UNBC faculty held a strike vote Wednesday, with 84 per cent of academic staff that voted casting a ballot in favour.
The UNBC Faculty Association has two days of talks booked next week with university administrators, according to association president Stephen Rader, but he said negotiations at this point are "bogged down."
"I'm pretty disappointed," he said. "Everything seemed really positive after our last settlement so I thought this would be an easy round."
Faculty have been working at UNBC without a contract since June 30. The association agreed to a five-year deal at the end of 2015, that was backdated to July 1, 2014, which provided a 10 per cent wage increase over the life of the deal. The contract was the culmination of a lengthy dispute that included mediation, a two-week strike in March 2015 and finally binding arbitration through a process only permitted for first collective agreements.
