The Wright College faculty union represents approximately 70 faculty members and librarians, including permanent and sessional (temporary) employees. The last collective agreement ran for three years and expired three years ago. The negotiations for the new collective agreement began

18 months ago. The union executive committee consists of four active members who are elected by the membership. After the elections, those four members decide who will fi ll the roles of president, vice-president/secretary, and treasurer. Under the union’s constitution, the executive committee is responsible for negotiating collective agreements and dealing with any other aspect of the relationship between the college and the union. The executive’s actions are guided by motions passed at the union’s membership meetings.

The union’s constitution states that collective bargaining will be carried out by a two- or three-member negotiating committee, whose members may be from the executive or from the general membership. The negotiating committee is expected to consult with the membership when setting its bargaining priorities, and to keep the membership informed on bargaining progress through newsletters. The negotiating committee is also expected to meet regularly with the executive committee “for advice and direction.”

When the most recent set of negotiations began, the union appointed a bargaining committee, but the committee’s membership changed over time. When bargaining ended, the committee had two members: Dr. Milton, the union president, who had been on the committee for the entire bargaining process; and Dr. Hines, a member of past negotiating committees, who replaced another committee member for the last few months of the current negotiations.

Dr. Hines was also elected to the union executive after negotiations had ended. The college’s bargaining committee had the same members throughout the negotiation process: the college’s human resource manager, Mary Owen; the college’s dean; and the college’s director of administration. Dr. Hines told the board that the union negotiating committee was mandated to make any decisions that were necessary to reach a collective agreement, although the union executive set the agenda for negotiations. The union executive and the union negotiating committee were in close contact throughout the negotiating process. Dr. Hines explained that the union’s membership includes members with different employment situations and different concerns, and that the union’s members were not unanimous on what they wanted to achieve, to the point where there was dissent and division among several groups of members.

Because of this, the executive committee helped the negotiating committee to conduct surveys of the membership to find the union members’ views on certain issues; the executive committee also made recommendations to the negotiating committee on what positions to take on certain issues or which issues should be traded off or given priority in bargaining. But, Dr. Hines pointed out, there were some issues where the different positions of the union’s members could not be reconciled, and the executive committee gave the negotiating committee the authority to pursue whichever settlement would ultimately result in a collective agreement.

A tentative collective agreement was reached approximately nine months ago. Both parties knew that the agreement would have to be ratified by both sides before it became effective, and all the negotiators verbally agreed that they would recommend ratification. Both sides agreed on some editorial changes to a draft of the agreement before it was accepted by all of the negotiators. At this point, Dr. Hines was the only member of the union negotiating committee, as Dr. Milton had taken a job elsewhere. 

Dr. Hines, Owen, and the director of administration shook hands and reiterated that they would all recommend ratification. All parties understood that the union would circulate the tentative agreement to the union membership and give the membership two weeks’ notice of a membership meeting. The union would conduct the ratification vote at the meeting.

Three days before the parties shook hands on the agreement, the union’s executive committee changed as a result of the union’s annual executive elections. The new president, Dr. Lemar, had been on the previous executive committee. The three other committee members were new to the executive. Prior to circulating the tentative agreement to the union membership, Dr. Hines met with the new executive committee. 

He explained the compromises that the union had made in negotiations, and emphasized that he thought the agreement was the best one the union could get. However, after reviewing the agreement, the new executive committee members felt they did not agree with some of the terms that had been negotiated. A week after meeting with Dr. Hines, the executive committee sent a letter to the employer stating that it did not feel it could circulate the agreement to its members or that it could recommend ratification. The letter stated that the committee did not agree with the settlements on seniority, pay rates for one classification of sessional faculty, conflicts of interest, and two other issues. The letter stated that the executive was willing to bring the agreement to the membership if the settlements on those items could be changed. Dr. Hines told the board that this letter was signed by the new executive, rather than the negotiating committee, because he did not think it was appropriate for the negotiating committee to send such a letter. He felt that the negotiating committee had agreed to terms on all the items mentioned in the letter, and that the issues in question were not new issues but ongoing issues that had always been problematic for the union. He added, though, that in the past the union had raised matters that could become problems with the collective agreement, and that the union and the employer had always dealt with these questions through collegial discussion. Dr. Hines thought this letter had been sent in that same spirit. Three days later, the employer responded in writing to the union, stating that it was not prepared to renegotiate issues that had been discussed and agreed to in good faith.

At the start of the following month, the new executive committee emailed a letter to its members, which was sent along with a copy of the tentative agreement. Both documents were also posted on the union’s website. The document showing the new collective agreement included the relevant language from the previous collective agreement.

