what they're calling "cooperative gains," which means if you're going to give one employee group something you essentially have to go somewhere else in the institution and rob it. Cooke: Or charge their students more. Grieves: This is what makes negotiations tricky: long and drawn out and difficult for everybody. Is anyone in your association [staff or faculty] in any current danger? Cooke: No. Not that we know of . . . we have a really good communicative relationship with our administration. Things aren't always rosy and we don't always agree but it's clear communication and open. That doesn't mean that people aren't concerned . . . so we are vigilant. That's probably the best word to use. But we're being informed. Anything to add, Vicki? Grieves: Certainly recent settlements in other public sector unions have implications for our staff here. There haven't been any recent settlements in faculty at other institutions; we're all in the position of bargaining at the same time, which may work to our advantage. And the other kind of wildcard I think is that we've got what appears to be an outgoing provincial government. It's difficult to predict what their agenda is in this. Some fairly big bargaining units settled, and did get some of the salary increase they were looking for recently, [so we may want ] to settle while the settling's good. Cooke: [Also note that] our salaries have been frozen by this government for four years out of the last 10 --