Teaching Assistants, the Canadian Union of Public Employees,

and the Relations of Ruling: An Exploration of

Collective Bargaining at the University of Victoria 2003-2004

by

Melissa Moroz

B.A. (Honours), University of Victoria, 1999

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE

MASTER OF ARTS

in the Department of Sociology

O Melissa Moroz, 2004 University of Victoria

All rights resewed. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Supervisor: William K. Carroll

Abstract

Using the theoretical and methodological framework of institutional ethnography as developed by Dorothy Smith, this thesis investigates and describes the social relations of a post-secondary educational labour union, namely the Canadian Union of Public

Employees Local 4 163. Data explored in this thesis come from the author's participation in this union, discussions with union activists, and a reading of the union's documents as text. With a concentration on the collective bargaining process that occurred between the

University of Victoria and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 41 63 in 2003-

2004, the analysis is focused on how the daily lives and interactions of union leaders, staff and rank-and-file members are shaped by relations of ruling. Table of Contents Abstract Table of Contents Acknowledgements Dedication Preface Introduction, Literature and Method (a) The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 41 63 (b) Review of Relevant Literature (c) My Role in the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 4163 (d) Problematic & Conceptual Framework (e) Methodology: Participant Observation Talking with Union Activists Documents as Text (f) Why study CUPE 41 63? Chapter One: Background to the Collective Bargaining Process 29 (a) CUPE 4 163 Collective Bargaining (b) Collective Bargaining Climate in British Columbia and at Wic (c) The University of Victoria in the Campbell Era (d) CUPE 2278 - University of British Columbia Teaching Assistants and the 'Solidarity Vote' (e) Bargaining Protocols Chapter Two: CUPE as an Institution within Capitalism: 54 The Case of Local-National Relations in CUPE (a) Canadian Capitalism, the Public Sector, bdthe University (b) Trade Unions and Canadian Capitalism (c) CUPE National (d) CUPE National Staff Representatives (e) Trusteeship (0 National or Local? (g) CUPE National Strike Funds (h) Strike Aversion (i) Conclusion Chapter Three: Ruling Relations and the Collective Bargaining Process 78 Conclusion 94 Bibliography Appendices Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank Dr. William K. Carroll in the Department of Sociology for his patience in working through my ideas and continually suggesting further readings. I would also like to thank Dr. Radhika Desai and Dr. Ken Hatt for their feedback and guidance. Carole Rains and Zoe Chan were always supportive. Members of the CUPE 4163 contract committee made this thesis possible. I wish to thank Bob Wilson for encouraging me to organize my own workplace and for providing me with valuable insights about being on a union's payroll. Kim Toombs and Shane Calder put forward an example of a militant, democratic response to the anti-labour climate in recent years. I must draw particular attention to their unwavering community activism. I wish to extend my gratitude to Sherwin Arnott, Alex Grant, Chris Hurl, Ben Isitt, Andrea Mears, Justin Schmid, Adrienne Smith, Morgan Stewart and Mikael Swayze for being there while I worked through the concepts elaborated in this thesis, and for acting as a sounding board during the intense times that are recounted in the pages that follow. I appreciate the contributions that each of my informants provided. Without their insights this thesis would not have been possible. Finally, I am indebted to all activists on the Left who have built up the labour movement and changed society for the better - and to those challenging the aggressive assault of capitalist interests today. To those in the labour movement who struggle for change; And to my family, my comrades, and Ben. Preface

I came to this topic through my experiences with the labour movement in British Columbia and specifically with the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 41 63. I have been employed by CUPE for three years, having come to this position through my activism in the local. In the last year, the members of the local-mostly Teaching Assistants at the University of Victoria-experienced a challenging round of collective bargaining. It is my feeling that the results of this process were disappointing, leaving Teaching Assistants in a worse position with increased poverty and indebtedness to banks. This thesis is an exploration of how we arrived at this disappointing outcome.

The experience of collective bargaining with a group of individuals is an emotionally intense experience. Tears, confusion, and anger sometimes followed the events that occurred at the bargaining table. There are some members of the bargaining team who raised serious concerns about this thesis because of the intense nature of bargaining and the interpersonal relations that occurred at the table. I do not wish to point fingers at individuals who volunteered their time to sit through th~sprocess. I hope that individuals do not feel an injustice has been done to them in these pages.

I have strong convictions for publicly funded education and for the rights of workers. Unions, I believe, can play a major role in advancing the cause of workers and society generally. Sometimes, as in the case of CUPE 4163 in the latest round of bargaining, unions fall short. The emancipatory potential of unions is blunted by their own internal dynamics, and by the interaction with institutions, structures, and customs that are antagonistic to the cause of labour. This thesis is my attempt to understand precisely how this process happens. How do relations of ruling shape unions? Introduction, Literature and Method

(a) Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4163

Unionization of teaching assistants (TAs) and other graduate student workers at

Canadian universities has been a trend since 1974. At the University of Victoria (Wic), in British Columbia, a TA organizing drive late in 1997 culminated in the certification of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 41 63 the following spring. Since that time, Local 41 63 has grown to include second-language teachers, sessional instructors, and other academic workers. Between September and April there are about

1300 members in the local, most of whom are graduate students.

The local is divided into three components. Component One includes teaching assistants, workers in the computer labs, research assistants, lab instructors, and cultural assistants. Almost all Component One members are students. In fact, except in a few cases, being a student is a requirement of employment. Component Two is the smallest component of the local. Members work as teachers in the English and French Language

Centres at Wic. These centres offer students non-credit courses to develop language skills in either French or English. The English Language Centre generates a significant revenue surplus (some would argue a profit) for the university. Finally, Component Three of CUPE Local 41 63 represents sessional instructors, some of whom are enrolled as students (e.g., working on a PhD), many of whom have a PhD or related degree, and some of whom have held tenured positions in the past. Often, sessionals are referred to as the university's "dirty little secret." Ln short, they are teaching more and more of the courses offered at the university, for a shockingly low rate of pay with very little job security. This process has been described as the 'casualization' of university teaching by labour organizations and scholars (Nelson, 1997; Noble, 2002).

Within the labour movement in Canada and the struggles against the global neo- liberal attack on labour and the public sector, the Canadian Union of Public Employees

(CUPE) has played a lead role. The diverse membership of Local 4163 belong to CUPE, the largest union in Canada with over half a million members in health care, education, municipal services, libraries, universities, social services, public utilities, transportation, emergency services, and airlines. Over half of these workers are women.' The services that CUPE members provide encompass many branches of the public sector; they are an important part of what many Canadians value in Canadian society. From hospital care to assistance for children in a classroom to garbage disposal, it is likely that CUPE workers will be 'on the fiont line' providing these publicly funded services. Founded in 1963,

CUPE and its members have struggled for decades for living wages, safe working conditions, quality services, and the right of public sector workers to organize and bargain collectively. It is often through their efforts that larger social gains have been made. For example, CUPE municipal workers have fought successfully to keep municipal water systems out of private hands; CUPE school workers have fought to keep class sizes down through provisions in their collective agreements that were often secured through strike action. CUPE as an organization is by no means perfect; this thesis will examine in detail tensions within the union and disparities between its professed aims and how it functions in practice. Nonetheless, the contribution of CUPE members and their union to Canadian society should not be underestimated.

' "About our Union." Canadian Union ofpublic Employees. August 22,2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 13,2004. The resources used to pay CUPE workers come from federal, provincial, and municipal governments rather than the private sector. In some cases, CUPE workers are employed directly by governments - municipal garbage workers are a good example. In other cases, CUPE workers are employed by public agencies, such as school boards, health boards, or Crown corporations. In the case of CUPE 4163, and other workers in the university sector in British Columbia, the employer is a quasi-public agency, funded partly by public resources, and governed by a Board of Governors that consists of a majority of government appointees. This complicated financial and administrative apparatus can create blurred lines of authority that undermine efforts by CUPE to secure gains in the collective bargaining process. Drawing its funds from user fees, private- sector donations, and public grants from the provincial government, UVic as an employer can claim to answer to many masters. It functions differently than purely public or purely private employers. As will be demonstrated in detail in this thesis, quasi-public-sector employers such as UVic frequently attempt to evade responsibility, pointing to governments and claiming they lack the resources or authority to meet the demands of their workers. Governments, meanwhile, particularly those hostile towards labour and intent on privatization, can evade unpopular decisions by delegating administration, policy-making, and cutbacks to these quasi-public institutions. Such agencies serve the functions of 'hatchet-men' for governments and political leaders. For example, the university can refuse wage increases on the grounds that it lacks authority under provincial wage controls, then raise user fees as it sees fit. Increasingly, as the services provided by CUPE members fall under the threat of privatization, quasi-public-sector employers rely on these blurred lines of authority in order to justify concessions, layoffs and cuts to services. These employers therefore play a crucial role in a transnational political agenda benefiting private capitalist interests at the expense of labour.

In the case of UVic and CUPE 4163, provincial-government guidelines provided a pretext for a concessions-based contract where increases in compensation failed to offset increases in tuition fees, which a large majority of teaching assistants were required to pay as a condition of employment. This social relation between the teaching assistants and the university-with TAs as both students and workers, as consumers and producers of knowledge-blurs the lines of authority further. In short, the university can "rob Peter to pay Paul." University officials can claim that increases in tuition fees have nothing to do with the terms of employment, and are therefore not subject to negotiation. However the same student-worker who is required to pay the higher fees is refused higher wages.

The result is a decline in the real income of the student-worker, leading to higher debt- loads and increased poverty. The university hides behind two smokescreens in evading its responsibilities toward its employees: it exploits the dual role of TAs as students and workers, and it points to the provincial government as forcing the imposition of concessions. This final hction of quasi-public-sector employers, as 'hatchet-men' for higher governmental authorities, is a major obstacle to unions bargaining in the public sector.

While this dynamic has always been a feature of public-sector bargaining, it is intensified in a climate of privatization, cost-cutting, and layoffs. Many scholars have examined neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism in British Columbia and Canada (Carroll and Little, 2001; Carroll and Ratner, 1989; Haiven et al. 1990; Magnusson et al. 1984;

Palmer, 1987; Panitch and Swartz, 2003; Teeple, 2000; Shields and Evans, 1998). For several decades, corporate interests in North America and other regions have successfully undermined the concept of government intervention in the economy and of any social role for the state. The public provision of social services is a major site of this conflict. In the education sector in Canada, we are seeing an expansion of private ~niversities.~

Indeed, across North America there is a persistent trend toward the privatization and commercialization of higher education, a process documented by David Noble (2002),

James L. Turk (2000), and others (Drakich, et al. 2002; Doherty-Delorme and Shaker

2003; Tudiver, 1999). The collective-bargaining experience of CUPE Local 4 163 is therefore highly relevant as a sociological study of practical use in the current political and economic climate.

(b) Review of Relevant Literature

Institutional ethnography is a theoretical and methodological approach developed by feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith. The method of inquiry begins fiom the standpoint of everyday life, starting with the lived experiences of people rather than the larger processes of institutions. The approach allows the researcher to work with participants as subjects instead of objects. Literature is reviewed in a way as to position the researcher and to determine what is already known about the research topic. This needs to be accomplished in an active rather than a passive way. As Campbell and Gregor explain, the researcher "must come to terms with the literature while delineating and maintaining her particular stance vis ci vis discourses, authorized knowledge, and views that express a

"The Degree Authorization Act" introduced in 2002 by the British Columbia Liberal government authorizes private universities to grant degrees. In May 2002, legislation was passed to establish the first private university in the British Columbia. Tuition fees are expected to cost $25,000 per year (Doherty- Delorme and Shaker, 2003). standpoint organized differently fiom the institutional ethnographer's stance in the

everyday world" (2002: 5 1). An active literature review entails more than reading and documenting "the facts." An active literature review must incorporate an analysis of the literature's social organization. The purpose therefore of the literature review is to situate the research in the discourse without importing dominant perspectives that might predetermine how the research is conducted.

