Dear Members,

Please consider sending the below email to your MLA to let them know we hope their support of Members’ concerns and their commitment to Faculty and Professional Support staff equals Members’ commitment to providing the best educational programming to improve the economy and quality of life in Nova Scotia.

Your AAU Bargaining Team

The email link states the following:

The Atlantic Academic Union, representing over 1,000 Nova Scotia Community College Faculty and Professional Support employees (Counsellors, Student Advisors, Accessibility Specialists, Librarians, Registrars), filed for conciliation on Friday, January 19th, after reaching a bargaining impasse. If an agreement is not reached, NSCC could be facing the first strike in its history.

We recognize and value our students and our industry and community partners in Nova Scotia and we know that labour action can be disruptive.  The fact that there has never been a strike in the history of the College tells you how strongly we feel about our current work environment.  In November 2023, union members voted 97 percent in favour of a strike.

Our members are suffering the effects of excessive workloads, lack of fair hiring, discrimination and harassment in the workplace, and the erosion of the purchasing power of their wages. All of this is occurring while they watch NSCC continue to expand and increase wages for management positions rather than increasing the front-line positions supporting our students and the citizens of this province. Union members have not received a collective raise putting them ahead of inflation since 2013.

Our members train for every priority in the provincial budget – health, home care, trades, the environment, IT, and education. Without our members training and supporting students on these career paths the province won’t meet its goals.  Nova Scotia industry also depends on job ready training provided by our members to maintain and grow their labour force. The number of front-line NSCC faculty and Professional Support employees to meet students’ education needs and their rising demand for mental health and learning supports is inadequate.

While NSCC’s preferred dates have delayed the conciliation process, the union’s eight-member negotiation team is still hopeful for a productive and reasonable resolution to our outstanding bargaining issues, and we hope to work toward this throughout conciliation.

We believe you support our concerns and the welfare of Nova Scotians.  We hope we can count on your support to elevate these issues with Premier Tim Houston, and to have the Premier push NSCC to provide a reasonable contract to our members without having to take labour action.

Our members are hard-working, passionate, and committed to providing the best educational programming to improve the economy and quality of life in Nova Scotia. Please let us know that you are equally committed to them.

• Step 1: Click on the Find my MLA’s email address below

• Step 2: Find your riding and the corresponding MLA in the list

• Step 3: Copy your MLA’s address

• Step 4: Click on the Email your MLA button

• Step 5: Paste the copied email address into the To Address field of your email program that opens. The bcc field should be automatically populated with coordinator@atlanticau.ca.

• Step 6: The email should be sent from your personal email, please ensure you are using a personal email account.

• Step 7: Hit Send