Publications/Documents Minutes
Minutes of Executive and Union Council meetings are summarized regularly and those summaries are posted here for your convenience. To see full versions of the minutes, please come to the CUPEU Office at MI-202.
Executive Committee
- Motion passed that "the Executive approve the purchase of a laptop and software to a maximum of $2576 for the purpose of developing and maintaining the Professional Development components of the website."
- The new website is almost ready.
- For the first time since its inception, the Professional Development (PD) fund was depleted as there were more requests than money available. The VP special projects will develop an improved structure to select PD recipients, which he will present to the Executive Committee.
- The treasurer presented the proposed 2009 budget, which was approved and will be presented to the membership at the AGM.
- The president reported that the text for the clause remorque is almost finalized and that we are awaiting news from the university about the extension of the Collective Agreement.
- The President reported that there is no news about the proposed contract extension, and none is expected before the Board of Governors meeting on Monday, March 23.
- A motion was put forward and carried “That we institute the new website and that we put out of service the current website before the end of April, 2009.”
- The Treasurer met with audit committee members and requested an audit report.
- The Executive Committee reviewed the proposed budget for 2009.
- The President reported that the pay equity issue has been resurrected by the University
- The Treasurer presented financial statements and a motion to accept them was carried. She noted that the profit/loss statement shows a surplus, even though a deficit was anticipated. The Audit Committee has been asked to start reviewing the Union’s financial statements.
- Motion carried that the President and a CSN advisor negotiate an extension to the Collective Agreement for 2008 and 2009 with a 4% increase June 1st, 2008 and a 2% increase June 1st, 2009. They will meet with the University and report on their mandate at the next CUPEU Executive meeting.
- Operations Report: Charlie Brown (VP Operations) will be leaving at the end of December. Frank Carriere (VP Special Projects) will take over Professional Development as of Dec. 5th.
- Negotiations Report: VP Negotiations has obtained quotes for negotiations training programs. As they are all expensive he will investigate inviting other unions to reduce the cost.
- Treasurer's Report: The treasurer met with the audit committee, which rescinded or amended some of its recommendations.
- Communications Report: Summaries of meeting minutes that will be sent to CUPEU members were presented to Union Council (UC) members who supported them. The membership list will be placed on the website. A UC member divided the membership list so that each UC member will have a list of members to establish contact with.
- President's Report: A new CSN advisor has been assigned to CUPEU. A Superior Court judge dismissed CUPEU’s grievance regarding experience steps. The appeals court denied permission to appeal. The Fédération des professionnèles has referred the case to the CSN’s Service Juridique (SJ) and the President will meet with the CSN and SJ to determine why the appeal was refused. The President and the University have met to integrate the ACUMAE Clause Remorque into the CUPEU text. The University has expressed interest in interest-based negotiations.
- The president welcomed 2 new members to the committee: Laurel Leduc as VP Grievance and Fred Francis as VP Negotiations
- Communications report: CSN materials are up on website. Plans are to have them circulated to members. Communications/mobilization committee will be meeting tomorrow
- Negotiations report: The new VP negotiations has been gathering information on negotiations training offered by different organizations and will report his findings at a future meeting
- Grievance report: The new VP grievance is looking forward to meeting with the president to start working on her portfolio.
- Special Projects report: VP Special Projects is engaged in organizing the Holiday Party
- Labour relations report: The president reported that data related to salary calculations are still missing. A few more grievances have been filed.
- Clause Remorque update: The president reported that he met with the CSN advisor to review the university’s proposal. They will meet with the university tomorrow to negotiate a settlement on their amendments to the proposal so far.
- The president stressed the importance of Union Council and Executive members volunteering for ongoing training around grievance, negotiations and/or labour relations.
- President presented the university’s “World Café” to committee members (handout attached with minutes) and encouraged support
- Delays related to the “clause remorque” will be extended to Dec 15
- Motion approved: $1,000 of Executive Development Fund for VP Operations to attend a conference.