That being said, there is a large body of literature written on labour unions. In order to situate myself within this literature, I will review materials that help develop questions and provide clues to the "puzzle" I will be exploring. Namely, how are the daily lives and interactions of union leaders, stafland rank-and-$le members shaped by relations of ruling?

What is 'the Union?'

Much reference is made to 'the union', both in the literature and in the labour movement itself What exactly is 'the union?' Dorothy Smith's approach is useful in exploring this question. She proposes looking at social relations that exist in order to answer "what is the union?" Richard Hyrnan argues that 'the union' is a clear instance of reification in that an impersonal abstraction is treated as a social agent, "when it is really only people who act" (1 975: 16). Does the union then refer to the individual members who make up the organization? Is a union "simply the sum of its members" (Hyman:

16)? The answer to these questions cannot be yes; union leaders or union staff often speak on behalf of 'the union', make important decisions, or resolve grievances without ever consulting the rank-and-file members. It is therefore important to distinguish between the rank-and-file membership and the leadership of 'the union'. As Hyrnan explains, "the situations of union leaders differ significantly from those of the members they represent; and this leads in turn to differences in attitudes, interests, objectives, and conceptions of what is good for the members and for 'the union"' (1 975: 16-17). This distinction between the leadership and the rank and file is important for me to consider, and comprises a major heof this study. In short, relations of ruling (which will be explored below) may affect union leaders differently than the rank-and-file members.

Scholars have also drawn attention to distinct institutional characteristics that differentiate 'the union' from its members. As Ross explains:

As an institution expands in strength and status, it outgrows its formal purpose. It experiences its own needs, develops its own ambitions, and faces its own problems. These become differentiated fkom the needs, ambitions, and the problems of its rank and file. The trade union is no exception. It is the beginning of wisdom in the study of industrial relations to understand that the union, as an organization, is not identical with its members as individuals . . . Experienced employer representatives are accustomed to emphasize the distinction between the union and its members (Ross 1948: 23 as quoted in Hyrnan: 66).

Hence, 'the union' is not simply the members; nor can it be referred to as an organization without members for that would amount to reification. Where are we left? Is it possible to study 'the union', or should I simply study the actions of the individuals involved with an organization called CUPE 41 63? Hyman suggests:

To get beneath the blank abstraction of such labels as 'the union' it is . . . necessary to ask a series of highly specific questions. What decisions are taken? What relationships between those in different positions inside a union - and those outside it - lead to these decisions? What alternatives are considered in the decision making process - and hence what lines of action are excluded from the realm of serious possibility? And through what processes and by what criteria is this prior framework of decision-taking created (1 975: 66-67)? These are difficult questions to answer. In fact, Hyman appears to dismiss the possibility of answering them: "it is impossible.. .even to attempt to provide detailed answers to these questions" (1 975: 67). I will employ the method of institutional ethnography in order to provide these detailed answers. Hyman concedes that it is possible to "indicate some of the pressures and constraints which determine the content of trade union decision-making and non-decision making" (1975: 67). Most importantly, 'the union'

represents a set of more or less stable relationships, a network of positions of greater and lesser power and influence. The top leader(s), in favourable circumstances, may wield far greater power and influence than any other individual in the union, and may be able to adapt organizational relationships to add further to this power and influence (Hyman: 8 1).

In summary, the definition of 'the union' will be demonstrated through an examination of the "more or less stable relationships" that exist between individuals in the organization called CUPE 4 163.

Critiques of Labour Unions

It is a rule in a capitalist society that any institution or reform created for or by the working class can by that very token be converted into a weapon against it - and it is a hrther rule that the dominant class exerts a constant pressure towards this end . . . The working class is only concretely fi-ee when it can fight against the system which exploits and oppresses it. It is only in its collective institutions that it can do so: its unity is its strength, and hence its fi-eedom. But precisely because this unity requires disciplined organization, it becomes the natural objective of capitalism to appropriate it for the stabilization of the system (Anderson 1967: 276 in Hyman: 69).

A central critique of labour unions is that they are institutions of capitalism instead of bodies of resistance. According to this critique, unions have allowed the state to determine their activities. Many scholars situate this historically as part of a post-war compromise between capital and labour (McInnis, 2002; Palmer 1983, 1987; Panitch and Swartz, 2003). Even prior to the Second World War, tensions could be discerned within labour's ranks. Syndicalism and other radical currents offered a critique of moderate

'bread-and-butter' unionism, viewing labour organizations as historic vehicles of revolutionary transformation. Vladmir Lenin, meanwhile, differentiated between 'trade- union consciousness' and the revolutionary consciousness of the most advanced sections of the working class (Lenin, 1963). In the mid- 1900s in Canada, a major shift occurred in the relationship unions and the state, and between labour and capital. The power of organized labour at the end of the Second World War forced concessions from capitalism that simultaneously altered its structure, practices and orientation. This post-war compromise provided legal recognition to unions for the first time, while severely restricting the right to strike. With the Rand Formula of 1946, unions enjoyed unprecedented financial stability, though union leaders were increasingly placed in the role of policing their own members and the collective agreement.3 Bureaucratic sway replaced militancy as the determining attribute of union leaders, who moved from the role of mobilizer to manager. While employers were required by law to recognize unions and participate in the collective bargaining process, the working-class organizations they faced at the bargaining table had been transformed and restricted in fundamental ways.

Collective action was prohibited during the life of collective agreements. Grievances were channeled into individualized arbitration processes, whereas previously they were resolved through wildcat shop-floor action. All of this in turn contributed to an institutionalization of employment relations and a bureaucratization of the labour movement (Aronowitz, 1973).

This historic decision by Ontario Justice Ivan Rand resolved the infamous autoworkers strike at Windsor, providing unions with compulsory dues checkoff in exchange for a guarantee of labour peace for the life of The current actions of unions must be understood within this post-war context,

and the breakdown of the compromise in recent decades, associated with the rise of the

new right and a withering away of post-war gains. Unions frequently act in defensive

rather than offensive ways (Russell in Carroll 1997). Additionally, as Hyman suggests,

unions act in ways that "reinforce the bias towards wage-consciousness" (1975: 28).

Labour unions do this by, for example, instituting collective agreements restricted to

wages, hours and benefits, leaving decisions about the work process itself exclusively at

the discretion of management. As suggested by Bob Russell, "the present

institutionalization of labour affairs assumes, amongst other things, a regime of

regularized collective bargaining, a highly juridified state of industrial relations, a formal - ,- division between workplace representation and political representation proper, and, for

highly involved activists, a relatively inclusive trade union culture that may have overall

exclusionary implications" (Russell: 120-12 1). Even though union activists may be

included in bargaining and other union-related activities, overall decision-making within

the workplace is largely beyond their control.

The labour-relations regime has created a situation where the interests of union

leaders and the rank-and-file membership are often antagonistic. Placed in the role of policing the collective agreement and the membership, union leaders are inclined toward moderation and the settlement of disputes at the bargaining table rather than on the picket lines. Legal constraints such as the prohibition on strikes during the life of collective agreements force union leaders to shun efforts toward militant shop-floor action. Indeed, the authority and legitimacy of union leaders (in the eyes of employers and the state, at least) depends on their ability to control the membership and prevent wildcat action. In a collective agreement. this way, the post-war labour-relations regime has demobilized organized labour. It has shifted the orientation of organizations and leaders fiom militancy to moderation; in the words of Bryan Palmer, from "resistance to accommodation" (1983: 14). In this altered institutional setting, leaders frequently become defensive and fearful of the rank and file who represent the ultimate threat to their positions of power and authority (Hyman 1975:

8 1). Leaders may become removed from the members by, for example, becoming professionals. Contact with members on the shopfloor is reduced significantly, and replaced with a multitude of other responsibilities such as meeting and socializing with management, political officials, and other union leaders. To defend their positions, a common tactic employed by union leaders is to withhold information from their members. This tactic is sometimes motivated solely by self-interest or self-preservation, while other times leaders believe that in withholding information they are acting in the best interests of their members. It is here that staff or experienced leaders might put pressure on new leaders to go against the instinct of informing the members of all union business. Withholding information may be intentional or it may be implicit in the culture of the union.

Union leaders and staff act in ways that they believe are best for the organization; these actions may not, however, necessarily be in the best interests of the members. For example, in the recent negotiations between the University of Victoria and CUPE 41 63, if the teaching assistants had gone on strike, they would have been entitled to $40 per day strike pay. In most cases, this financial compensation fiom CUPE National would exceed the compensation TAs receive fiom the university.' If the TAs were to go on strike for an

Most TAs at the University of Victoria work between ten to fifteen hours per week at a wage of $17.49/hour. extended period of time, as was the case at York University where TAs struck for 78 days drawing millions of dollars in strike pay from CUPE, they would act as a financial burden to CUPE. It was thus in the best interest of CUPE (as an organization) to pursue a policy of 'strike aversion' and seek an agreement with the university without resorting to a withdrawal of labour. The ordinary tendency of union leaders to avert strikes was amplified by the peculiar financial situation of TAs. Unlike most unionized workers, they would receive more money striking than remaining at work. The distance between this particular section of CUPE members and their union is well illustrated on this question of strike aversion. Indeed, it could be argued that the interests of WicTAs in some ways conflicted with those of CUPE members generally. A TA strike would deplete CUPE's fragile strike fund, threatening the well-being of many of the union's half-a-million members. A strike, however, appeared necessary to safeguard the economic interests of

WicTAs. Ultimately, a policy of strike aversion influenced the union's demands and its approach to bargaining with the employer. Seeking to avert a strike, CUPE adopted a stance of accommodation rather than resistance. Leaders and staff were generally guided by an implicit strategy of preventing the bargaining process from building momentum and shifting into something with a life of its own, beyond the control of the organization.

In summary, labour unions have been criticized for their role in an increasingly institutionalized and bureaucratic system of industrial relations. Within this system, labour unions tend to focus only on 'bread and butter' issues rather than on broad objectives of social change. As Bob Russell explains, "much of the day-to-day politics of trade unionism involves policing collective agreements as they pertain to the interests of individual members" (Russell: 120). Within the context of a post-war compromise between capital and labour, the historic political project of the labour movement (as articulated by Marx) - the socialist transformation of society - has increasingly been replaced by the narrow goal of securing membership ratification of collective agreements and averting strikes.

Beginning in the late 1970s, with the rise of the new right, the post-war compromise began to deteriorate and now exists only in its remnants. "What we have witnessed is the passing of the era of free collective bargaining in Canada, one in which the state and capital relied, more than before the Second World War, on obtaining the consent of workers generally, and unions in particular, to act as subordinates in Canada's capitalist democracy" (Panitch and Swartz, 2003: 6). Governments are intervening in the content of negotiations at an increasingly alarming rate. Here lies an interesting irony: while neo-liberals claim to favour a decrease in government intervention, the implementation of their agenda requires increased intervention in the field of industrial relations. This new attack on trade unions needs to be understood in the context of neo- liberalism.

'The Relations of Ruling'

Dorothy Smith refers to the "ruling apparatus" as "those institutions of administration, management and professional authority, and of intellectual and cultural discourses, which organize, regulate, lead and direct, contemporary capitalist societies"

(Smith 1990: 2). The origins of Smith's approach to 'relations of ruling' stem from Karl

Marx's theories of materialism and class consciousness and oppression. Smith explains that "the method of inquiry is grounded in [Marx's] materialism as described in The German Ideology.. ., the premises of which are not concepts or principles but the actual

activities of actual individuals and the material conditions of those activities" (1990: 6).

As Mam explains:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force [original emphasis]. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance (Marx 1970: 64).

