Faculty and staff take a look at funding as they enter bargaining The Faculty and Staff Association (FSA) recently held an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss upcoming collective bargaining with the administration. Virginia Cooke, FSA president, and Vicki Grieves, FSA chief negotiator, shared some of their thoughts surrounding the issues of funding, services and salary freezes. So what was the result of your EGM? Vicki Grieves: The members of our Faculty and Staff Association have given us approval to enter into contract talks with the university. Virginia Cooke: Something you need to know though, is that we are very unusual in that our faculty and our staff all belong to the same union so . . . you're not going to have factions resulting in students losing classes because the support staff can't get what they want. With us it's all or nothing. Do you feel like this gives you an advantage when bargaining? Cooke: With our own administration. It doesn't make much difference in terms of the government, and I think all of us think the government is the problem now . . . Grieves: . . . in that the government controls the purse strings. So that puts our administration in a very untenable position, because they may agree that we deserve a raise because we haven't had any salary increases for what amounts to five years. They may be saying yes, give these guys a raise, but the only way you can increase anybody's salary is through