Université Laval professors end strike

The five-week strike by about 13,000 professors at Université Laval ended Thursday.

Both the union and the university voted last night to accept the proposal put together by the provincial conciliator. Professors are expected to return to work, and the university hopes classes can resume Friday or Monday at the latest, it said in a news release.

About 23,000 students have been directly affected by cancelled classes.

The new agreement provides for the hiring of 80 new professors and salary increases of 15 percent over three years — which 92 per cent of professors were in favour of.

The Union of Professors and Professors of Laval University (SPUL) was asking for 100 new professors to be hired.

"When you look at the specifications and the problems we were trying to solve, we really have the impression of having made significant progress," said Louis-Philippe Lampron, the president of the union.

He says the biggest issue to tackle is the problem of work overload, as Université Laval was the only university in Quebec to lose professors in recent years.

The university says it hopes to have a detailed plan on how to make up for lost time soon, and had earlier suggested that it could extend the session.

Agreement expired

The university's last professors' collective agreement expired in May 2020. In January 2021, the two parties had signed a letter of agreement to renew it until December 1, 2022.

Dissatisfied with the progress of negotiations on the renewal of their employment contract, the teachers called an indefinite general strike on March 13.

Discussions with the employer party stumbled mainly on academic freedom, work overload, the hiring of new professors and salary catch-up.