yaya Monday, March 28, 1988; ne Other Press Student Council in Labour VANCOUVER (CUP) Contract negotiations between SFU’s student society and their employee union have polarized can- didates in the student council election race. Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 2396 and their student society employers have been locked in contract negotiations since last December. Documents leaked to SFU’s student newspaper, the Peak, in February, suggest the student society is demanding 93 concessions from the union to secure what they call "management rights’. The concessions include removal of clauses protecting employees against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, political and personal opinion, union activity, and against sexual harassment. The Unity team, headed by presiden- tial candidate and incumbent, Nelson Quiroga, is arguing the CUPE workers have too much bargaining power, and the positions have fallen out of students’ hands. The slate claims it is a coalition of the campus Liberal, NDP and Social Credit clubs. Quiroga called an impromptu press conference last week to air the Unity slate’s charges that CUPE members were influencing the election by supporting the Grassroots party, in an attempt to secure a better contract. Quiroga’s complaints stem from a letter by CUPE regional director, Ray Arsenault, encouraging "CUPE mem- bers, their family and friends who are taking courses at SFU" to vote for Grassroots candidates in the student elections last week. "Please help our brothers and sisters achieve a fair con- tract,” wrote Arsenault. Quiroga said he was "outraged and apalled" by what he called "blatant third party intervention" by CUPE. "One of the largest unions in the country is at- tempting tio undermine the elections held here at SFU,” he said. But the meeting soon erupted into a yelling match, when Grassroots can- didates accused Unity of violating pre- elcection campaigning rules by speak- ing on the issue during polling. Union representatives counter that their actions are justified given the Unity slate’s openly hostile stance. "In running fir re-election the Unity slate have based their campaign almost entirely on staff-bashing, anti-union sentiments, misinformation about con- tract negotiations, and personal attacks on staff members,” said Rick Witheford, CUPE shop steward. WE DO CARE AgovT EDUCATION # Fee Increases by Aeriol Alderking Bill Day says that the col- lege will ' likely get the same base grant that we got this year and I believe a modest increase for inflation." Day’s educated guess is that the base grant will be 2.5 percent. Currently the net cost of the package offered to the DKFA in negotiations is 3.2 percent and "the college does not intend to reduce its total offerings". Day says he will make every effort to insure that the regular employees have secure jobs. They are also working to create new regular positions and have added 16 new facul- ty since April, 1987. Day’s commitment is to ongoing funding for the positions created. Day says that it "appears likely that there will be a spe- cial allocation for increased student enrollment" as a result of a presentation made to the government by the BC Association of Colleges. Day acted on the committee that prepared the documentation and reasoning for the in- creased funding. "There is enormous energy poured into putting pressure on the government, however, it is not by public denunciation. A lot of people would like to see me stand outside the parlia- ment building and pour gasoline on myself." The heat is on student fees though, and increases being considered are one to two dollars per credit. That’s a 4.5 to 9 percent increase that students will have to bear in addition to their courseloads. Volume XXIV; Issue IX An unofficial congratulations to: Karen Downey - President Caria Crozier - Vice President Tracy Harrison - Secretary Scott Nelson - Treasurer The results came in at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday night with two votes outstanding. The closest race was for treasurer with Cathy SchofieldN running second followed by Julian Smit. Negotiator Calls Meeting by Aeriol Alderking The DKFA and ad- ministration were back at the table Thursday night at the in- vitation of private mediator, Vince Ready. The main issue according to Len Millis is article 3.04 of the collective agreement.The language of this article allows for administration to hire solely on the basis of profes- sional qualifications and does not take into account fiscal considerations. A hearing was held before an independant arbitrator in May, 1987 to resovle a dis- pute between the College and the Faculty Association. The Association said that the Col- lege was violating the collec- tive agreement by prohibiting selection committees from choosing the best candidate. The arbitrator concluded "the directive (from the College) was unreasonable and ar- bitrary, supported only by fis- cal considerations......did not result in an educatonal decision which was best for students or the institution, al- though I concede that, from administration’s perspective, a budgetary goal may have been achieved = If the current language of article 3.04 is changed in any way and there is cause for another dispute of the same nature, it will have to go to ar- bitration again. Millis’ con- cern is that the language being negotiated now, gives the College financial ad- vantages while removing any obligation to explain its ac- tions.If this language is ac- cepted, the probability of the Faculty Association winning a subsequent hearing is decreased dramatically. The administration’s dif- ficulty with the existing lan- uage is that there 1s no udget planned for "surprise decisions". The selection committee is not responsible or accountable for the budgetary effects of their decisions.Bill Day, however, did not see how quality of education would be affected when the selection committee still sets the criteria for hiring. The negotiations are bac in motion though, and there was an agreement in principle reached as to how to deal with the issue. Millis said they have "agreed to a set of prin- ciples that should lead to an agreement if all of them are accepted. By Thursday we’ll know whether these prin- ciples are agreed to and if agree to, it will be a matter of days before a detailed ten- tative agreement is reached." Millis said, "I’m en- couraged by the progress that we have made."Ross Cameron was "cautiously op- timistic” saying, "I’m com- fortable with the way we’ve ‘dealt with 3.04."