REPORT ON CAUT SENIOR GRIEVANCE OFFICERS
WORKSHOP
CAUT hosted a workshop for Senior Grievance
Officers in Ottawa from November 7-9.
The workshop brought together grievance officers from universities
across the country and included representatives from faculty associations that
are certified, as well as those that are not.
Sessions covered a number of important issues such as carriage rights,
confidentiality, member-to-member disputes, selection of arbitrators, and the
challenges of recruiting and training new grievance officers. In the group discussions, as well as in the
larger panel sessions, it became clear that faculty associations across the
country are currently confronting a range of similar challenges. These include an increase in grievances concerning
tenure and promotions (something that is actually not grievable
in a number of collective agreements, including Acadia’s). A representative of one of Canada’s larger
universities reported that many of the grievances emerging out of the tenure
and promotions process are linked to problems of systemic discrimination
against minority groups, a problem which is reinforced through the recent
tendency to give greater weight to student evaluations that tend to reproduce
discriminatory attitudes towards minority groups. Other issues that were discussed at length
include the growing number of grievances concerning accommodation of faculty
association members who are returning to work following illnesses or disability
leaves. There is often resistance among
the administration as well as other faculty members to accommodate members
returning to work. This issue is
currently relevant to AUFA as we are seeking to improve our own contract
language on accommodation.
One of the outcomes of our attendance at the
conference was our discovery that Acadia’s grievance procedure is different
from other universities. None of the
attending grievance officers work in systems where grievances are sent to an
internal adjudication board. (The CAUT
representatives didn’t think any other universities used this procedure
either.) At Acadia, the grievance officer attempts to find an informal
resolution to complaints. If that is not
possible, a grievance is filed and then the Grievance Committee (composed of 4
appointees of the administration and 4 of the union) meet to decide if the
complaint is indeed a grievance. If so,
two from each side participate on a sub-committee that investigates the
grievance through examining documents and calling witnesses. Each side is expected to look at the evidence
impartially. If the grievance
sub-committee cannot reach a unanimous decision about the matter, it could be
referred to arbitration.
The more typical procedure in Canada is for the
grievance officer to take the complaint through stages of negotiation with
designated administrators and, if a resolution is not possible, a formal
grievance is filed and it is taken (by the grievance officer) to an outside
arbitration board.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both
systems. The more common system may well result in more cost because of the
greater use of arbitration. However,
recent experience with administrators has suggested that they want to send
virtually all matters of dispute to outside adjudication anyway (for example, fighting
part timers joining the full time union and the bad faith complaint) One of the tasks of the grievance officer,
after the 11th collective agreement is negotiated and signed, will
be to investigate whether changing the system for the 12th collective
agreement would be advisable.
Paula Chegwidden and Susan Franceschet