The picket lines are up now that labour negotiations between the Simon Fraser Student Society and support staff have fallen apart.
The society, a non-profit group representing about 25,000 undergrads, employs about 15 unionized staff to help with programs, publicity, research and providing student services. They also run the women's centre and Out on Campus, a space for queer students and their allies.
The two parties have been negotiating a collective agreement for roughly two years, but the student society served staff, represented by CUPE Local 3338, with a 72-hour lockout notice last Thursday.
"The employers put a proposal to us we didn't find acceptable," said CUPE member John Bannister.
According to Bannister, the society wants to reduce wages and cut the number of staff. Bannister also suspects the society wants to replace full-time unionized staff with cheaper labour from students.
"We don't think it's a money issue. It's a philosophy issue. They want to break the union," he said.
SFU is in the middle of summer semester, and the lockout means students can't get services they've already paid for, Bannister added.
Meanwhile, the society's board members are filling in for locked-out staff. Student society president Jeff McCann said the women's centre and Out on Campus space will remain open.
"There's still management, the board directors will maintain high service levels," he said.
The union responded by filing an injunction with the Labour Relations Board, asking that they step in and stop the students from running services while the lockout is on.
"They are trying to close it down, which is too bad," McCann said, adding that the society's board members are like management, and their interpretation is that they are not breaking labour relations rules.
The society gets 90 per cent of its money from student fees, which McCann said they are not prepared to raise at this point.
"Students pay their activity fee and they come to the food bank," he said. The society also had to cut its $10,000 share of an emergency bursary for poor students. The union's 12 permanent positions cost the society $748,911 annually, and full-time staff make about $30 an hour.