The letter thanked the negotiating committee for its hard work, described the proposed changes to the collective agreement, and encouraged the members to attend the ratification meeting. However, the letter also contained a lengthy section in which the new executive explained that there were parts of the new collective agreement that it did not agree with, and stated that these were “some of the main changes in the proposed agreement” and “some possible concerns for our members.”

Dr. Hines told the board that he did not think the letter to the union membership had to recommend ratification of the tentative agreement; he said it only raised issues that had been long-standing concerns for some of the union’s members, and that the letter was intended to let those members know that the executive was aware of those concerns.

One of the new executive members told the board that the letter was designed to make the union members read the new agreement and to encourage them to think seriously about it. Under questioning from the board, she agreed that the letter did not contain any mention of a recommendation to ratify.

The Collective Bargaining Process

At the ratification meeting, one new executive member acted as a neutral chairperson. Dr. Hines spoke to the members present, explained the reasoning leading to the terms in the tentative agreement, and recommended ratification of the agreement. He explained that trade-offs had been made during bargaining and that the negotiating committee had acted on the advice and recommendations of the previous executive committee. He also told the members that the agreement was the best that could be achieved at this time and that the agreement contained mechanisms to encourage future change.

The other two members of the new executive committee spoke against the tentative agreement, saying that they were concerned about the language around seniority and job security. However, both emphasized that they were speaking as individuals and not as executive members.

Other union members at the meeting pointed out that the change in language around job security had the effect of extending job security to one group of members while taking it away from another group. Others mentioned that enrolment numbers at Wright College were dropping and that the trade-offs around job security did not, in their opinion, address this situation. The ratification vote was conducted by secret ballot, and a majority of the membership voted against ratification.

The union informed the employer in a letter that the members had not ratified the tentative agreement and asked for the negotiators to reconvene. Two weeks later, the employer responded in writing, stating that it felt the union had committed an unfair labour practice by not presenting the agreement to its membership as a negotiated agreement which reflected the compromises that

are required to reach such an agreement. The employer requested that the union hold another ratification vote. The union refused and asked the employer again to reconvene the negotiations. The employer rejected this request and filed the unfair labour practice complaint with the board.

The Union’s Position

The union argued that the failure to ratify the agreement does not cause any sort of crisis, and that the duty to bargain in good faith does not include the duty to ratify the agreement. The union pointed out that the bargaining committee had a mandate to bargain on behalf of the union’s members, and argued that the evidence showed the committee considered the various demands of its members and tried to balance those in the bargaining process.

The union stated that the letter sent to the membership was its attempt to improve the chances of ratification, and that when the employer refused to negotiate on the items mentioned in the letter, the union accepted this and went ahead with the ratification vote.

The union agreed that the letter to the membership did not recommend ratification of the agreement, but argued that this is not required by law. It stated that the negotiating committee honoured its commitment when Dr. Hines recommended ratification to the executive and to the

membership. The union stated that the discussion at the ratification meeting shows that some issues had become more important than when they were originally bargained, and that was the reason the ratification vote failed. 

The Employer’s Position

The employer argued that the current situation is a crisis because of the failure to ratify the agreement. The employer stated that the union failed in its duty to bargain by not recommending

the agreement for ratification to its members, and by not giving the negotiating committee a sufficient or proper mandate.

The employer argued that part of the duty to bargain in good faith is the duty to use reasonable efforts to conclude a collective agreement, and that should include recommending ratification of a tentative agreement. The employer stated it believes that the union did not fairly present the agreement as the product of collective bargaining, and that the executive committee used disparaging language in expressing its concerns about the agreement.

The employer stated that if there are troublesome areas in a proposed collective agreement, the only way to get an agreement is if the union leadership supports the negotiators.

The employer also argued that the union should have given the negotiating committee enough authority to reach an agreement that had a reasonable chance of success.

If the membership did not ratify the agreement, the employer stated, then the executive committee did not give the negotiating committee the mandate to reach settlements that would be acceptable to the membership. The executive committee also sought to renegotiate items that the negotiating committee had already settled, which, in the employer’s view, was further evidence that the executive committee did not sufficiently empower the negotiating committee.

The employer stated it believes that the change in the union executive should not be allowed to affect bargaining, and that the new executive should not be allowed to back out of agreements made by the previous executive.

The employer stated that it did not believe that further bargaining take place, since the union now what contract terms acceptable to the employer. The employer asked the board to impose the tentative agreement, because, in its opinion, a further re-vote would not be fair as long as the union executive opposed to the agreement. Alternatively, the employer asked the board to order a re-vote with conditions that minimize the executive’s opposition.