UPEI saved $3.4M in salaries during month-long strike

The University of Prince Edward Island saved just over $3.4 million in salaries during a 26-day strike by faculty members, it said on Tuesday.

UPEI Faculty Association members walked off the job March 20. Points of dispute during talks to procure a new collective agreementwere heavy workloads, the need to hiremore full-time faculty members to cope with a growing student body, and a call for higher pay.

In a statement Tuesday, the university gave details of the net savings that accrued from not paying faculty members during the strike and outlined how students are being compensated for the disruption to their semesters.

The total salary savings amounted to $3,430,840, with$2,553,294 being saved from the UPEI budget and $877,546 from the separate budget for the Atlantic Veterinary College.

As part of the settlement, the university paid the pension contributions of faculty members for the strike period, totalling $303,669. The AVC paid its striking faculty members emergency fees for cases that required urgent care. When combined with pension contributions for AVC faculty, that totalled $253,146.

That leaves $2,249,625 in net savings that is beingdistributed to UPEI students and $624,400 for AVC students, as follows:

• Payments for UPEI's full-time domestic graduate and undergraduate students amount to $350 each.
• International undergraduate students attending UPEI, who pay substantially higher tuition rates,are getting$700.
• Domestic Doctor of Veterinary Medicine students at AVCare getting $1,050, while international students receive $4,200 in compensation.
• Domestic part-time students are receiving$125 while international part-time students get $250.

"The university has structured the disbursement of the funds as fairly and equitably as possible, considering student status [full-time versus part-time] and whether students pay domestic versus international tuition fees," the university said in a statement.

Payments were scheduled to be made to eligible students by April26, according to the university.