The union representing academic staff at Carleton unanimously voted to carry a motion Nov. 11 criticizing the university administration’s handling of union grievances.
The motion, called a censure, is a strong, formal criticism of the university’s behaviour, according to Carleton University Academic Staff Association (CUASA) president Angelo Mingarelli.
“We’re hoping that this censure will bring us back to the table, to talk about these grievances, talk about arbitration, and get them settled once and for all, and stop the pussy-footing around,” he said.
CUASA has a collective agreement with the university which states staff and the administration can file grievances against the other when one violates the agreement.
In the agreement, a grievance is defined as “a claim by an employee or a group of employees, by the Association, or by the employer that there has been a violation, misapplication or misinterpretation of the terms of this collective agreement.”
CUASA’s motion states there have been “considerable delays in the grievance process” as a result of the university’s failure to comply with the grievance section in the agreement.
This is why they passed the censure, according to Mingarelli.
“The reason a union exists is because there was too much power in the hands of few people. Either you play ball, or you got thrown out,” he said.
Currently CUASA has three grievances with the university. Two are association grievances which deal with more than one employee. The other is an individual grievance, which Mingarelli said he could not comment on.
With their most recent collective agreement, university departments can decide the standards for tenure and promotion. However, if the administration does not agree to the standards, the provost and the university can turn them down. This is the first grievance CUASA has on the table.
“If you hear this from your dean, it influences the way you’re going to create your standards,” Mingarelli said. “That’s interference. You’re no longer free to make your own choice, and this is about freedom.”
Mingarelli said grievances can wind up in arbitration if they’re not settled, but the university is not willing to go to arbitration yet.
“They said we’re reading the grievance process incorrectly,” he said.
The second grievance is a grievance with the grievance process itself.
Since the university claims CUASA is not understanding the grievance process, Mingarelli said the union wants to bring in an external source to look at the collective agreement.
The source would decide if CUASA has been reading the grievance section correctly.
“It’s stressful for unions still working out their standards knowing that their provost or dean can just say, ‘No, I don’t like this’ and just send it back,” Mingarelli said.
“This is not a democratic process as far as I can see. It’s one that’s dictated by the upper echelons. It was never meant to be that way,” he said.
Carleton’s provost and vice-president (academic) Peter Ricketts said the university administration was informed of the motion Nov. 13 and will invite the CUASA leadership to a meeting to discuss their concerns.
He would not say when this meeting will be and declined to comment further.
Mingarelli said the censure is unrelated to an upcoming censure decision of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which took issue with a donor agreement involving Carleton’s graduate program in political management.