Smith proposes using this materialist ontology to allow researchers to explore

what is actually happening in the lives of people in a very practical sense. Instead of

theorizing before the research, Smith wants researchers "to discover, to analyze what is there, and to find and refine concepts to analyze and express properties of social

organization as they come into view in the course of inquiry" (1 990: 6). By returning to a

standpoint in the actualities of people's lives, and beginning the inquiry here, we can

discover how social relations are coordinated. As Smith explains: "Like a map, it would be through and through indexical to the local sites of people's experience, making visible how we are connected into the extended social ruling relations and the economy"

(1 999:95).

Relations of ruling only exist in as much as people, both rulers and those who are ruled, make them exist. As Marx believed, social forms of consciousness, such as class

consciousness, exist "only in actual practices and in the concerting of those practices as an ongoing process" (Smith 1990: 7). In this sense, Smith explains that capitalism, for example, "explicates in practice [original emphasis] the properties and categories of economic relations on which a science of political economy can be founded" (1 990: 7).

Capitalism itself provides us with a methodology of analysis, based on the activity of real people and their material conditions (1 990: 7).

The Commercialization of Post-Secondary Education

Historically, the social function of the university has remained basically the same: It is the place or institution where the ruling apparatus of the time transfers to the next generation the attitudes, skills, and knowledge needed to cope with the future. (Franklin in Turk, 2000: 18)

James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University

Teachers (CAUT), defines commercialization as "the attempt to hitch universiti'es and colleges to the private sector" (2000: 4). As a result of insufficient public fhding, Turk argues, there is an increase in the commercialization of universities and colleges in

Canada. In short, universities and colleges are more reliant on private funding sources than ever before. This commercialization occurs in a number of ways.

First, and perhaps most visible, is the rise of marketing of brand names on campuses. For example, at the University of Victoria, an exclusivity deal was signed with the soft drink company Pepsi. In exchange for a large volume of fiee product, UVic provided the company with a monopoly on soft drink distribution on the campus for a period of ten years.s Additionally, the University of Victoria controls the vending machines and sells Pepsi products for a profit. The University of Victoria Students'

Society (WSS) was included in this exclusivity deal, agreeing to purchase all soft drinks fiom Wicfor distribution in the Student Union Building for ten years. In exchange,

This information was gathered fiom an interview with Morgan Stewart, past finance director and chair of the University of Victoria Student Society and a former member of the Board of Governors at UVic. UVic gives $25,000.00 to the WSS each year. Similar exclusivity deals pertaining to food services with firms such as Sodexho and Aramark are common at Canadian post- secondary institutions. Where Pepsi receives exclusive access to market its brand to the campus community, Sodexho and Ararnark enjoy a monopoly on the provision of cafeteria, residence and vending services. Cash-strapped university administrations and student associations are often eager to enter into such agreements; they justify the curtailment of consumer choice and the proliferation of corporate brands by pointing to the necessity of the guaranteed revenue these agreements provide.

A second way in which commercialization occurs is through the "selling of goods and services to universities and colleges" (Turk, 2000: 5). Computer hardware and software are sold in bulk to universities and colleges to facilitate on-line learning or virtual education. In exchange for reduced prices on their burgeoning computing infrastructure, post-secondary institutions sign large contracts with single providers such as IBM. Both of these aspects of commercialization - the marketing of brands and the private provision of goods and services - demonstrate the tendency of universities and colleges to operate as if they were private institutions. This is evidenced in a number of other ways. There is a shift in the language used on campuses: "students" become

"clients", while "teachers" become "service providers." There is a shift towards a user- pay model, marked by the deregulation of fees and a decreased reliance on public funding. There is an increased reliance on private donors and charities. Furthermore, management practices change. For example, instead of the primary role of educator, presidents become Chief Executive Officers. There is an increased reliance on casual labour. While no formal study has been conducted to date, CUPE Local 41 63 estimates that its members perform three-quarters of all teaching at the University of Victoria.

Across North America, this 'casualization' of university teaching is evidenced by the

proliferation of term-employment and the declining ratio of instruction by tenured

faculty. Finally, commercialization is marked by the proliferation of labour-replacing

technologies, such as Information Technologies (IT), that are used to increase

productivity by reducing the role of human teachers, "substituting capital for labour"

(Turk, 2000: 9).

It hardly needs to be said that there are 'strings attached' to this creeping

privatization. With a greater reliance on corporate funding sources, and a private-sector

model of operations, universities and colleges increasingly serve corporate and private

interests. For example, because of recent changes to government funding programs, many

academic researchers in Canada must team up with private partners in order to receive

public funding. The recently inaugurated Discovery Parks Inc., a 'technology transfer'

facility at Wic, is explicitly designed to facilitate the transfer of university (publicly

subsidized) knowledge to private-sector entrepreneurs.

Using Dorothy Smith's institutional ethnography as a method, Liza McCoy

(1998) conducted research on how colleges in Ontario are "restructuring" to deal with reduced operating grants and a push towards a private model of service delivery. Her

focus is an investigation of how accounting texts shape the practices of those who manage teaching. Specifically, she analyzes a new program-costing document used at a particular college, one year after its enactment. Based on a mathematical formula, the program-costing document requires deans in various divisions to evaluate how much programs cost to run. Based on these evaluative figures, deans and administrators then make decisions, for example, about which courses or programs should be dropped.

Basically, the college receives a specific amount of funding for each student depending on the program. Each teacher receives a specific amount of reimbursement for the labour of teaching the course. All of this is part of the program-costing document that tries to maximize revenue and minimize cost. It is not surprising that deans, held accountable to the administration, attempt to do such things as increase class sizes and reduce teaching hours to improve the "bottom-line" of the program-costing document. McCoy's study is useful because she demonstrates the centrality of the program-costing document to the quality of education at the college. Her study highlights how the text is used as an objectified form of knowledge. In essence, the program-costing document is used to justify the practices of the deans and administrators.

(c) My Role in CUPE Local 4163

Institutional ethnography begins inquiry in the "local particularities of everyday experience" (Smith, 1999: 73). This allows a point of entry into exploring relations of ruling. The subject therefore begins in her embodied form. The standpoint I will be taking begins in the actualities of my experiences. The goal being to "explicate the actual social relations in which people's lives are embedded and to make them visible to them/ourselves" (1 999: 74). I first got involved with CUPE 4163 as a volunteer on the

Political Action Committee in the fall of 2000. My membership in the union was a result of my employment as a teaching assistant in the department of sociology, where I was completing the course-work component of a Masters degree. My motivation in joining the Political Action Committee was two-fold. First, I wanted CUPE to be involved in the political projects (especially campus-related ones) to which I was already committed. In this sense, my activism pre-dated my participation in CUPE. Second, I was excited about belonging to a union and wanted to take an active role in CUPE.

At the time, there was an elected executive and three paid staff positions. The

staff worked almost entirely on grievances and bargaining. In the summer of 2001, the position of communications and recruitment director was created by the executive and

advertised to the membership. I applied for and was awarded this position, largely on the basis of my involvement as one of the few volunteers in the local. I started this job,

working 15 hours per week, in July 2001. Since that time, three staff have been employed

by the local: a business manager, a business agent, and a communications and

recruitment director (me). My primary responsibility as CUPE 4163 staff is to

communicate union issues with the membership, the campus community and the public.

Additionally, I am responsible for recruiting members into positions of leadership and

educating them on how to act in these roles. I have worked intensely at this for almost

three years watching different members come and go. During this period, my perspective

about how things work within the union has ev01ved.~

I occupy a particular location in the union in that I am the communications and

recruitment director and a paid staff member. More importantly, I feel I occupy the

particular location of being a person who knows things. Because the majority of CUPE

41 63 members are teaching assistants who don't usually hold a TA position for more than

two years, my three years of experience with the union, in particular in a paid staffs

position, means I generally know a great deal more about the union than other members. This is not because I'm smarter but because I have closer social ties and more intimate access to the union's daily activities. I have access to what has been described as institutional knowledge of the organization.

(d) Problematic and Conceptual Approach

Institutional ethnography differs from more conventional types of qualitative research methodology used in the social sciences in that it begins by problematizing peoples' experiences. As George Smith explains, "the method of analysis proposed by

Dorothy Smith marks a paradigm shift for sociology because of its unique epistemological/ontologicalgrounding" (Campbell, 1995: 19). Unlike other research methods, which attempt to know the world from the 'outside,' institutional ethnography proposes explicating people's experiences from their own standpoint. However, as

Dobson points out, "a standpoint is not a worldview" (2001: 148). Instead, the standpoint position allows the research to be rooted in people's everyday lives. This rooting brings us closer to the goal of discovering "how things work" and "how they are actually put together" (Smith, 1987: 147). If we understand how social relations occur in a particular local setting, we can reveal how people's daily lives are also coordinated by social relations beyond their locality. This is because social relations penetrate through local sites of work across space and time. As Dobson (1 53) explains: "We are the ones that achieve organization together; organization does not exist 'out there' as structures or buildings or even texts but rather as a social relation that was put together by people and continues to be so." In this way, institutional ethnography is particularly useful for

Recently, CUPE 4 163 staff organized as a bargaining unit of the Communications, Energy and

20 individuals wishing to conduct research from the 'bottom up' (Campbell, 1995). Indeed, I chose institutional ethnography because

the analysis begins in experience and returns to it, having explicated how the experience came to happen as it did. The objective of making the analysis is to open up the possibilities for people who live these experiences to have more room to move and act, on the basis of more knowledge about them (Campbell, 1998: 56).

It is through my lived experiences with CUPE 41 63, as first an activist then as a staff member, that a 'problematic' emerges. Campbell and Gregor explain that in institutional ethnography "a problematic identifies how the researcher will take up the inquiry from a standpoint in the everyday world" (2002: 48). Working for the union, I began to understand that my original perception of my involvement as a union activist working towards social change had shifted to incorporate a greater criticism. Knowing the union from the inside, I began to see what Dorothy Smith refers to as a "disjuncture"

(1990: 83- 104). This is the moment when one realizes, as explained by Marie Campbell and Frances Gregor, "that something chafes" (2002: 48). The problematic I would like to explore is: How do I work as stafffor CUPE 4163, looking out for the organizational well-being of the local, and at the same time, best represent the interests of the rank-and- file members? In order to answer this question, which centres on the tension between the interests of the organization and the interests of its members, I arrived at a second question: How do relations of ruling shape the interactions and practices of union leaders, staff and rank-and-file members?

Paperworkers (CEP) Union, Local 467, which consists of the staff of many public-sector unions throughout BC. (e) Methodology

For the purposes of this thesis I will be exploring the time period leading up to and including bargaining for a collective agreement for Components One and Two. The union formed a contract committee in the early months of 2003 and began regular meetings to develop strategies, proposals and internal structures. Formal negotiations with the University of Victoria began on August 18,2003, and continued until January

2004, when a majority of CUPE 41 63 members ratified a new collective agreement. I will be drawing selectively from the events, people, and documents during this time with the intent of exploring how the ruling relations penetrate into the everyday life of the local.

I will be taking up the standpoint of union activist. Although it is true that I have worked for CUPE 4163, I am often at odds with some union leaders and staff. I more closely identify and feel comfortable with union activists who express a willingness to go on strike and pursue far-reaching goals through forms of direct action, rather than negotiation. Contrary to others, I believe that CUPE 4 163 and the university are divided by a fundamental antagonism, rooted in our economic system. I approach industrial relations through the framework of class conflict rather than class harmony.

Acknowledging the existence of a class society, and power imbalances within it, I believe

CUPE should act in a more aggressive way. If it were up to me, UVic would be publicly shamed for their labour practices and the campus would be surrounded with picket lines to achieve bargaining demands such as a reduction of user fees.

This study will focus primarily on Component One members of CUPE 41 63, and specifically on teaching assistants, who comprise a large majority of the membership.

