More than a year after their collective agreement ended, staff at Concordia University are calling on their employer to make hybrid work available to all professional employees — the union’s main demand as they hold several strike days during the fall semester.
Members of the union for professional employees at Concordia University (CUPEU–CSN) have been without a collective agreement since May 2023.
Concordia does not have a university-wide policy on hybrid work, but it currently relies on guidelines created by a working group following the COVID-19 pandemic, university spokesperson Vannina Maestracci said.
“The guidelines prioritize services to our community, first and foremost students who are on campus for courses, and also support the university’s core activities — teaching, research, knowledge creation and the student experience,” Maestracci said in an email Friday.
She noted the flexibility to work from is home is “based on the sector’s leader’s vision.”
To put pressure on their employer, 600 members of CUPEU–CSN walked off the job in Montreal on Wednesday and Friday during the first week of class. More strike days are planned for next week.
The union adopted a two-week strike mandate in May, with the aim of reaching an agreement with Concordia on framing hybrid work.
It says without a university policy in place, hybrid work has not been applied fairly despite becoming the “standard for many professionals.”
University ‘refuses’ to broach hybrid work, union says
In a statement issued on Aug. 23, the union said negotiators have been in talks with the employer for a year, but it is “refusing even to broach the subject at negotiation meetings.”
“At the moment, access to hybrid work is inequitable across the university,” said CUPEU–CSN president Shoshana Kalfon in a statement. “What we are requesting is to agree on a framework that avoids any inequity, and to include a guarantee that professional employees can do part of their work from home.”
Valentin Eidelman, a programmer analyst for Concordia’s fine arts department, was one of the picketers in front of the university’s EV building in downtown Montreal on Wednesday.
As an employee of a “small” IT group, he said he came to protest because his work involves attending Zoom meetings and sending emails — all of which he can accomplish from his home in Laval, Que., instead of commuting for two hours each day.
“I don’t want to work remotely five days a week,” Eidelman said. “But there’s a lot of my work that can be done remotely with absolutely no difference other than chit-chat.”
He said applying back-to-work measures without considering a person’s job description “makes no sense.”
In an email, a spokesperson for Concordia said the employer would not discuss ongoing negotiations, but that it remains hopeful to reach an agreement that addresses the union members’ and the university’s needs.