Executive's Proposed Abolition of Carriage Rights

Nick Lary

I was one of three witnesses at the YUFA Executive meeting of April 20. In my comments on this meeting I will focus on a bargaining issue that was discussed: namely, carriage rights. The issue of personal carriage rights versus union carriage rights is of critical significance for the membership because the Executive is considering changes that will seriously weaken members’ rights in the new Collective Agreement. The stewards and the members will have a chance to reject these proposed changes in their separate votes on the bargaining proposals before negotiations begin.

Under present practice, as laid out in the Collective Agreement and the By-laws -and going back to the first Collective Agreement that was negotiated -individual rights are very important. They apply to every stage of the grievance except arbitration. At this point, YUFA assumes carriage rights. The justification for this (argued at the time of the first CA) is that arbitration incurs significant expense, and accordingly it is appropriate for the union to control which cases shall go to arbitration. The Dispute Resolution stage is available to individuals with only 'the formal support of the Association' (see in particular Articles 9.07, 9.09 and 9.14). The Dispute Resolution Committee allows individual members - or groups of members - to have access to a procedure which provides a hearing for their issue within the university. This internal hearing process offers a measure of protection against an arbitrary and bureaucratic union or against the collusion between the union and certain administrators.

What YUFA Executive wishes to assert is the exclusive carriage rights of the Association from the beginning. It proposes to change the present article 9.03 of the Collective Agreement so that it shall read: “The Association shall have carriage of all grievances from Stage One onwards. The employer shall deal only with the union with respect to a grievance.” There will be corresponding changes in other articles to make it clear that only the union can be the grievor. The likely result is that it will become even more difficult than it currently is for individuals to pursue grievances arising out of a violation of the Collective Agreement.

The particular circumstances in which Executive introduced this proposed change in the meeting I attended were strange. They came during a report of the Contract Review Committee to Executive. The Contract Review Committee this year consisted exclusively of members of Executive (and for that matter members of Executive who are part of the majority that is regularly loyal to and subservient to Arthur Hilliker). This so-called reporting of the Contract Review Committee amounted to an absurdist situation of the Executive reporting to itself. From the discussion it appeared that the Contract Review Committee had ignored the arguments opposing the change that were made in an unreleased Report by the Grievance Committee. There was no attempt in the discussion to present these arguments or counter them. Upon being challenged, the President of YUFA claimed that the change was simply being presented to the members for their consideration. Some members of Executive objected that if this was the case, and the proposed changes were simply going to be presented to the membership in this way, it would look as though Executive was recommending the changes. These members of Executive insisted that the proposed changes in Article 9 be circulated together with the Report of the Grievance Committee. Hilliker agreed to circulate this Report, provided he do so together with a statement from CAUT advocating union carriage rights, and a statement drafted by himself together with a staff person, presumably endorsing the proposed changes.

It is true that unions usually insist on carriage rights. The reasons for this are various: a bureaucratic wish for control and tidiness, a belief in collectivism. For a strong and vigilant union which is committed to defense of a collective agreement through the grievance process union carriage rights might make sense, particularly in the case of a union which has to deal with a smaller range of particular cases than YUFA does.

YUFA's tradition, from the very beginning of certification, has been to use the collective power of a union to protect individual rights. This quirk of our grievance process is a guarantee of that commitment. Moreover, the existence of personal carriage rights such as we have at present is an invitation for YUFA members to understand their contract and their rights (and to get involved in the Association!). It is a source of strength and renewal for the Association. If these personal carriage rights are abolished, will we have a strong and vigilant Association to which we can entrust them?

The present record is mixed. There is strong anecdotal evidence of members who have approached YUFA and been discouraged from pursuing Stage One grievances. And when it comes to recommending arbitration the Executive has been quick to invoke the need to be careful in spending the general funds of the membership (has it been equally careful in invoking financial responsibility in supervising its own expenses?). There needs to be a greater commitment of personnel and of financial resources before any changes are made. There also needs to be a greater development of the role of stewards, as provided in the Constitution. There almost certainly needs to be an additional Chief Steward, with the appropriate release time to do the job. In the absence of these conditions staff members will fill the vacuum. They should not have to do so.

It also needs to be clear in which direction YUFA is going to go –a reaffirmation of its original mandate -with strong protections for individual freedoms including academic freedom and non-conforming behavior -or a deterioration into a corporatized-company union. It is my impression -arising from my tenure in Executive -that there are strong pressures outside YUFA and within –in staff and in officers (some of whom seem to have been elected for life) –to turn YUFA into a sort of company union, so to speak a branch of the Administration (and a stepping stone to office in the Administration?).

In this situation the changes proposed in Article 9 are premature. Whose interests will they serve? In a casual conversation a few months ago staff member XX remarked to a member that XX expected a flood of grievances owing to the amalgamation of two Faculties into the new FLAPS under the new Dean Singer. The changes in Article 9 will no doubt serve to control this flood, and serve the interests of Singer and Shoukri (and perhaps the career interests of certain YUFA officers). They must be resisted now by stewards and by members.

For Article 9 as it now reads in the Collective Agreement, click on 'Resources' under Primary Links at the top left of the page.