- Professional development fund (PDF) report:
- 2007-2008 fund began year with $124,584.78
- The CUPEU PDF Committee met 4 times and awarded $98,048.75 to 55 CUPEU members.
- CPDF report attached to minutes
- Communications/Mobilization report: 4 objectives of mobilization committee have been developed
- Be more transparent by providing agendas and minutes to meetings of 3 decision making bodies: Executive committee, Union Council, General Meetings
- Send out communications to members
- Establish formal line of communication with members
- Organize social events
- The president updated the committee on the progress of negotiations with the university regarding “clause remorque”
- The committee discussed strategies to fill vacant Executive Committee positions
- The VP communications reported on the website. A web content editor will be hired.
- Financial services will provide Professional Development Fund recipients the option to open an account that will provide advanced funds to cover the PD activity.
Union Council
Expand All Union Council Minutes
- The Constitution Workgroup continues to meet and will soon offer a final draft of the revised constitution to be approved by Union Council before it is presented to the membership for approval.
- 8 CUPEU members attended a workshop on Grievances. This should ease the work that is placed on the few that are currently addressing grievance issues.
- Union Council members spent some time brainstorming ideas for non-monetary items that could be proposed during upcoming negotiations. Fourteen ideas emerged including: employer pay for professional licenses, full-day summer hours, flexibility to work from home and transportation allowance.
- The President provided an update on the Clause Remorque. In short, the University appears to be satisfied that CUPEU is going towards the ACUMAE collective agreement and the text is ready for the most part. CUPEU is pressing to have this issue resolved by June 1, 2009.
- Once all the materials are ready there are plans to have a Special General Meeting for CUPEU members to review the text, discuss and vote.
- Motion carried that Sheila Ettinger be appointed to the position of VP Operations (interim) until the next General Assembly.
- President reported that the Executive Committee (EC) will meet following this meeting address the Clause Remorque. The intention is to have revisions done by Friday the 23rd and have them ready for review.
- The President and a CSN advisor met with Human Relations to discuss the process of salary calculations. University agrees to take a major role in generating one set of complete data to accelerate the process.
- Operations and Professional Development Report: Some members still have not submitted reports for their PD activities, and this will be taken into account the next time they apply.
- Communications Report: Communications/Mobilization committee met on Nov 14. They presented the summary of Executive Committee and Union Council minutes for circulation to union members to the UC for feedback. Motion carried that the format for the summary of the minutes is acceptable. Motion carried that all CUPEU members in good standing be provided with a brief summary of the relevant points in the approved minutes of the Executive Committee and Union Council as well as General Meetings within 10 working days of the meetings.
- Motion carried that UC meetings will now take place on the 3rd Wednesday of every month beginning in January 2009
- Motion carried that UC continue with the proposed constitutional amendment draft. Four UC members will work on this.
- The president reported that union members who are paid on an annual basis will see a small increase in their pay as the University discovered that using 26.1 annual pay periods results in an underpayment of .02%
- The Clause Remorque has been invoked. Due to new information being discovered after it was invoked, the Union continues to be in discussions with the University
- Training around negotiations, grievances and labour relations will be provided to Union Council members who are interested
- Clause remorque discussions with university pushed to September 30th and then beyond that date
- Several members of Union Council have volunteered to be on a mobilization committee that will strategize around getting members involved in the Union, particularly in filling open VP positions.
- One UC member volunteered to be on the Pay Equity Committee
- PD recipients will have 30-day accounts opened which will close automatically at the end of that period.
- Adriana Volpato (CSN consultant for CUPEU) was at the meeting and presented the case for invoking the "clause remorque" in the CUPEU collective agreement
- 2 motions were suggested to present at the General Meeting. These are outlined in the meeting minutes.
Central Advisory Health and Safety Committee
CUPEU provides a delegate to Concordia's Central Advisory Health and Safety Committee. Minutes for the most recent meetings are provided here.