Carleton’s graduate students union is dragging the undergraduate union to court over pulling out of their former joint health plan.
In a legal notice delivered to the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) Oct. 31, the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) demanded that CUSA return to the joint health plan agreement they had with Green Shield Canada. CUSA left that agreement this summer for another provider, despite the GSA’s objection.
“It was a better deal for students, better services, and altogether a better contract that we were offered,” CUSA president Alexander Golovko said of their new health care provider, Studentcare Networks.
CUSA and the GSA have been with Green Shield Canada for years to provide a group health insurance plan for their members.
“They broke agreements that were multi-year agreements,” GSA president Kelly Black said.
The former health plan agreement could only be dissolved by mutual consent or a referendum of either association’s memberships.
In July, Golovko and CUSA vice-president (finance) Michael De Luca broke this agreement by changing the definition of “referendum” through a motion passed by the association’s council. The new rules allowed a referendum to be held amongst the CUSA executives, who are also trustees of the CUSA’s legal and business arm CUSA Inc., for the purpose of changing the health plan.
According to a GSA membership advisory, this allowed the undergraduate association to make independent changes to the health plan.
Black said CUSA’s move has meant a lot of uncertainty for them, and that the previous agreement was valid until 2014.
“We don’t know what will happen after this year, and why we want to do it is because we’re taking the position that the actions of CUSA are not legally defensible,” he said.
“The cost could go up, we could have a totally different plan altogether, there’s many things we’re worried about. We’re worried about our membership and their ability to have a stable, affordable health plan.”
The GSA also wants to prevent CUSA from liquidating the health plan’s reserve fund, which is also jointly owned. Currently the fund holds about $500,000 for use in emergency situations, such as pandemics, Black said.
“The point of the fund, prior to CUSA breaking these agreements, was to ensure the stability of the health plan and to make improvements to the health plan,” Black said.
“What we would like to see is a reinstatement of the plans so that fund can continue to be used for the benefit of the health plan.”
Black said CUSA wants to claim ownership of the entire reserve fund.
“They have written letters to Green Shield saying that they are entitled to 100 per cent of the funds,” he said.
Black said GSA has a lawyer, but a court date has yet to be scheduled.
Golovko said he could not comment on the specifics of CUSA’s legal position, including whether they had written to Green Shield asking for the whole reserve fund, until they reviewed the details of the claim.
“CUSA retains a number of lawyers. We don’t have a lawyer to deal with this particular case right now. It’s a priority this week,” he said.
When reviewing the claim, Golovko said CUSA is looking for solutions.
“We are always willing to negotiate, co-operate, discuss dialogue,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate the GSA execs have taken this route of non-co-operation. It’s very sudden, out of the blue.”
“I hope that we can resolve this issue as quickly as possible and with as little cost to students,” Golovko said.
