Questions & Answers

MoveUP at Capilano University is made up of all the non-faculty, non-management workers at the university. Our DDA’s, custodial workers, groundskeepers, and those completing administrative work in various departments and faculties are your colleagues in the MoveUP group.

MoveUP is part of the COPE Union. Our Cap U MoveUP folks are in Local 378 of COPE. Other members of this union, which supports office and technical workers across BC, are BC Hydro and ICBC.

The strike is mainly about a single issue: a fair appeal process when the administration denies telecommuting arrangements.

This is not about staff claiming a right to choose when to work from home. It is about our staff colleagues being able to bring unreasonable decisions to a labour arbitrator chosen mutually by the administration and union. This issue has not been resolved. Last week during bargaining we hoped there was progress on this issue, but the written response from the University bargaining team fell well short of resolution.

When the administration began the hybrid office program in 2020, it promised to work with MoveUP to include it in the collective agreement. The administration’s bargaining committee was refusing to do so. There was some movement on this last week, then the University bargaining team broke off talks. Our colleagues are once again asking the employer to return to the negotiation table to finalize the language on this issue.

Also, surprisingly, the University bargaining team, unlike other public sector employers, has now taken the position that staff wage increases won’t be retroactive. This is not the system norm and would need to be addressed before pickets are lifted. These are the main outstanding issues.

No, we are not on strike - MoveUP is. We have a right to honour their picket line without any penalty aside from withholding of pay for work not done. The CFA is encouraging our members to honour the picket line.

As of Monday, 15 May, 1:20 p.m., MoveUP is on strike. However, this is different from a “walkout” with picket lines. Unions can take a wide range of “strike actions” (aka job actions) that fall short of a walkout. During those, their members continue to receive pay, and other union members don’t need to worry about crossing a picket line.

MoveUP started by withholding any overtime work. (In 2015, the CFA started its strike action by withholding grades.) On Wednesday of that week, MoveUP took the further step of having the IT Services staff members withhold their services. They did not set up pickets, just protest stations. These strike actions do not give faculty the right to withhold their services.

MoveUP went on a full walkout strike June 6. Picket lines were established. We have the right to not cross that picket line.

You have the right to honour and refuse to cross the picket line. The employer cannot require you to work. We encourage you to exercise your right to support our staff colleagues.

In 2015, when CapU faculty went out on strike, MoveUP were there with us in great numbers. This helped us to end that strike after 3 days of picketing. Support for our colleagues could bringa quicker resolution to their dispute; continuing to work may slow that process.

By supporting them, we also strengthen our own position in the current round of bargaining. Solidarity and the ability to walk off the job if we reach an impasse, is a critical piece of our bargaining power.

Any work that you complete during an active picket line amounts to crossing that picket line. This is true whether it is teaching, library services, coordination, program development, practicum supervision, ancillary duties (departmental/committee work), participation in search committees, any interaction with administrators, RA supervision, professional development, student communications (aside from letting them know you are not working), etc.

When it comes to not crossing a picket line, where you might be doing the work is largely immaterial. If you are completing the work from home or online this is the same as completing the work on campus or in your office.

Booking off-campus space to deliver your course or meeting your student in a coffee shop would also count as a “crossing” of that picket line. Relocating our work is not a loophole around the picket line.

Kartik Bhardwa, CapU’s VP-People, Culture, and Diversity, has stated that if MoveUP sets up a picket line, no faculty will be paid or receive pensionable service for the duration of the picketing, unless they notify the University that they are continuing to work. He has not provided the process for this notification yet.

As noted above, this applies to all work, including PD and ancillary services, which are both part of our paid work. All faculty (regardless of position or of reg/non-reg status) are required to do 37 hours of PD per section. This is paid work, as is attending departmental and committee meetings (including search committees). If you continue to do this work during a MoveUP picket line, and wish to be paid, you will need to report to the University that you are crossing that picket line.

NREGs are only paid in the semesters in which they are assigned work. If you are an NREG and are not assigned any work this term, you will not lose any pay, even if you picket.

By contrast, regularized faculty have their pay spread across 12 months. Therefore, unless you are on vacation, you will not be paid while MoveUP is picketing unless you affirm you are working. This applies to you even if you have completed all of your assigned work and PD.

We have an agreement with Move Up that faculty who are due to go on vacation can return to work the day previous and then go straight in to the earned vacation time. This will not be considered crossing a picket line.

Other than this, we ask that you act in solidarity with MoveUP and not affirm to the employer that you are working during the time that MoveUP has picket lines up. And we encourage you to join your staff and faculty colleagues on the picket line.

Yes, you are. The Labour Relations Code requires that your benefits continue during “any strike or lockout affecting the University.”

Under our collective agreement, article 3.4.4, the University must pay for the first month of your benefits.

If you attend on campus and do a 4-hour shift on the picket line in support of MoveUP, the CFA and FPSE will pay you $150 per day*. You will need to sign in with a strike captain.

See the Picketing Guidelines section on this page for information about being on the picket line.

*The CFA pays for picketing shifts for the first three days. After that, the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators provides the strike pay.

There is no effect on your vacation if it began prior to the picket line. If you are a regular member, you are entitled to paid vacation. Continuing to receive pay during your vacation is not the same as crossing a picket line.

No, the employer has stated that in this situation that faculty will not receive sick-leave pay. If you are still ill when the strike ends, you would then start sick leave.

However, if you were already on sick leave when the picket line went up, your sick leave continues during the walkout. The same goes for any other form of leave: if you are on parental leave (including income top-up and benefits) or any other paid or unpaid leave, that leave continues.

If you would like to support the MoveUP position and want this information shared in an absence alert, you are welcome to do so. Again, your participation and support of the picket line is your choice. It is a right you have under our collective agreement to show your solidarity with our colleagues in MoveUP.