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VANCOUVER — Shortly after asking the Labour Relations Board (LRB) for an injunction to prevent Teaching Assistants from picketing in front of their administration building or anywhere else on campus the UBC employer’s bargaining representatives told CUPE local 116 they no have no authority to set additional bargaining dates.

Connie Credico, bargaining representative for two of the three CUPE locals at UBC said, “Who can second guess this employer. While this group of support workers has been doing everything possible to try to reach a fair agreement UBC has rejected attempts to break the impasse. They are engaging in a strategy for divisiveness.”

According to Credico, UBC’s negotiators have stated that they have no authority to continue bargaining. “Perhaps they are looking for a white knight to come and rescue them from the mess they find themselves in,” said Credico “clearly, their intransigence on every single issue has backed them into a corner.”

While local 116 representing a large number of campus support staff from carpenters and construction workers to lab assistants, catering, cleaning, technology and much more have taken a strike vote they had agreed to continue bargaining as long as possible.

“Sowing seeds of dissension within what Martha Piper constantly refers to as the campus community seems to be doing more to destroy morale and community than build it. It’s beginning to look like UBC wants to push this dispute off campus and into the streets of Vancouver.”

“At the rate they are going,” says Credico ” they might just succeed.”

Meanwhile Friday, March 7 will see job actions at the Koerner Library from 7:00 a.m. onward and a full staff rally in front of the administration building from 12 noon onward.

Contact: Connie Credico, CUPE national representative (604) 209-7308