Carleton teaching assistants filed an official grievance with the university March 9 in response to what they call a salary “clawback.”
TAs received notice from their union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 4600, Feb. 9 that their pay will be docked to make up for a two-year payroll error.
After unsuccessful informal discussions, CUPE 4600 delivered 352 individual grievance forms to the university’s assistant vice-president (human resources) Lise Labine, said CUPE co-president James Meades.
Now that the grievance has been filed, the two parties will have to meet again to see if the issue can be resolved, he added.
Labine said human resources is planning to schedule the grievance meeting for the next week.
“HR is in the process of setting up a grievance meeting within the 10 days as outlined in the collective agreement,” she said in a statement.
Meades said he doesn’t expect the situation to be resolved at that point. The next step would be arbitration, where both parties go in front of the labour relations board and discus the issues in a formal legal setting, he said.
In the meantime, CUPE 4600 has been meeting with their political action committee, Meades said.
“[We’re] looking at if there are any other sort of actions we could take to increase awareness and help with some mobilization,” he said.
