The Muse, vol. 41, no. 01 (14 September 1990)

              the muse
September 14, 1990	
Marriott strike resolved
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Volume 41, Number 1
Company and union reach agreement
By MIKE DAVIS
The striking cafeteria
workers at Memorial University have voted one hundred
percent in favour of a collective agreement to end a three
month labour dispute.
The dispute between their
local of the Newfoundland Association of Public Employees
and the university's food service contractor, Marriott
Foods, ended Wednesday
night.
"Negotiations started when
both parties received a call
from the conciliation officer,"
said C. S. Rennie, Special Advisor to the Division of Labour
at Memorial University.
This happened one day after
Tom Hanlon, union
negotiator, was arrested for
breech of a court injunction
earlier in the week.
Rennie. who was interviewed before the vote, said he
expected "...the food services
workers [would] start returning to their jobs as soon as
possible if the contract [was]
agreed upon."
After Hanlon's arrest,
another union negotiator, Neil
Puddister, was brought in to
take his place.
When asked whether this
change affected the talks. Rennie said, "There was no change
in the spirit of the negotiations
with the new negotiator. (The
university administration) has
always been able to resolve
differences with both [men]."
Commenting on the atmosphere surrounding the strike,
Rennie said, "Tempers were
bound to flare as there was
some hard feelings. It is the
hope of the university that
these feelings will be resolved
very, very quickly."
Council of the Students'
Union vice-president external/
communications Gerry Ryan,
concurred on this and said he
hoped "there are no grudges or
feelings of regret and that
university life returns to normal."
CSU president. Wade
Brake, expressed concerns
about the tactics of the food
service union and criticized
some of Hanlon's remarks
about students.
He said that Hanlon was
"unrealistic and unethical" in
comments he had made to
media before he was arrested.
Brake also expressed concerns that some of the strikers
may have been responsible for
scattering staples at the entrances of the university. He said
at least two students, along
with some maintenance
workers, had tires on their
vehicles flattened by the
staples.
NAPE picketers denied any
knowledge of this action.
Brake said despite his concerns, he felt most of the food
service employees are "sincere
and nice people".
He added that "the strikers
had some valid complaints
about the contract."
Puddister, said "the union is
very satisfied with the new
contract." He added that 99
members voted on the deal and
all of them approved.
The settlement guarantees
the current 82 full-time positions.
Also all permanent part-
time positions will be kept unless the student population
falls below the 1989 level of
enrollment.
For the first time there will
be an employees" pension
plan. It will be integrated into
the Canadian Pension Plan
with both the employer and
employees contributing six per
cent.
Students identified
Permanent plastic for posterity
By HEIDI HARLEY
The department of Student
Affairs and Services is footing
the $35,000 bill for implementing the new five-year
version of standard student
identification.
The cards, modeled after
those in many other Canadian
universities, contain a plastic
slip with the student's name.
Fall registration goes well
By LAURA CURRIE
Fall registration brought virtually no problems and
showed a marked increase in
the number of students attend-
ing both campuses of
Memorial University.
According to Tim Morgan,
Assistant Registrar, as of Sept.
6, 10.486 full-time and 2442
part-time students were
registered at St. John's. Grenfell College recorded 992 full-
time and 881 part-time
students registered for the upcoming semester.
Compared to last year's
statistics these figures note a
5.5 and 12.5 per cent increase
respectively.
Despite the rising student
population, there were
generally no difficulties with
registration. Morgan said,
"The number of complaints
was almost nil."
He also commented that
telephone registration went
more smoothly this semester
than it had previously.
One possible reason for the
positive response could he the
installation of sixteen additional phone lines.
An estimated one thousand
students per day used the system.
The hours of operation for
telephone registration were
extended as well.
Moreover. telephone
registration was available to
students during fees payment
week. In previous semesters,
registration ended one week
prior to fees payment.
Another advantage for students was the option to drop
and add courses on the designated payment days. Computer terminals were set up in
the Thomson Student Centre
gym for this purpose.
While many students paid
tuition early at the cashier's
office, more students opted to
settle their debts on the assigned days.
This caused minor inconveniences with regard to line
ups. attributed to the higher
student population.
Despite the smooth sailing
this semester. Morgan did
have one word of warning. In
the near future certain courses
will not be available for adding
by the system.
Morgan said. "Departments
take control of the process
when there is an extremely
high demand for certain courses."
In these situations students
will require the proper drop
and add forms.
This should avoid the arbitrary nature of the competition for courses after wait lists
arc dropped.
In addition, students needing particular courses for the
completion of degree
programs will be given
priority.
number, signature, a bar code,
and a color photo. The cards
will function both as student
ids and as library cards.
Carson Leonard. Director of
Student Affairs and Services,
and chairman of the committee
on student identification cards.
said there was "no formal
ruling" about whether the
cards would also have
students' birthdates on them.
However, because it is contrary to the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms to discriminate on the basis of age.
and the committee wished to
keep the amount of information to a minimum, birthdates
and faculties were not included.
"MUN identification is supposed to identify you as a student. There was concern
abouut including information
that didn't need to be there."
said Leonard.
"We considered dropping
the student number from the
card, because there is no real
need for it to be on there, but
we decided to include it. so
students have a permanent
record of it - sometimes they
forget."
Leonard said the bar code
strip was chosen for the convenience of the library. Eventually, all computers on
campus will be hooked into
one system, but until that integration takes place, stickers
will be placed on the cards at
registration to update them.
When the system is in place, a
student's registered status will
pop up on the library computer
when checking books out.
An interim system is being
considered, but according to
Leonard, it is contingent on the
amount of time the proposal
for the overall system will
take.
"If it will only take two years
for the overall system, there's
no point in paying for an interim system this year." As yet.
there is no indication of how-
far away the overall system is.
Wade Brake, president of
the Council of the Students'
Union, said at CSU election
times, a second sticker would
be placed over the first to indicate that you had voted.
"The sticker can't be
removed without damaging
the original one." Brake said.
"Someone whose card has a
damaged sticker won't be
eligible to vote."
the 15.000 MUN students
should all be able to get their
cards this week. Leonard was
happy about how smoothly
things were running.
"Wc estimated we'd be able
to do about 3200 on Monday,
and we did in fact do over
3000." he said. "It's going better than I'd hoped, if anything."
There is a $15 replacement
fee for lost cards.