This group of workers is one I am most familiar with having been a teaching assistant for two years and also having worked most closely with them. The nature of my work as a

paid staff for the local demands that I spend more time working with Component One

members because this group is the most transient and is therefore constantly needing

orientation to the union.

For reasons of space, not all aspects of the relevant institutions and ruling

practices will be explored. Much of my data will be drawn from my experiences and the

experiences of those involved in the process. There will be some analysis of documents

as text, though this method will comprise only a part of this study. Many institutional

ethnographies rely heavily on text analysis (e.g, Campbell, 1998; Kinsmen, 1995;

McCoy, 1998; Ng, 1995; Sharma, 200 1; Smith, 1993). My research is a departure from

these research projects. It represents a different kind of institutional ethnography, laying

greater emphasis on personal experience than on text analysis.

Institutional ethnography does not advocate a single method of data collection.

Instead, the researcher uses a variety of techniques to reveal the hidden social relations

that exist in the everyday world. Marie Campbell explains that

institutional ethnography, like other forms of ethnography, relies on interviewing, observation and documents as data. Institutional ethnography departs from other ethnographic approaches by treating those data not as the topic or object of interest, but as 'entry' into the social relations of the setting (Campbell, 1998: 57).

Beginning from the standpoint of union activist, I will use the following data-collection methods:

1. Participant Observation My experience will be used as data. For the last three years, I have participated in the activities of the union. I have had many opportunities to observe firsthand different situations involving different people. I have attended two CUPE National Conventions, a

CUPE BC Convention, the Naramata Labour school, numerous workshops, six CUPE

41 63 Semi-Annual General Meetings, and literally hundreds of executive, staff and committee meetings within the local. Field notes that I've gathered during this time assist me in revealing how the social relations of the union are organized; they allow me to explore the everyday life of the union fiom an insider's perspective. This location enabled me to conceptualize the following two methods of inquiry: 'talking with union activists' and 'documents as text'.

2. Talking with Union Activists

Instead of conducting formal 'interviews' with union activists, as might be done in accordance with a more traditional qualitative research methodology, I employed the

method of 'talking to union activists.' I distinguish formal interviewing from talking in

that I did not have a list of prepared questions nor did I seek certain information. I talked

to dozens of union activists during my research. With five of the participants, I brought a

tape recorder so that the data could be transcribed and analyzed. Many of the quotes that

appear later in this thesis come from those transcripts.

Informal conversations with union members have provided important insights,

even from those who believed they were ignorant of the union and its activities. In this I

mean that many union members make statements such as "I don't really know much

about unions, but here's what I think.. ." What is interesting to me is that the statements that followed were usually very perceptive. Members have an excellent understanding of their lived experiences because they are the experts on their own everyday worlds.

Talking to members from their particular sites of knowledge was thus extremely revealing and useful in my research project.

In addition to insights from CUPE 4163 members, I found that bringing in outsiders was relevant and important. Therefore, there is some information in this thesis that came from CUPE members in other locals. In selecting participants for my research,

I chose union members who played an active role in bargaining. Based on my observations of the bargaining process, I developed a list of individuals who I thought would have particularly relevant insights into the themes that I sought to explore in this thesis. In qualitative research methodology this is known as purposive or judgement sampling.

3. Documents as Text

Analyzing documents as text is an important component of my research in that one of the central premises of institutional ethnography is that the social world is coordinated through text. Smith refers to text as "local practices organizing a sequential social act" (1999: 52). Exploring the use of text allows the researcher to see how everyday social relations come to happen. However, the surface of the text is not the focus. Instead, "the text is analyzed for its characteristically textual form of participation in social relations" (Smith 1990: 4). It allows the researcher to see how relations of ruling are coordinated through text. Smith explains:

The text is an actual material presence; it is the book, the pixilated letters that come up on my computer screen, the paper, or whatever form in which it enters the actual present site of my reading. The text occurs in the actual local historical settings of our reading and writing. Sitting just where we are, we enter through the text into relations of a different order, the relations mediated by text that organize our participation as we read. We are raised, in our reading, from the narrow localities of lived actuality into the textual world with its marvelous capacity to launch us as subjects into the looking-glass land. (Smith 1999: 52)

Members' involvement with CUPE 4 163 is largely mediated by text. Members have more contact with information they receive in the form of text (e.g., by email, on posters, in letters, in the collective agreements, on ballots, in newspapers) than anyhng else. Thus, most members come to understand what the union is, how it is organized, what their part in it is, etc., through text. By engaging the text they receive, perhaps unconsciously, they are guided towards making certain decisions and forming certain assumptions. This is not to say that if they receive a document from the union that says -

'Vote Yes!' - they automatically vote yes. Rather, that the members have a social relationship with the text that might drive them to act in a certain way. This is how text coordinates social actions. When members read the text, they are not doing so passively.

They are doing what Smitn describes as 'activating the text.'

Being the staff person responsible for almost all of the text that comes from the union, I have an insider's perspective. I write the press releases. I edit the newsletters that go out to members. I produce the leaflets that are used during information pickets. Why are certain things written the way they are? How do members activate text?

Perhaps an example of another scholar's institutional ethnographic work would be useful here. A relevant project is Stephen Dobson's research that looks at a union's grievance procedure and how this procedure effectively makes the griever 'disappear.'

Dobson, who is an elected union official, describes how "Sarah," "stressed and almost in tears" came to him with a work-related problem (2001: 150). Dobson then goes on to explain how he is required to fill out a "Problem Form." The latter is limited to Sarah's contact information, date and a description of the "problem." Nowhere on this form is there space for Sarah's emotional condition nor is there space for information aboutbow she was unable to pay rent due to her "problem." Dobson then submits the "Problem

Form" to the Grievance Officer and a full-time staff officer so they can see if the

"problem" is covered by the collective agreement. If the "problem" is not covered by the collective agreement-irrespective of how compelling the circumstances may be-the problem is dropped by the union. If the "problem" is covered by the collective agreement, the process continues and "a whole series of actions concerted and coordinated by texts" begins (1 5 1). Dobson is trying to show the reader that within the union, events do not merely happen. Certain actions occur because they fit within a particular framework that is textually organized. In this particular case, "Sarah's" experience was mediated though the collective agreement and the 'Problem Form.'

(f) Why study CUPE 4163?

There is no shortage of literature written about labour unions. Employers, workers, and academics have each given their insights. Employers mostly write about how to keep unions out of a workplace or how to control unions once they've organized

(DeMaria, 1980; Myers, 1976; Quinn, 1982). Workers write about why unions are important or how to win a good collective agreement. Academics theorize about labour unions from a multitude of perspectives and disciplines. I hope I've accomplished something different. I believe I will be one of the first people to apply Dorothy Smith's method of social research to a labour union.7

The goal of this thesis is to investigate and describe the relations of ruling present in the union. While every claim I make may not ring 'true' to all those who read this thesis, these claims are none the less important and urgent to make. By the time this thesis is complete, I will have invested three years of my life in what I consider a political project. At the very least, it is my hope that others will think about how they might be institutionalizing oppressive social relations. I want to emphasize that the goal of this thesis is not to criticize the activities of those involved with the union. Rather, it is my hope that this thesis will advance the long-term goal of building CUPE 41 63 into a more democratic organization capable of defending not only the interests of its members but also those of the labour movement generally and the larger community.

Stephen Dobson's 2001 Institutional Ethnography as Method in Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, Vol. 7, pp. 147-158 is another example of institutional ethnography applied to a labour union. Chapter One: Background to the Collective Bargaining Process

(a) CUPE 4163 Collective Bargaining

In this section, I will explore a chapter in the history of the local, specifically, the collective bargaining process that took place between CUPE Local 4163 and the

University of Victoria in 2003 and 2004.

The primary goal in collective bargaining for CUPE 4 163 is to improve the existing language of the collective agreement. Thus, members and staff of CUPE 41 63 review an existing collective agreement article by article, word by word, in order to propose changes that are intended to improve the working conditions of CUPE 41 63 members. These articles are important in that they are used by management and workers.

The contents of the collective agreement become the rules that govern the working relationship between worker and manager.

Components One and Two of CUPE 4163 share a collective agreement. Some of the articles of the collective agreement apply to both components, while others apply only to a specific component. For example, both components share articles pertaining to the grievance procedure whereas each component has its own article pertaining to the accrual of seniority. The first collective agreement reached between CUPE 4163 and the university was a five-year contract that expired on August 3 lSt,2003; this agreement provided over its duration a considerable improvement in wages, culminating in a hourly wage of $17.49 per hour for teaching assistants.

In terms of the history of CUPE Local 4163, the original organizing drive took place in a climate of spending cuts and fiscal restraint. Two weeks into the fall semester in September 1997, teaching assistants in the departments of Physics and Chemistry received an email notifjing them that they would be paid for 14 weeks per semester rather than the customary 17 (Moroz and Isitt 2003). This amounted to an 18 per cent wage cut, with no corresponding decrease in the amount of work assigned to the teaching assistants, nor any decrease in the tuition they were required to pay to the university.

Spurred by this threat to the economic well-being of one section of TAs, TAs across the disciplines were mobilized into action and on March 3 lSt,1998, in a brief, uncontested hearing before the BC Labour Relations Board, CUPE Local 4163 was certified as the official bargaining agent for teaching assistants, language instructors, and computer user services employees at the University of Victoria. Negotiations for a first contract with the university began in May 1998, and nearly a year later, on February 22, 1999, CUPE 41 63 members had signed their first contract with UVic. This contract raised the wage for graduate student teaching assistants to $16.14 per hour, and it would increase to $17.49 per hour by the fifth year of the contract. No language about tuition was included. In comparison with other collective agreements for teaching assistants in Canada, this first agreement made only partial inroads in comparison with wages that at some universities exceeded $30 per hour (see Appendix One). Nonetheless, the contract was a base and a beginning from which to start building a union and better working conditions.

Unfortunately, it would be five years until this group of workers would return to the bargaining table. All but one of the original members of the bargaining team would, by this time, have left Wic. Graduate tuition, five years later, (following the ascent of the

Campbell Liberals to office) had increased dramatically by 70 per cent. In preparation for the bargaining of the second contract, a committee was formed in January 2003. The committee was open to all Component One and Two members.

Volunteers and staff on this contract committee spent hundreds of hours conducting research and developing proposals that were tabled on the first day of bargaining. The proposals put forward by the committee were detailed in a package that was 112 pages long. The proposed changes to the collective agreement included cost articles (e.g., wages and benefits) and non-cost articles (e.g., working conditions and seniority). Some of the cost proposals for Component One included:

Wage Parity: A proposal to align teaching assistant wages at UVic with wages for teaching assistants at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser

University (SFU).

Tuition Assistance: A proposal to have some form of tuition compensation and/or protection against tuition fee increases. In the year preceding the round of bargaining - in

September 2002 and September 2003 - tuition for graduate students had increased by nearly 70 per cent, with an additional 30 per cent anticipated in the near future. This amounted to an increase fiom $2000 to over $4000 per year, with no corresponding increase in wages.

"Offset Clause": A proposal to ensure that if teaching assistants received a wage increase, hding would not be reduced fiom other sources (e.g., fellowship money). The union sought such a clause in the collective agreement to ensure that TAs receiving scholarships would enjoy any wage increases secured by the union.

Paid Leave: A proposal to require UVic to pay teaching assistants while on maternity, paternity, or sick leave. There were dozens of "non-cost" proposals. While it is not the focus of this thesis to explain these proposals at length, I will provide some examples. Members were proposing to increase democracy in the workplace, reduce probation periods, eliminate arbitrary hiring practices, ensure paid breaks, improve job security for long-service teaching assistants, access more complete contact information for members (such as email addresses), and prevent unpaid overtime work.

