University of Saskatchewan President Peter Stoicheff, right with Mayor Greg Dionne (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

University of Saskatchewan

University of Saskatchewan reaches out to local alumni

May 9, 2019 | 8:20 AM

The University of Saskatchewan hosted local alumni at the Forest Centre Wednesday night.

The event was billed as giving former students the opportunity to hear about university’s plans going forward.

The Forest Centre is set to be home to the university’s P.A. campus, which will centralize all of the programs offered in the city in a single place. University president Peter Stoicheff said the wheels are in motion to get the facility ready.

“We’ve got renovation plans, as I understand it, the renovations are going to begin shortly and we plan to open in the fall of 2020,” he said.

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The new building will also allow for more spots in certain programs. Stoicheff said nursing will be playing a big role.

“Nursing is huge, our presence for nursing in P.A. is enormously important because of northern access among other things,” he said.

Currently there are just under 400 students taking classes with U of S in the city and Stoicheff expects this number to grow when they open the new building.

“It’s large enough that we can grow into it over the years,” he said.

Members from CUPE 1975 were outside to bring attention to their contract issues (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

While the president was greeting alumni inside the Forest Centre, members from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 1975 that represents support workers were reminding people about labour issues.

“We’re here to let the alumni know that we want Peter [Stoicheff] and the board of governors to get back to the bargaining table and get us a fair deal,” Jeff Theis, treasurer of CUPE 1975 said.

CUPE 1975 represents around 2,000 support workers at campuses across the province. These range from people working in maintenance to performing security functions.

Theis said a major sticking point in talks between the two sides has been on the issue of employee pensions.

“The university wants to arbitrarily cut our pension to a different type of inferior pension plan,” he said.

Theis said the general public have tended to be supportive of their efforts when members explain support workers don’t make large salaries and that the pension plan is important as a result.

According to Theis, the relationship between workers and the university is not in a good place right now.

“It’s very poor, very strained. Many of our members are very anxious, the anxiety level is very high and the morale is very low on campus and it’s not a good working relationship,” he said.

In an emailed statement to paNOW, the University of Saskatchewan said, in part, that they believe the most recent offer they made is a fair one. The university argues the current pension has required them to pay for shortfalls, which they say are diverting resources from important areas. It said the university is committed to ensuring a fair and reasonable pension for employees.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn