Vancouver Island University and one faculty union have bargained a new contract, but students are still locked out by a strike that has now entered its fourth week.
VIU and the BC Government and Service Employees' Union ratified a two-year agreement Friday that covers nearly 200 faculty members who have declined to cross the picket line around VIU since March 10. The VIU Faculty Association's roughly 600 members remain on strike, meaning classes have not yet resumed for nearly 20,000 VIU students, some of whom are now being offered tuition fee refunds.
"We know that if we can get them in on or before April 11, we can finish the term before the end of April," said Toni O'Keeffe, a spokesperson for VIU. She said that VIU is still optimistic that date can be met.
Ms. O'Keeffe said that students who are unable to stay until the end of April due to circumstances including weddings, internships or grad school, may be eligible for a refund of their tuition fees. If classes extend beyond April, any student would be eligible for the same.
However, students requesting a refund would be required to withdraw from their classes, meaning the work they put into the semester, as well as their course credits, would be lost.
That did not sit well with Ryan King, a student in VIU's suspended Green Building and Renewable Energy program. His cohort is the last expected to graduate from the program and he feared lost credits might mean he would be unable to receive his diploma. That is, of course, unless he can wait out the ongoing standoff between the university and the unions.
According to Patrick Barbosa, a spokesperson for the VIU Students' Union, lost grades are not the only problem with the VIU offer.
"When you're a student you're paying all sorts of costs. You're paying rent, you're paying for textbooks... you lose income because you're studying and obviously can't be in the workforce as much as if you weren't," he said. "there's all sorts of indirect costs of attending post-secondary institutions and (VIU) isn't committed at this time to refunding any of those."
Mr. Barbosa said the Students' Union was considering its options for legal recourse.
"Students, when they attend the university, basically enter a contract for a delivery of services. Those services have a timeline," he said. "If the courses aren't delivered by April 28, students have the right to ask for, in our opinion... indirect costs in addition to tuition fees."
Whether classes extend into May remains to be seen, but there appears to be some indication that an end to the dispute may be on its way.
Dan McDonald, the president of VIUFA, said talks have been increasingly productive and both sides are working hard to broker a deal.
"We've spent three days bargaining this week… I'm hopeful," said Mr. McDonald, who was preparing to return to the table when reached by telephone on Friday.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested the BC Government and Service Employees' Union was also on the picket lines.