A general membership meeting for Components One and Two was held in July

2003. Approximately 20 members were in attendance. The contract committee, which had been meeting since January, presented the contract proposals at this meeting and the proposals were approved. A contract committee consisting of Components One and Two members was formally elected. Members at this meeting decided that the bargaining team, limited by bargaining protocols to eight members at the table, would be elected from the contract committee. (I will discuss bargaining protocols at the end of this chapter.) Members decided that the contract committee would elect the bargaining team at a later meeting. Each component would have equal representation on the bargaining team. Also, each component would elect their respective bargaining team members.

Bargaining team positions were contested in Component One and acclaimed in

Component Two. The bargaining team was to be accountable to the contract committee, and any major decisions pertaining to bargaining were to be decided by the contract committee. This committee structure was set up in an attempt to increase representation at the bargaining table beyond the eight members on the bargaining team. Near the end of the collective bargaining process, the contract committee and the bargaining team became largely indistinguishable, as all active members of the contract committee were included in the bargaining process. For example, in the final days before a tentative agreement was reached, members of the contract committee were present at the bargaining table and voted on the various proposals.

It should be noted that most decisions within CUPE 4 163 are made by a relatively small group of members. While union leaders and staff strive to increase member- involvement in union activities, participation is often low. It is only at key points in the bargaining process-in the event of strike votes, or during ratification-that participation extends beyond a small group of eager union activists. Attendance increases fi-om dozens to hundreds of members, revealing the mass character of the union. Once such key moments pass, participation returns to previous levels. I should emphasize that this pattern is not unique to CUPE 41 63. In this local, as in many unions and other organizations, formally democratic structures usually operate on the basis of a minority of potential actors.

Collective bargaining took place between the union and the university fiom

August 18th, 2003 until January 13'~,2004. As was the case in the Local's past rounds of collective bargaining, the National Representative from CUPE served in the role of lead negotiator at the bargaining table. This particular National Representative had acted in the role of lead negotiator for the sessional lecturers (Component Three) of CUPE 41 63.

He was not present during the first round of Component One and Two collective bargaining nor did he have experience with other locals representing Teaching Assistants.

Local staff and bargaining team members believed that they lacked the requisite skills and therefore requested that the CUPE National Rep fill the position. The role of lead negotiator is extremely important because "only the spokesperson may make or receive offers" (as outlined in the University of VictoriaKUPE 41 63 Bargaining Protocol

Agreement - See Appendix Two).

As bargaining proceeded, the contract committee called a number of general meetings to inform members of the union's proposals, the status of negotiations, and to determine what course of action the union would take. It was at these membership meetings that important decisions were made.' Attendance at these meetings ranged fiom

50 to 100 me~nbers.~From August until November, very little progress was made at the bargaining table, particularly with respect to cost items. When the lack of progress became evident, the union's contract committee set a deadline of November 21Stto receive the university's offer on wages and benefits. No financial proposal was tabled by the university. Although informal comments to union bargainers had suggested that some increase would be provided, the lack of a formal position on wages implied that the university's position was 'zero'. Within the collective bargaining system, clauses that are not re-opened maintain the terms of the previous agreement. After receiving no substantive financial proposals fiom UVic, the contract committee decided to take the next step and called a membership meeting for November 24&.

At this meeting, attended by nearly 100 members, the CUPE 4 163 membership voted by a wide majority to hold a strike vote.'' There was a high level of enthusiasm at this meeting; members expressed anger at the university's refusal to offer any increase in wages, and they voiced support for a more aggressive stance in negotiations. Union

- - The CUPE 4163 constitution identifies membership meetings as the highest decision-making body. In total there were approximately 1000 members in Components One and Two who were eligible to vote at union meetings. The precise membership figure is difficult to determine at any given time considering the short term of employment (four months in the case of TAs), and delays in the communication of membership data between the university and the union. lo The results of this vote at the November 24" meeting are not recorded in the minutes. Participants recalled that the motion to hold a strike vote, conducted by a show of hands, carried by a large majority. activists who had been serving on the bargaining committee for months were energized by the level of attendance. For the first time in the five-year life of the union, the organization revealed its mass character. Microphones were required at this meeting and the room was overflowing. In this climate of heightened participation, proposals fiom the bargaining team regarding a strike vote were readily accepted. There was a mood of optimism and excitement on the union's side.

The strike vote was conducted over a four-day period. A total of 829 members were eligible to vote; 409 of them actually voted. The ballots were counted on December

8% 375 members voted in favour of a strike, while 32 members were opposed." This amounted to a 92 per cent strike vote, an impressive mandate for the union's bargaining team. On December 12'~,at the union's request, a mediator was brought in to help with negotiations. With the mediator present, the university tabled a financial offer titled

'Graduate Teaching Assistant Fellowship' (GTAF). This proposal contained a number of

serious weaknesses: it was not structured as a wage increase; it would not be included in the body of the collective agreement; it did not apply to everyone; it expired before the termination of the collective agreement; and it did not address tuition. The contract

committee could not accept the offer.

All the while, cognizant of the university's unwillingness to acknowledge any

connection between wages and tuition, the union was preparing for a strike. It was during the months of December and January that the union had the highest number of active rank-and-file members participating in building the organization. The shop stewards in

the various departments on campus began holding departmental meetings. The union

increasingly assumed the characteristics of a democratic, bottom-up, grassroots organization. On December 14th,the union held a workshop for picket captains. The

president of the local, a sessional instructor, held meetings for other sessional instructors

to discuss the role of sessionals in the event of a strike. At first, these sessional meetings

were not well attended. However, when a strike appeared to be immanent, approximately

25 sessionals attended a meeting and were mostly supportive. In addition, many

sessionals contacted the union office with questions and concerns and, again, they were mostly supportive.

The relationship between TAs and sessionals at UVic varies depending on the situation. In some cases where a sessional is teaching a course, CUPE 4163 TAs work under the supervision of sessionals. This is somewhat peculiar in that both sessionals and

TAs are members of the same union. This relationship sometimes builds solidarity between the two kinds of academic workers. Other times, this relationship is a more traditional employer/employee relationship with the sessional viewing the TA "below" their status. Additionally, some sessionals envy the relationship TAs have with the university. While most sessionals do not have an official status on campus (e.g., no formal representation at departmental meetings), TAs hold the position of graduate student and often acquire status on that basis.12

CUPE 41 63 had support from other campus groups. A motion of support endorsing the union's demand for wage parity with teaching assistants at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University was ratified by the University of

Victoria Faculty Association, the Graduate Students' Society, the University of Victoria

l1 Additionally, there were two spoiled ballots. l2 It should be noted that prior to organizing with CUPE, sessionals tried to join the UVic Faculty Association and were refused. CUPE was therefore their second choice. Some sessionals remain ambivalent about their membership in a more conventional labour union. Students' Society, other CUPE locals on campus, and departments including Philosophy,

History, English, Pacific and Asian studies, and Physics. Meetings were held with various campus groups (e.g., CUPE 95 1, CUPE 9 17, Professional Employees Association,

Student Societies, steelworkers)13to discuss how each group would be affected by a strike on campus. For unions on campus, meetings focused on agreeing to an essential services list with the university. Despite a directive from the university that identified a great number of positions as 'essential', the meetings went well and I think it would be fair to say that there were general feelings of solidarity among the representatives of the various groups.

Communications campaigns were at their peak during December and January.

The union distributed thousands of buttons and stickers that read: "I love my TA" and "I support UVic TAs." During this time, I sent a dozen press releases to the media.

Generally, the press releases resulted in positive coverage for the union in print, on the radio, and on local television (See Appendices Three and Four). (To this day, six months after the buttons and stickers were distributed, I am pleased to see them sported around the Wiccampus.)

l3 CUPE 95 1 consists of 'indoor' workers (office and support staff, childcare workers, and library staff); CUPE 917 consists of 'outdoor' workers (maintenance, grounds, and Campus Security), as well as food services workers, physical plant technicians, and custodians; PEA Wic chapter consists of supervisors and mid-level managers, located between CUPE 95 1 members and non-union administrators; the University of Victoria Students' Society (WSS), Local 44 of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), consists of undergraduate students, while the Graduate Students' Society (GSS), CFS Local 89, consists of graduate students; finally, USWA (Steelworkers) Local 2952 consists of mainly student workers who are employed by the UVSS in the Student Union Building (SUB). A final union local, IATSE 89 1, representing projectionists employed by the WSS at the Cinecenta movie theatre, has several members employed on the university campus. Two other locals, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 333 (consisting of BC Transit drivers) and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) Victoria Local have members who work on campus daily, although their employers are based off-campus. In a last attempt to avert a strike, the CUPE 4163 bargaining team requested binding arbitration. On January 5th,the University of Victoria refused this offer.14 That evening, a union membership meeting was held to discuss the status of bargaining and determine the next course of action. Members were informed of the university's latest financial proposal, the 'Graduate Teaching Assistance Fellowship', and decided that the proposal was not adequate because it contained a number of serious weakness, as mentioned previously. The membership decided that on the morning of January 6th,72- hours strike notice would be served to the university.

On Friday, January gth,2004, CUPE 4163 began the first day of 'job action' in the union's history. Members and supporters met early in the morning to distribute thousands of leaflets at the major entrances to the university. Traffic was slowed as cars and buses stopped to receive information. BC Transit drivers, members of Canadian Auto Workers

(CAW) Local 333, were particularly sympathetic and allowed CUPE members and supporters onto the buses to distribute the leaflets. This traffic slow-down lasted only a few hours. The union leadership's goal was to start job action slowly, building momentum and educating members on how to participate in such forms of direct action.

In addition to the traffic slow-down, members also participated in a work-to-rule campaign. No labour was withdrawn nor were any picket lines set up.

On the afternoon of Friday, January 9th,hours after the union's first job action, the university tabled another financial proposal with the contract committee. The proposal was similar to the one that had been refused by CUPE members days before and prior to

l4 I should point out that the contract committee made the request for binding arbitration without consulting the membership. They had reason to believe (and they were correct) that the provincial government would not allow the university to agree to binding arbitration. Thus, the contract committee made the request job action. It did, however, include some of the changes that the contract committee had put forward. For example, the university's proposal eliminated departmental discretion in terms of how the Teaching Assistant Fellowship money would be allocated. In short, a formula was created that tied the Fellowship money to the number of hours teaching assistants worked. Also, the amount of Fellowship money was increased and the money would be awarded to all CUPE 41 63 student workers at UVic and not just to some categories of workers. For example, computing staff were originally excluded fi-om any increase; they were now included. By Friday evening, the contract committee came to the decision that this financial proposal put forward by the university was worthy of pursuing. They agreed to return to the bargaining table on Monday, January 12" and to call off leafleting and any escalation in job action pending the outcome of these renewed negotiations. The work-to-rule campaign would continue. On Tuesday, January 13~,a tentative agreement was reached, with both sides recommending ratification to their principals (the university to the Board of Governors, the contract committee to the membership). At this point, the contract committee called off all job action, including the work-to-rule campaign. It was decided by the contract committee that all details of the proposed agreement would remain strictly confidential until the ratification meeting on

January 20~.This final point will be discussed further in the third chapter.

(b) Collective Bargaining Climate in British Columbia and at UVic

The right of public-sector workers to organize and bargain collectively has always been contested in the Canadian context. Government workers and those employed in primarily as a political move to bolster the union's position. Regardless, it is my opinion that the public and quasi-public agencies organized relatively late in comparison to private-sector workers in primary industries and manufacturing. Despite inroads in organization and legal recognition in the 1960s and 1970s, public-sector unions such as CUPE have often operated within a framework of wage-controls and severe limitations on the right to strike. 'Free Collective Bargaining' has rarely existed for Canadian workers in the public sector. The rise of the new right fiom the late 1970s onward, and the corresponding assault on state spending and social programs, has restricted the limited gains secured by public-sector workers in bargaining collectively with their employers (Panitch and Swartz

2003).

There is no doubt that the climate in British Columbia for bargaining in the public sector was hostile in the years since the provincial Liberal government came to power.

