals and the TSSU tabled 555 proposals.  

To date, the university and TSSU have made significant progress by discussing 405 of the 642 total proposals. However, there are still 237 outstanding proposals which have not yet been discussed. 

SFU has invited the TSSU back to the bargaining table in April to continue working together and negotiating these outstanding proposals. We are eager to collaborate on a collective agreement and want to table a monetary proposal which fulfills our commitment to becoming a living wage employer. 

We also want to mitigate job action that would disrupt our students’ academic pursuits or adversely impact other members of the university community. To move negotiations ahead productively, SFU has applied for mediation at the Labour Relations Board and will update the community on the results as it progresses.