McGill law professors begin unlimited strike as classes resume

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McGill law professors begin an unlimited strike Monday and say they don’t expect to return to work until the university ends a legal challenge to the existence of their union.

Kirsten Anker, the vice-president of the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), said the decision to strike came after the university on Aug. 18 cancelled the four remaining negotiation sessions that had been scheduled, including one that was supposed to take place the following day.

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“That was something that really disappointed our members who were still maintaining hope for a kind of conciliatory negotiated outcome,” she said in an interview.

The university’s decision to cancel the negotiation sessions made it clear that the school had chosen a different path, Anker said.

This is the second time the union has gone on strike — law professors walked off the job for eight weeks after classes ended last spring — but Anker said this time, the strike is expected to send a stronger message because it comes right as students are returning to school. First-year law students have their first classes scheduled for Monday, while second- and third-year students are due to return on Wednesday.

“It’s a stronger tactic because it’s more disruptive, it’s more uncomfortable for everyone involved. We don’t like not showing up for our classes and disappointing our students,” Anker said.

The union believes McGill is attempting to delay talks until the school’s court challenge to a labour board decision certifying the union takes place, including by asking the provincial government to order the two sides into binding arbitration, Anker added. Hearings in that case are scheduled to take place in December.

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“(McGill is) contesting our very right to exist,” she said. “We can quibble about the content of an agreement, about how much salary increase — that’s all fair, and if we can’t come to an agreement, then we go to an arbitrator, but drop this attempt to stop us from existing.”

While an arbitrator might be able to reach an acceptable agreement on a salary dispute, the process is less likely to consider the professors’ other goals, Anker said, such as a say over the appointment of their dean and for decision-making at the university to be more transparent and less centralized.

The union, which maintains a negotiated settlement can be reached, has filed a court challenge to the arbitration order.

Earlier this month, a Quebec Superior Court judge rejected a request for the order to be suspended until that challenge can be heard.

Justice Pascale Nolin said that after an initial examination, she didn’t accept the union’s argument the labour minister’s order was unreasonable.

Nolin wrote that an arbitrator can be appointed when negotiations are unsuccessful, but the law gives the minister latitude to decide exactly what that means.

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As she analyzed whether negotiations had been unsuccessful, Nolin pointed out that both sides attempted to minimize positions they had previously taken in public, in order to bolster their arguments.

While the union argued in court that there had been steady progress during the negotiations, it had previously told members the university was negotiating in bad faith. McGill, on the other hand, told the court only a few minor issues had been agreed upon, yet the university had previously issued a statement saying significant progress had been made.

Nolin found that it was reasonable to conclude talks had been unsuccessful.

She also said the union was unlikely to suffer irreparable harm, because during the first phase of the arbitration process, negotiations can continue and the union can keep exercising pressure tactics, including going on strike.

In an emailed statement, sent before the strike was announced, McGill said university negotiators have met with the union nearly two dozen times since December 2022 and most of those meetings were held with a conciliator appointed by the province.

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“On Aug. 18, McGill reiterated to AMPL that it does not consider that further conciliation meetings would lead to resolution. In a message sent to both parties on Aug. 20, the head of conciliation at the Ministry of Labour agreed with this position,” the university said.

“McGill has been acting in good faith throughout and looks forward to the conclusion of a fair collective agreement.”

Finn Makela, the vice-president of the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université, said McGill is unique in Quebec because until AMPL was recognized, none of its professors had been unionized. Professors in the faculty of education and faculty of arts have since held unionization campaigns and filed for union certification, which is being challenged by the university.

Makela said he’s “shocked and dismayed” an institution with a mission to serve the public good and a history of collegial self-government would respond to unionization efforts the way it has.

“The unfortunate conclusion that I come to is that they just don’t want their professors to be unionized and that’s why they’re using both legal tactics and stalling tactics to avoid concluding a collective agreement,” he said.

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