The Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) has been periodically on strike since April 24, 2024. The union, which represents tenured and tenure-track professors at the Faculty of Law, received its certification in November 2022, after a year-long legal battle with McGill at Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT). After more than a year at the bargaining table, McGill and AMPL have yet to arrive at a collective agreement (CA) and the university continues to challenge the union’s certification with an appeal case at the TAT. 

On Sept. 12, AMPL announced that it had suspended its strike to extend “an olive branch” to the university and would return to work on the condition that McGill drop its judicial review of AMPL’s certification by Sunday, Sept. 15. Since the university has decided to maintain its case against the union, AMPL has resumed its strike, effective Sept. 16. 

In August, the university filed a request for arbitration, which Minister of Labour Jean Boulet granted, appointing Maître Jean Allard. After the appointment of an arbitrator, each side must choose an assessor—an advisor who works with the arbitrator—and have a pre-meeting with Allard. If the arbitrator concludes that there is no possibility of a resolution, then Allard would order interest arbitration—a formal court process at which point any ongoing strike must end. However, the union believes that McGill’s request for arbitration is driven by an intent to de-accredit the union. 

“The wheels of justice turn very slowly,” AMPL Vice President Kirsten Anker said in an interview with The Tribune. “If McGill was hoping to use arbitration as a shortcut to ending the strike without making any concessions to us, that plan is not going to happen […], which, of course, means that the semester will be at risk by that stage.”

According to Anker, when the university failed to attend a scheduled negotiation meeting during the summer, AMPL offered to forego a strike and accept arbitration on the CA’s monetary issues if McGill ended its judicial review case. AMPL believes the university’s ongoing challenge to its certification is an attempt to drain the union’s funds and morale rather than overturning the TAT’s decision, given they find McGill’s chances of winning the appeal to be low.  

“There are different ways to win in a legal battle and this is what we think the judicial review campaign is about, to either win outright on the law or continue with appeals and challenges […] that would exhaust us,” Anker said.

In solidarity with AMPL, representatives from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill, and Concordia University Professional Employees Union attended and spoke at the union’s rally on Sept. 11 in front of the James Administration Building. At the rally, AMPL Secretary Richard Janda reissued the union’s offer from the summer. 

“We accept arbitration on all monetary matters so [they] are off the table if you accept our existence. Accept our existence, stop this proceeding before the courts and let’s put into a collective agreement all the non-monetary matters we’ve agreed upon,” Janda said in his speech. “This isn’t about money, folks [….] This is about governance. This is about trying to make the university again a collegial institution.” 

The union says “the humanitarian suspension” of its strike, which they announced the day after the rally, arose as a goodwill gesture that the union is open to returning to work and as an attempt to draw attention to its offer.

“We reissued the offer on the understanding that if it’s not accepted by noon on Sunday, then we’ll go back on strike,” Anker said. “So it’s partly […] adjusted towards the administration. It’s also adjusted towards students because in particular, there are some time-sensitive processes [such as] getting forms in for graduate students, contracts for research assistants and setting them up with work.”

Shortly after the clock struck noon, on Sunday, Sept.15, AMPL announced through their social media channels that its strike’s hiatus had expired, given the university had disregarded the union’s offer. 

“The things that we cared about were refused,” Anker said. “So they did not agree to abandon their judicial review. The only thing that they did offer was to have an expedited […] schedule with the arbitrator.”

In an earlier statement to The Tribune on Sept.13, the McGill Media Relations Office (MRO) expressed content with AMPL’s decision to suspend its strike and said the university is eager to discuss the union’s concerns in the presence of the arbitrator. However, in response to The Tribune’s request for an explanation on why the university had yet to drop its judicial review case against AMPL, the MRO restated the university’s ongoing stance that a single-faculty union is too small of a bargaining unit. 

“McGill counts more than 1,700 professors whose appointment, tenure, salary, sabbatical leaves, and retirement are subject to the same regulations. If subsets as small as 42 or so professors, as in AMPL’s case, unionize and negotiate collective agreements, we could see over a dozen new unions join McGill’s current 16,” the MRO wrote in an email. 

“Labour relations at McGill would become unmanageably complex, cumbersome, and costly. […] Challenging the description of AMPL’s bargaining unit is not about opposing the unionization of professors. It is about protecting the future of McGill as an equitable and unionized employer,” the MRO continued.

The MRO also stressed McGill’s efforts to mitigate the strike’s effects on the student body and named some of its measures to ensure law students can complete their fall semesters. 

“The Dean of Law […] has been holding weekly Zoom sessions so that he and the Associate Dean (Academic) can take live questions from students and receive their concerns,” the MRO wrote. “Public information and measures we’ve taken are also posted on a dedicated webpage. Other measures taken included working with the Registrar’s office on ways to extend the add/drop period, allowing for late payment of fees without penalty, and providing optional sessions offered by the Dean and alumni.”

Anker told The Tribune that Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic), Christopher Manfredi is now the negotiation lead on McGill’s end. To Anker, this is a hopeful sign that a resolution may be on the horizon.

She also reiterated that in any strike or labour dispute, third parties are the most affected. 

“Strikes are inconvenient,” Anker said. “That is the only power lever that unions have against their employers, and there are always third parties who are affected. And we feel that, and we know that it’s just [about] the minimization.” 

Anker touched on the community’s concerns that the union’s strike has had impacts on incoming and returning law students. She stressed that AMPL’s negotiations with McGill will pave the way for other faculty unions.. 

“Students don’t necessarily understand the full picture of this yet, if they’re just focusing on the narrow […] legal arguments,” Anker said. “You can lose a litigation, but win in a broader strategic sense, and getting parties to spend money and time and energy on something is part of the strategy.”

“If [students think] that it’s going to stop at the lower level court, perhaps they’ve misunderstood what the project is here, because it’s not going to stop there on the McGill side. [….] And if, by any chance, we fall on a judge who doesn’t understand labour law, or [one who] sympathizes with McGill, then that’s the end of our union movement,” Anker continued. “Framing [the strike] as […] inconveniencing students […] as if it’s some minor thing […] misrepresents what’s at stake here.”

A previous version of this article mis-attributed a quote about the union’s reissued offer to McGill to AMPL Secretary Richard Janda. In fact, the speaker was AMPL Vice President Kirsten Anker. The Tribune regrets this error.