As you’ll remember from our December 2025 bargaining update with its FAQ’s, we have been waiting for the provincial public-sector bargaining landscape to de-fog, since it took the province until late November of 2025 to settle with the first public unions in the province. By now, happily, most of the major unions in BC have reached tentative agreements with their employers, including BCGEU, the BCTF, and several others. And the provincial “mandate”—ie., what the province is willing to fund—is becoming far clearer and has shown itself to be consistent in each settlement. This growing consensus will enable us now to resume discussions with UBC as our employer with much greater clarity. We’ve scheduled table discussions for late April and early May (similar timing to the previous round). We have also agreed with the UBC administration on an arbitrator, in case we need this option.
This means that in our bargaining sessions we can focus on determining which of our three options will be most likely and useful to us:
- The “fair sailing” option: Reaching an agreement that meets our needs and is consistent with the provincial mandate for other public-sector unions;
- The “keep calm and carry on” option: Determining which issues still need work and discussion before we can come to a successful agreement (and planning therefore for further negotiating dates);
- The “make lemonade” option: Deciding that arbitration is going to be a better option for us than what’s being offered at the table, and beginning the preparations for arbitral hearings.
You may already know that every public sector union settlement has some features in common, like the general wage increase and the length of the agreement, and many features that vary in form but not in value. Some unions prioritize low-wage redress, some benefits, some job-steps and minima, some workload and working conditions, some hiring guarantees, some job-protection, some classification issues, and so on. All of these features vary from union to union and deal to deal; what has been consistent across BC’s public sector is the VALUE of those agreements (monetary and financial). We will be both firm and creative when we return to the bargaining table regardless of which option we find ourselves in.
As always, contact us anytime with your thoughts and queries.
