McGill University’s striking law professors are concerned for students’ futures after the school threatened to cancel law school classes for the rest of the semester if no agreement is reached by Monday.
“We’re all concerned about the students. It’s very stressful,” said Kirsten Anker, vice-president of the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL).
“It’s unfathomable, the resistance they are presenting to a very basic right of workers to organize in their workplace. It’s a constitutional right.”
She said cancelling the semester could set undergraduate and graduate students back by up to a year and put foreign students’ study visas in jeopardy.
McGill’s administration sent an email to law school students Monday morning, saying the union must agree to end its strike, or the university will cancel courses taught by union members as of tomorrow.
The university says it will drop its legal challenge of the faculty’s right to unionize, one of AMPL’s key demands, if the union agrees to negotiate working conditions collectively with other employee associations at the school.
The university argues that it’s not plausible for classes to begin two months into the semester and still finish on time. However, Anker contends her union has offered a variety of options, such as shortening the winter break or extending the spring semester.
She added that the university has had weeks to find a solution, and while the union still needs to meet to discuss its options, her sense is that this “non-offer is not acceptable.”
Anker said her union is backed by others and has the financial resources to pay the 43 striking staff members a stipend should the semester be cancelled, but the hope is that a solution will be found.
“Things are still moving, and I am still very hopeful that we can sort this out before the students are impacted by a semester being cancelled,” she said.
The McGill Law Students’ Association says the university’s offer is “nothing more than smoke and mirrors,” and calls for both McGill and the union to be more flexible.
Quebec’s labour tribunal certified the law professors’ union in November 2022, but the union has yet to secure its first collective agreement.