The Gordon Campbell government, the first Liberal provincial government in BC since

1952 and the ideological successor of the old Social Credit dynasty, was elected to power with 77 seats in the 79-seat Legislature on May 16,2001. Yet even prior to this, with the

New Democratic Party (NDP) in office, bargaining in the public sector was difficult: the

NDP's formal affiliation with organized labour did not prevent the Ujjal Dosanjh government fi-om legislating striking CUPE school-support staff back to work in 2000.

Nor did it prevent the party from adhering to a wage-control policy of 0-0-2 per cent in public sector (a policy that received the consent of most of the province's largest unions).

Despite distinctions in the ideology or political stance of the government in power, collective bargaining for public-sector workers in British Columbia was always a difficult process. A concerted assault on organized labour by the Social Credit party in 1983 produced a formidable coalition of unions and community groups that mobilized under membership should have been consulted on such a major decision. the banner Solidarity (Magnusson et al. 1984; Palmer 1987; Carroll and Ratner 1989).

BC labour had demonstrated its resolve to retain its hard-won gains. But a basic pattern persisted: some unions secured considerable gains while others suffered staggering defeats.

An example of a union that made modest gains is CUPE Local 95 1, which represents office and support staff, childcare workers, and library staff at UVic. These workers went on strike over pay equity issues in 1999. The strike lasted only a few hours before the university and the NDP provincial government agreed to the union's proposals, granting CUPE 95 1 workers modest financial increases.

Whereas the NDP was extremely hesitant to interfere in negotiations between unions and public-sector employers like the university, the Liberal government of Gordon

Campbell embarked on this course aggressively and unabashedly. With Bills 28 and 29, legislated in January 2002, and in subsequent legislation, the Campbell government sent a clear message to unions and employers that collective agreements in the public sector could be opened up and fundamentally altered by government, to the undisguised detriment of labour. Indeed, Bill 28, the Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act empowered employers in the college sector to unilaterally alter the terms of collective agreements with this section of post-secondary workers. The bill also "gave employers the right to increase class size, to require faculty to take on more students, to assign faculty to use educational technology and deliver on-line education; and to make unilateral decisions about faculty work, vacations, and professional development time"

(Doherty-Delorme and Shaker 2003). The fiontal assault on decades of organization and bargaining gains by the Hospital Employees Union - part of CUPE, and widely acknowledged to be the most militant union in the province - demonstrates the resolve of the Campbell Liberals to weaken the bargaining power of workers in British Columbia, as part of a global neo-liberal agenda of privatization and expanding corporate power.

(c)The University of Victoria in the Campbell Era

"While our goal is to provide the most competitive compensation and financial support possible within the university's means, UVic must operate under the provincial government guidelines that allow no general wage increases in the public sector. That's why we developed a creative way to put more money in their pockets. Of course, we also have to balance the interests of all UVic students, since the only way to find additional support for graduate students will be tuition increases for undergraduate and graduate students or program and service cuts."

Jamie Cassels, WicVice-president Academic Press Release issued by Wic,Januav 6, 2004

The Liberal government, pursuing privatization and reductions of public services, pushed wage and benefit concessions on workers in various sectors. At the University of

Victoria, CUPE 41 63 was bargaining against the university's Human Resources department, operating under a framework imposed by the provincial government's Public

Sector Employers Council (PSEC). Not insignificant was the dual role of UVic president

David Turpin as a member of the PSEC council and chair of the University Public Sector

Employer's ~ssociation.l5

When bargaining began in August 2003, the UVic Human Resources Team, as well as other university officials, suggested to CUPE 4 163 that despite PSEC guidelines, there would be an increase in financial compensation for teaching assistants. A simple comparison of TA wages in Canada showed UVic TAs were paid far less than TAs at

l5 "Public Sector Employer's Council." Government of British Columbia.

UVic on graduate students (and all students), exacerbated the situation even more.

Other employees in the public sector had secured wage gains, albeit unevenly.

Two factors that PSEC used to justify increases for some workers but not others were market competitiveness, and recruitment and retention. For example, UVic president

David Turpin secured for himself $60,000 in increases over two years (which approached one-twelfth of the total increase awarded to all UVic TAs). The trend seemed to be that those public-sector employees making the most would receive a wage increase while those making the least would not.

The University of Victoria relies on two major sources of revenue: the annual provincial government grant and the tuition fees paid by students. The balance of these sources has shifted in recent years with the financial burden falling more heavily on students. Prior to the election of the Liberal government, with the New Democratic Party

(NDP) in control of the provincial legislature, tuition fees were frozen between 1995 and

2001. In the final year of NDP control, the Access to Education Act was introduced resulting in a 5% reduction in tuition fees for the 200112002 academic year. Additionally, the Act froze ancillary fees and required that fees for new programs be comparable to those for existing programs. In February 2002, with the Liberal government in control of the legislature, tuition fees were deregulated. It was at this time that the University of

Victoria's Board of Governors was reconfigured so that new government appointees would have control of the board in order to approve tuition fee increases and other measures. In March 2002, the Access to Education Act introduced by the NDP was repealed leaving no legal obstacles to tuition fee increases at post-secondary institutions in BC.

At the University of Victoria, undergraduate and graduate tuition has increased dramatically. Approved fee increases ranged between 30% and 138% in the 2002-2003 academic year. International students and those in programs such as law, engineering, computer science, commerce, and business have experienced the highest increases in fees. An analysis of the University of Victoria's financial statements is revealing.16 In terms of percentages of revenue, in the "University of Victoria year ended in March 3 1,

2002 Financial Statements," the provincial grant accounted for 77.5% whereas student tuition fees provided for 22.5%. The following year, the government's contribution fell to

73% while the students' jumped to 27% of total revenue. It should be noted that the university made the decision to double tuition fees two years before the provincial grant to the university was substantially cut.17 The university administrators made this decision in anticipation of a reduction in provincial funding. That they acted before the government forced their hand suggests they were complicit in transforming the balance between user fees and government subsidies. They were not forced to raise fees due to a revenue crisis; rather, they assisted the BC Liberals in moving towards a user-pay model of post-secondary education.

The province has significantly reduced its levels of funding in some areas, for example, by cutting all fhding for the Graduate Teaching and Research Fellowships.

l6 The University of Victoria's Financial Statements are available on-line at

Noble (2002) and others have identified such imbalances in the allocation of resources with the commercialization of post-secondary education, where those subject areas deemed to be profitable are encouraged at the expense of less marketable disciplines.

Faced with high levels of student debt, poverty, and post-graduation unemployment and under-employment, it is not surprising that many students choose such marketable, career-driven disciplines over the liberal arts and the natural sciences. Despite increased tuition fees at UVic, students have not seen any real improvement in the services, programs or resources available to them as students. This is consistent with the trend in

Canada where class sizes remain high, wait lists to get into classes remain cumbersome, libraries are missing books and contracting out services, buildings are falling apart, etc.

(Grant, 2002). Indeed, it appears the tuition structure at UVic was not designed to produce an overall increase in revenue for the university. Despite short-term budgetary surpluses, it appears the changes are part of a political project of altering the financial structure of BC's universities and colleges, from a system based primarily on public grants and low fees to a user-pay system. Indeed, these changes have led some critics to identify UVic administrators as 'hatchet-men' for the Campbell Liberals, laying the groundwork for sweeping cuts in public subsidies through a pre-emptive doubling of tuition fees. It should be emphasized that few public agencies took a stance of opposition against the government. While UVic was therefore not exceptional in this regard, its apparent complicity with the Campbell Liberal agenda situated the institution in opposition to many CUPE 4 163 members. With the University of Victoria's Board of Governors reconfigured to include a majority of Liberal appointees, with corporate backgrounds and ties to the Liberal party, one can predict the stance these appointees would take on issues such as tuition and collective bargaining with the unions.'* It is therefore not surprising that the policies of the university would conform closely to (if not mirror entirely) the government's position.

(d) CUPE 2278 - University of British Columbia Teaching Assistants and the Solidarity Vote

In the early months of 2003, one year before Wicteaching assistants ratified a collective agreement, the TAs at the University of British Columbia were in the midst of a labour struggle with their employer and the Liberal provincial government. While they shared many of the same bargaining issues, the strategy they employed-and the results of their struggle-were markedly different. The following information is derived largely from an article written by Alex Grant, former president of CUPE 2278 and one of the leaders of the UBC TA strike.19

l8 The majority of Wic's Board of Governors is appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council-the Executive Council or Cabinet as appointed by Gordon Campbell. As of July 1,2004 the appointed BOG members include: Mr. Peter Ciceri, who served as President of Rogers Telecom and as President and Managing Director of Compaq Canada; Mr. Eric Donald, Chair of BOG, who served as Regional Vice President of the Bank of Montreal and currently runs a consulting fmfor small and medium sized businesses; Ms. Gail Flitton, who is principal of TVI Consultants in Victoria and was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Continental PIR Communications in Ottawa; Mr. Murray Farmer, who is the President of Farmer Industries Group Inc., and Vice President of Farmer Management Inc.; Ms. Linda Jules, who is a consultant with Bastion Group Heritage Consultants in Duncan; Dr. Peter Ken, who is the President of Surfside Holdings Ltd; and Ms. Trudi Brown, who is a partner of Brown Henderson and a Director of Three Graces Lodging Ltd., the BC Law Institute, Pacific Sport National Sport Centre, the Federation of Law Societies, and the Nana Foundation. Names of Wic BOG members can be found on the Wic website. Source: "University of Victoria Board of Governors." Date updated 2003.

Much effort by the union's leadership was invested in increasing membership participation and union democracy. The leaders of the strike adopted the catch phrase

"this room decides" and made every attempt towards democratic workers' control.

Guided by a decidedly Marxist political perspective, Grant and other union leaders consciously devised their strike strategy as part of a larger struggle against the Campbell

Liberal government and the economic interests it represented. Furthermore, they had well-developed views on the strengths and weaknesses of the labour movement, and sought to build "democratic leadership" as an alternative to the bureaucratic tendencies that prevailed in many unions. At a CUPE 2278 membership meeting with hundreds of

TAs present, a strike deadline was set for February 12th,2003. When the time came for a complete withdrawal of services, 98 per cent of the teaching assistants supported the strike, which began with rotating picket lines around specific buildings and at selected

20 It should be noted that government imposed wage controls were not applied uniformly. UBC president Martha Piper received a 68% wage increase to take her annual salary up to $350,000.00. entrances to the campus. The high level of membership participation is particularly notable when one considers that CUPE 2278 lacked any formal mechanism (such as

existed in other unions) to discipline those members who crossed pickets lines and remained at work.

The University of British Columbia, with close ties to the Liberal government, launched a $100,000 advertising campaign in the press against the workers. Martha Piper, the president of UBC, even went so far as to meet with the Vancouver Sun editorial board, which led to further media attacks on the workers and their leaders. Three weeks into the strike, and with final exams approaching, the provincial government and Liberal labour minister Graham Bruce declared the strike illegal by imposing a 20-day "cooling off period" and demanded that the teaching assistants return to work. The teaching

assistants were not impressed by this heavy handed interference and decided to blockade

every entrance to their campus. Some teaching assistants resigned from their positions in disgust. The strike grew in size to include approximately 5000 supporters who participated in the illegal strike actions.

Members of the labour movement and CUPE 41 63 watched the events at UBC closely. CUPE BC, the provincial division of the national union, held a "Solidarity Vote."

