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The ins and outs of CUPE, local 1615 membership
By Ralph Tapper, president,
CUPE, Local 1615, and Claude Horlick, associate director, staff
relations, Human Resources
The recent process whereby 99 employees became
CUPE members is the culmination of years of negotiation between
Memorial University and the Canadian Union of Public Employees
(CUPE) Local 1615, which represents approximately 860 staff employees.
As of Feb. 26, 2001, 115 positions were converted from non-bargaining
unit to union status and four from union to non-union.
The collective agreement between CUPE and Memorial contains an
appendix titled Composition of the Bargaining Unit. It describes
the bargaining unit as “a unit of employees comprising all
non-teaching staff of Memorial University of Newfoundland save
and except....” It then goes on to list five pages of positions
that are excluded from the union. This list, with minor modifications,
came from CUPE’s original certification order issued by
the Labour Relations Board in 1973 when the local was formed.
In round after round of collective bargaining the parties would
agree that the list needed updating. When an agreement was reached,
the effort to update the appendix was cursory at best. Finally,
in the previous collective agreement, (1997-99, signed on Sept.
24, 1997), the parties established a joint committee “to
discuss and revise the list of positions to be included in and
excluded from the bargaining unit.”
The committee consisted of Morley Garrett, Judy Winsor, Ralph
Tapper and Brian Farewell representing CUPE, Local 1615; and
Monty Green, Mary Clarke, Jim Cooper and Claude Horlick representing
Memorial University.
The committee first met on Feb. 5, 1998, and agreed to review
every staff position at Memorial. Organizational charts and position
listings for all departments were reviewed and discussions were
held with all deans, directors and administrative personnel.
It was agreed that if the committee could not agree on the final
list, the matter would be referred to the Labour Relations Board
for final resolution.
The criteria to be used to decide the make-up of a bargaining
unit is set by the Labour Relations Act and interpreted by the
board. The limited criteria for exclusion from the union is “exercises
management functions or is employed in a confidential capacity
in matters relating to labour relations.” The Labour Relations
Board’s interpretation of who fits these requirements has
become increasingly more restrictive over the years.
On Sept. 14, 1999, at the 17th meeting of the committee, all
positions in all departments had been reviewed and considerable
consensus had been achieved. The first exchange of names after
the process indicated that the union was seeking 270 positions
and the university was seeking to exclude 17 CUPE members from
the union. By this time, negotiations for a new collective agreement
had commenced and other factors began to enter the mix: Should
seniority be length of service with the university or length
of service in a CUPE position? How and when should the conversion
occur and when should the employees be informed? What would happen
in the event of layoffs once the conversion occurred?
With the signing of the current collective agreement, the parties
reached a memorandum of understanding setting out the process
of integrating the 99 employees into the bargaining unit and
the mechanism for four employees to be removed from the union.
– The employees who recently received notice of inclusion
in the union receive all the rights and benefits of the union,
and will pay union dues, from Feb. 26, 2001. These employees
will count their service with the university as seniority within
the union.
– in the future, all new members whether from within the
university or not, will commence seniority only from the day
they start in a union position.
– The newly unionized employees are on a seniority side
list for up to five years in the event there are layoffs and
bumping. If an employee is laid off or bumped, they can only
bump within their list or new employees hired into union positions
after the date of signing of the new agreement (Oct. 25, 2000).
– For other than layoffs, for promotions, temporary assignments,
etc. employees compete on the basis of total service with the
university like and with all CUPE employees hired prior to Oct.
25, 2000.
The four employees coming out of the union get to elect to continue
to pay dues for up to five years and to maintain union benefits
for that time.
The parties will complete the process in the near future by preparing
the new seniority lists and agreeing to a new appendix to go
in the next collective agreement.
The make-up of the bargaining unit and positions to be included
is an ongoing issue, but this recent process has done much to
rationalize the composition of Local 1615.