On March 1gth, 2003 an "Urgent Memorandum" was sent to all CUPE locals in the province asking the following question: "Would your members walk off the job if Barry

O'Neill, President of CUPE BC calls for province wide job action in support of UBC workers in the event the government imposes or legislates a collective agreement with major concessions?" A similar vote in 2002 introduced members to the idea of escalating job action to support one section of workers. The ultimate action according to this strategy was a province-wide strike by CUPE workers. CUPE 4163 members at the

University of Victoria held a general membership meeting and voted 100 per cent in favour of a sympathy strike in solidarity with the UBC workers. This was an unprecedented result. A year before the UBC strike, CUPE 4 163 conducted the Solidarity

Vote during three days of balloting. Approximately 50 members voted and there was 90 per cent support for the proposal. At the provincial level, the majority of over a hundred

CUPE locals representing 46,000 workers voted in favour of solidarityjob action.

Turnout for the second Solidarity Vote was therefore much higher, and the result much more decisive. Over 100 members attended the CUPE 4 163 meeting and voted unanimously in favour of a sympathy strike with UBC workers in the event that a contract was legislated by the provincial government.

After the University of British Columbia received an enforcement order against

CUPE 2278 for the blockades and the now-illegal job action, CUPE British Columbia, with the approval of the TA local and other UBC CUPE locals, proposed to enter into binding arbitration. The labour minister refused the offer. The locals went back into mediation but the employer's position remained fixed. There was speculation that UBC was waiting for the government to impose a contract. The teaching assistants developed plans for a full-blown withdrawal of services, risking fines and the possible imprisonment of leaders. It was at this point that the government reversed its position and proposed binding arbitration. The CUPE locals saw this as a victory and accepted the offer.

In the end, the results of binding arbitration were not favourable for the workers.

The teaching assistants received an 11.5 per cent increase in wages over three years.

However tuition, which had been the major strike issue, was not addressed by language in the collective agreement, leaving the workers with a 4.5 per cent net loss of pay. Other

CUPE locals at UBC that had been on strike at the same time as the teaching assistants lost important anti-contracting out language fiom their collective agreements. CUPE

2278 president Alex Grant provided these words of advice for the rest of the labour movement: "Do not accept binding arbitration - strike, and strike hard."

The media strategy employed by the UBC TA local was entirely different from that of CUPE 41 63. Whereas at UVic the CUPE local agreed to bargaining protocols that prohibited the union fiom communicating with the media during bargaining, the UBC TA local used the media extensively to detail what was happening at the bargaining table.

This was done to keep members of the local well informed as well as to build support fiom the public. The reasons for this differing strategy may relate to differing relations between the unions and the respective universities. At UVic, many of the leaders of the

CUPE locals feel that CUPE has a good collaborative relationship with the employer.

This differs considerably fkom UBC, where there is a much more antagonistic relationship between CUPE locals and management. This antagonism can be seen in the differing media strategies of the employer: UBC spent $100,000 to criticize the Teaching

Assistants in the press, whereas Wicnever pursued such a course of action.

(e) Bargaining Protocols

It has been the tradition of CUPE locals at the University of Victoria to agree to bargaining protocols. These protocols are essentially rules under which bargaining between the university and the unions takes place. Those who favour protocols argue that they help develop a relationship between the two sides which in turn leads to peaceful agreements without strikes or lockouts. The labour relations history at UVic has arguably proven this theory accurate; at the time the TAs entered into bargaining, there had been

only one strike since the university's inception21

It is my opinion that one of the major setbacks in bargaining between UVic and

CUPE 4 163 was the union's decision to adhere to strict bargaining protocols. (See

Appendix Two for a copy of the Bargaining Protocols.) This decision was made by the union's elected contract committee shortly after the first day of bargaining with the university. The protocols, among other things: (1) set limits on the number of CUPE members allowed to sit at the bargaining table as well as specifying which component those members would represent; (2) prohibited the union and the university from communicating with the other party's principals; and (3) restricted the union's ability to communicate the details of what was happening at the bargaining table. For example, under the heading "Communications" in the UVicICUPE 4163 Bargaining Protocol agreement, the following appears: "The parties agree not to communicate negotiating issues with the other parties' principals or with the public during the negotiation process to facilitate productive negotiations, subject to 24 hours notice of change of this protocol to the other party. Media releases, if any, while negotiations are progressing and at the time of settlement, shall be done jointly, subject to 24 hours notice of change of this protocol to the other party." These protocols meant that any communication of bargaining-related issues with the media, other employee groups such as UVic faculty and administrators, or 'the public' would be considered a violation of the protocols.

Internal communication to CUPE 4 163 members, however, was permitted.

21 AS I mentioned earlier, CUPE 95 1 struck for three hours in late 1999 on the issue of pay equity, pressuring the university and the NDP government into a quick and relatively satisfactory settlement. Whether or not to agree to bargaining protocols that limited the union's ability to

communicate was a difficult decision for the contract committee. The meeting where the decision was made exceeded three hours. Two distinct schools of opinion could be discerned at this meeting, one advocating an aggressive stance and the other counseling moderation. My sympathies lay with the former school, as I agreed with members who thought the only hope of offsetting the staggering tuition increases was to adopt an offensive stance and strengthen the union's forces beyond the bargaining table, in preparation (and possibly in order to avert) a battle. It should be emphasized that this conflict had already been initiated by the university, in imposing higher fees on TAs with no negotiation. To several committee members, the university had revealed its unwillingness to compromise and forced the union's hand. As Thomas22,a member of the committee explains:

The difference between the way people were voting (on whether to accept the bargaining protocol limiting the union's ability to communicate) came down to this in the end. There are two ways to understand bargaining: There's mutual gains bargaining or it's competitive bargaining. Now it's not black and white. It never is. But people at that table, the contract committee, had two kinds of understandings about the way that we bargain. . . Those of us that didn't want to accept any protocols perceive bargaining to be competitive . . . (Others) thought it was collaborative. They all perceived it as collaborative. Or at least, they claimed that that was their perception. . . So, if it's collaborative then you don't want to poison it. You think that you can get things. You think that you can get the horse further along with sugar than with vinegar. But if it's competitive, as we believed it was, then you're just accepting constraints on your own behaviour.

Regardless of whether or not the bargaining protocols that were adopted were advantageous for union members, they set the framework for the collective bargaining process because the debate involved much more than bargaining protocols. It centred on

- - 22 Names of participants have been changed to protect their anonymity. whether the union would take an independent, aggressive stance in negotiations and build a broad coalition to win its demands, or if it would restrict its bargaining strategy to the negotiating table. In my opinion, the decision of the contract committee represented an unwarranted faith that the university' position could be shifted through reason and discussion with university negotiators. The university's unilateral action in raising tuition fees paid by TAs, and the pattern of industrial relations in other sectors in the Campbell era, suggested a show of force would be required to force the employer's hand. However, the majority of committee members believed they could win 'more with honey than with vinegar.' Unfortunately, as the outcome would reveal, such a strategy was flawed. The committee's decision ignored the larger political context in which the negotiations occurred and the general power relations between workers and employers in societies structured along capitalist lines. It may be instructive to situate this development within the literature on industrial relations that I discussed earlier. With this decision of the contract committee, made by a narrow one-vote margin, CUPE 41 63 chose the path of accommodation rather than resistance. Chapter Two: CUPE as an Institution within Capitalism: The Case of Local-National Relations in CUPE

(a) Canadian Capitalism, the Public Sector, and the University

Canadian society is organized along capitalist lines and embedded within a global capitalist system. The majority of Canadians do not own or control the means of wealth production. This basic economic fi-amework has established relations of ruling that pervade social institutions and everyday life. Rather than democratic forms of economic activity, most of the productive capacity of the country is privately owned or controlled by a small minority of individuals or firms (which are in turn controlled by groups of shareholders)(Carroll, 2004). Even in rural areas, where a more egalitarian system of family farming has traditionally spread ownership among the rural population, the control and operation of agricultural lands has concentrated into fewer and fewer hands in the last two decades (Qualmin, 200 1,2002). Those farmers who retain ownership of their land are increasingly dependent on transnational firms for seed, fertilizer, shipping, and marketing. In the private manufacturing sector, production is dominated by large

Canadian and transnational corporations, responsible to shareholders and driven by profit considerations. The extraction of natural resources is similarly dominated by large-scale private capital, with limited benefits to local communities (Marshall, 2002). On

Vancouver Island, the depressed state of logging and fishing communities demonstrates the uneven distribution of the wealth accrued from these primary products in the face of increasing corporate concentration and resource depletion (Kerstetter, 2001). Over the course of the twentieth century, the agitation of organized labour and social protest movements forced concessions from the Canadian economic elite. These included social security programs such as public healthcare which led to a great expansion in the size of the public sector in Canada. State programs, Crown corporations, and government agencies co-existed with private capital in the economy. In recent decades, the scope and scale of this public sector has been rolled back, by ascendant neo- liberal political parties embodied in British Columbia by the Campbell Liberal government, which, like the Social Credit governments of Bill Bennett (1975-1986), implemented policies that had been articulated by the rightist Fraser Institute and the corporate sector.23

In May 2001, the public sector accounted for roughly one-quarter of all economic activity in British Columbia. Provincial government revenue amounted to 20% of GDP.

The earlier implementation of neo-liberal policies in jurisdictions such as Alberta and

Ontario had reduced the size of the public sector-in terms of both overall economic activity and as a ratio of total employment-by several percentage points (Clemens and

Emes, 2001). The current political conflict in British Columbia must therefore be contextualized within a determined attempt by Canadian and international capital to reduce the size of public ownership and expand private ownership, control, and operation of the British Columbia economy. It is nothing less than an attempt to restore the domination of private capital that characterized the Canadian economy prior to the post-

World War I1 period.

23 A range of scholars have explored the rise of public enterprise in the post-war period, and the subsequent rightist assault on social spending. See Leo Panitch, Ed., The Canadian State: Political Economy and Political Power (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977); Magnusson et. al, The New Reality (Vancouver: New Star, 1984). Neo-liberal policies in Canada need to be understood in relation to globalization.

As a result of the internationalization of capital, new means of production, and declining

national growth, the conditions needed for the existence of the Keynesian welfare state

eroded (Teeple, 2000). The global economy, with its increasingly integrated economic

systems propelled by the interests of transnational corporations, has been described by

some as the 'triumph of capitalism.' The proponents of this new global economy argue

that the interests of nations will best be served if market forces are left free of state

interference. Thus, we are currently witnessing a shift in Canada away from the public

domain towards a system dominated by the ideology of the 'free market.' The scale and

the degree to which this is occurring throughout the world represents a reversal of

labour's historic post-war gains.

Within this framework of a capitalist economy, there exist a range of social

classes delineated by divergent economic interests. The growth of transnational capital

and the diffusion of investment through mechanisms such as joint stock ownership and

mutual funds complicates efforts to identify the specific make-up of these social classes.

However, the fact that a teaching assistant at the University of Victoria may own a

smattering of shares in a large corporation like the Royal Bank of Canada, does not

substantially alter the structure of Canadian capitalism. Large blocks of shares in

Canadian and transnational corporations are controlled by small blocks of shareholders,

linked to a diverse range of financial and industrial interests through an interlocking

system of corporate directorships (Carroll, 2004).

For the analytical purposes of this essay, I will not elaborate on class distinctions between bourgeois andproletariat. Suffice it to say, there exists an intermediary professional and managerial class, as well as apetit-bourgeoisie, which is often located in a contradictory class position between bourgeois and proletariat (Carchedi, 1977). Small- scale farmers and entrepreneurs may fall into this class location. Turning now to the major class divisions - bourgeoisie andproletariat, or, in more conventional terms, capitalists and workers - Marxist theory identifies class position as deriving from one's relationship to the means of wealth production. In order to survive, workers sell their labour in exchange for wages, which are less than the value of wealth they produce. This condition results from the private ownership and operation of the means of production - the land, resources, machinery and infrastructure - which, in the private sector, are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and firms. The surplus value of workers' labour is the source of owners' profits, but, according to Ma,capitalists compete with each other for an advantageous share of the total surplus, which takes the form not only of industrial profit but of interest, rent, and commercial profit (Mandell, 1970; Marx,

1978).

Public sector workers have traditionally been regarded, and have regarded themselves, as being cushioned fi-om the callous logic of the market. However, their employers face the same imperatives of cost cutting. A quarter century of neo-liberalism has ensured that there exists a strong and pervasive pressure fi-om the private sector's profit-driven model. Today, there are relatively few differences between how employers in the two sectors behave. In fact, a key aspect of neo-liberalism is to oblige the public sector to emulate the private sector. In effect, the private colonizes the public as the internal culture and practices of the for-profit private sector pervade the public-sector workplaces. In Canada, this needs to be understood in the context of "deregulation, privatization, regressive 'tax-reforms', the erosion and dismantling of social services, the

obsession with eliminating state deficits, the open door to foreign investment, and the

attacks on trade-unions" (Carroll and Little, 2001).

Despite an increasing demand from students, Canadian universities have

experienced reduced government funding since the 1970s. The Federal government has

effectively withdrawn from its financing role, except in the areas of research. This has in

turn led universities to rely more heavily on private funding (e.g., tuition fees and

corporate sponsors). The culture of universities has increasingly come to mirror that of

the private sector, as corporations expand their influence over research, the provision of

services, and sponsorship. At the same time, governments are demanding universities be

more accountable for the little money they receive. This is usually interpreted to mean

producing results for 'society' which is, furthermore, a code word for the private sector.

In short, universities, if they are to receive government fbnds, increasingly need to show

that research is serving the needs of business. This has put the university's traditional role

"as a creator and defender of knowledge" in question while the decreasing priority

accorded to teaching had led some critics to describe universities as 'degree granting

factories' rather than centres of higher learning (Drakich, et al. 2002; Noble, 2002).

(b) Trade Unions and Canadian Capitalism

In a capitalist economy, divided into the major classes of workers and capitalists, labour organizations have emerged to defend the interests of workers. However, the structure of the capitalist economy has limited the scope of labour's objectives. A constant struggle for power between labour and capital has limited labour's orientation to the collective bargaining process and attempts to improve wages and benefits for workers. We must therefore understand labour unions as operating within these relations of ruling. As discussed earlier, this ramping down of labour's demands occurred within a

'post-war compromise' between capital and labour. Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz

(2003) have argued that this system of state-sanctioned recognition of private property and managerial prerogative, on the one hand, and recognition of labour's right to organize, bargain and strike on the other, intensified the tendency toward moderation, bureaucracy, and professionalization within the labour movement. As Hyman explains:

"Trade union negotiators, faced with the power of capital, are normally far happier pursuing demands which offer reasonable prospects of peaceful settlement; hence workers' own organizations reinforce the bias towards wage-consciousness" (1975: 27-

28).

There is an important distinction between wage (or trade-union) consciousness and a socialist or revolutionary consciousness. This distinction has been articulated by

V.I. Lenin (1963) and Antonio Gramsci (1 97 1). Lenin argued that*trade unions focused on achieving 'industrial legality,' concessions fiom capitalists that represented a victory for workers but did not end their domination by employer power (see Hyman 1975: 90-

91). For example, in the Canadian labour movement, collective bargaining rarely addresses questions of capitalist power. The balance of power between capitalists and workers is not up for negotiation. In practice, this balance (favouring employers) is predetermined by the prevalence of 'Management Rights' clauses in collective agreements. These clauses are a relatively new phenomenon; they have only been standardized in the latter half of the twentieth century. For example, in the collective agreement between the University of Victoria and the Canadian Union of Public

Employees, Local 4 163, the following article appears:

Article 5 - Management Rights The right to manage operations and to direct employees is retained exclusively by the University except as this Agreement otherwise specifies.

A further weakness of labour's power under Canadian capitalism relates to the structure of labour organization. Workers are not represented by one big union but instead divided along self-interested sectional lines. The post-war compromise included a ban on strikes during the life of collective agreements, proscribing sympathetic job action by the mass of organized labour to support the demands of one section of workers. The general strike, the supreme tactic of workers according to syndicalist theory, was relegated in the post-war period to the realm of illegality. Unions frequently emerged as isolated fiefdoms, representing the interests of workers in a single industry, workplace, or sector, rather than the interests of all workers. However, in more recent years, unions, in response to government interference in the collective bargaining process, have begun to use more militant tactics such as the general strike. Such tactics are often used to defend existing conditions, rather than to secure new gains. They represent the breakdown of the post-war compromise and the resurgence of a militant current within labour's ranks.

In these ways and others, ruling capitalist relations have fundamentally influenced the structures and practices within Canadian labour unions. As Hpan (1975: 173) writes: "The priorities and institutions of capitalism . . . provide the impetus for workers to organise collectively yet at the same time set the framework of collective action. Even at the national level, the logic of trade unionism precludes serious challenge to the inequalities of power and property on which wage-labour and capital are founded." It is within this context that the discussion now turns to exploring how ruling capitalist relations shape the Canadian labour movement and specifically, the relations between Local unions and the National level of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

(c) CUPE National

The over half a million members of CUPE are structured into approximately 2200 locals, each with their own The membership of CUPE locals is determined by workers' occupations and by their location in the public sector. For example, CUPE

41 63 consists of several occupational groups under a single employer, the University of

Victoria. Each local within CUPE elects its own officers as determined by the local constitution. These officers, often referred to as the union's executive, are accountable to the members of the local and are supposed to act in ways that serve the interests of their members. Each local is required to have, at a minimum, a president, a vice-president, a recording secretary, and a secretary treasurer.

The CUPE National constitution sets out the objectives of the union (see

Appendix Five). Constitutions can be generally described as documents from which the authority and procedures of organizations derive. The constitution of CUPE can be changed by delegates at the CUPE National convention that takes place every two years.2s In order for this to happen, a local must submit the proposed changes to the

National office prior to the convention. The proposed changes need a two-thirds majority

24"SffUCtlUe." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated Aug 22,2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 13,2004. As I will discuss below, there are limits to this autonomy. CUPE National retains the ultimate recourse of placing locals under trusteeship, a not uncommon organizational mechanism in the North American labour movement. See Appendix Seven for the articles in the CUPE National constitution pertaining to trusteeship. to pass. Each local is required to have its own local c~nstitution~~,which must be approved by CUPE National and cannot conflict with any of the terms of the National constitution. This can pose a significant obstacle when locals seek to implement policies or actions at variance with the National leadership or National staff.

Each local collects dues, usually ranging between 1 and 2 per cent of a worker's pay, in order to provide financial resources to the local, the National union, and other organizations to which the local or the National union is affiliated or to which it contributes (eg, labour councils, district councils, federations of labour, provincial divisions, charities, pension funds, extended health plans, etc.). In some provinces, such as British Columbia, there exists a provincial division of CUPE, in this case CUPE BC, with whom locals may choose to affiliate and pay dues. Affiliation to CUPE BC is not mandatory and some locals choose to exercise their autonomy and allocate their resources in different ways. These locals are not awarded credentials at CUPE BC conventions and therefore do not participate fidly in all of the decision making at the provincial level.

CUPE locals pay a monthly per capita tax of 0.85 per cent of the local's average monthly wages to CUPE ~ational.~~In the case of CUPE 4163, because of how the average monthly wages are calculated, more than half of the dues collected at the local level are forwarded to CUPE National. Some of this money goes into a CUPE National

Strike Fund, which I will discuss later. With the remainder of the dues received fiom the locals, National employs approximately 600 staff who support locals by providing them with administrative support, educational resources, legal advice, conununication

25 The CUPE National Convention is the highest decision-making body within CUPE. Each local elects members to attend convention and determine policies and priorities for CUPE. 26 A local may request a template for a constitution from the National Ofice. resources, bargaining support, et~.~*One particular category of National staff is the

CUPE National Staff Representative.

(d) CUPE National Staff Representatives

Well, I think that with any volunteer organization, you're going to have to rely on staff to a certain extent. They are the ones that do a lot of the work. I think it has to be balanced. That there has to be certain responsibilities that staff do and certain responsibilities that volunteers do. Staff are essential. You have to have them. You can't operate without them. But on the other hand, you can't have them do everything too.

- Marc, a CUPE 41 63 member commenting on union staf

Each local has a designated CUPE National Staff Representative (or, in union parlance, the National Rep). One of the roles of the National Rep is to provide support to locals. For example, CUPE 41 63 uses the National Rep on a weekly basis, sometimes a daily basis, to provide advice on grievances, to answer questions about internal union processes, and to act as lead spokesperson during collective bargaining, among other services. CUPE 41 63's National Rep is not only responsible for CUPE 4 163 but also has several other locals under his jurisdiction including the other CUPE locals at Wicand those at Camosun College and Royal Roads University. At any given time, the National

Rep might be involved in multiple grievances against different employers, arbitration cases, collective bargaining, political action campaigns, and internal union struggles, to name but a few of hisher responsibilities. To say the least, the job of the National Rep is a juggling act that requires advanced skills and considerable commitment. To protect themselves as workers, the National Reps are organized with their own union: the

27 "National Strike Fund." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated August 22,2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 14,2004. 28 "Structure." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated August 22,2002. Canadian Staff Union (CSU). To assist them, the National Reps have support staff, organized under the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).

Despite CUPE National Reps' responsibility for the organizational well-being of the CUPE locals that they administer, their primary responsibility is to protect the interests of CUPE National and uphold the principles as defined in the CUPE National constitution. It is important to note that they are employed by CUPE National rather than directly by locals. Richard Hyman's general remarks on trade union officials are relevant to understanding the functioning of CUPE National Reps. While Hyman writes specifically about union officials in Britain (many of them elected officials known as

'delegates'), his findings can be applied to staff reps in the Canadian labour movement:

The trade unionist who becomes a full-time official enters a new world. His job revolves around an office and a briefcase: in most cases a total contrast to the old tools of his trade. His circle of social relations, both within and outside work, often alters radically; his style and standard of living tend to reflect what he has become - a man with a career (1975: 78).

Hyrnan points to the earlier work of Roberto Michels, who described "manual workers who, since becoming leaders, have lost their aptitude for their former occupation. For them, the loss of their positions would be a financial disaster, and in most cases it would be altogether impossible for them to return to their old way of life." Indeed: "Their hands have lost the callosities of the manual toiler, and are likely to suffer only from writer's cramp" (Michels 1915: 207.) In the case of CUPE 41 63, the National Rep entered the labour movement as a paramedic. From this hands-on role in the provision of emergency medical services, he became a professional within the labour-relations system. It must be emphasized that the actions of National Reps should not be attributed to flaws of character, personality or ideology. Their actions must be constantly understood in relation

< www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 13,2004. to the collective-bargaining process itself and the institutionalization of organized labour within a capitalist setting.

One of the most fundamental ways National Reps protect CUPE National is by guarding the CUPE National Strike Fund (a point I will return to later). Other ways in which National Reps intervene in the affairs of the local is by their participation in membership and executive meetings, in their informal relationships with employers, in their broad range of knowledge and experience with respect to the collective-bargaining process, and in their access to the provincial and national levels of CUPE. National Reps do not have voting privileges. However, as Thomas, who worked closely with staff during negotiations explains:

The staff in our union don't vote. So they have no power formally. But the incredible informal power they have over voting members! I mean whether staff endorses something or not in many cases decides whether the vote is unanimously for or unanimously against.

Beyond these largely informal mechanisms of influence, National Reps have at their disposal more coercive means of influencing the actions and policies of local unions. Periodically, National Reps are required to make reports to the National office about the well-being of the local. As Thomas explains:

The National Rep represents an insurance broker, he [sic] represents someone who gets dues and gets a good wage for helping our union collect dues. And it's his job to make sure that we don't get too much of a payout from CUPE National . . . this is actually part of his job mandate to make sure that this doesn't happen. And, interestingly, he makes confidential reports to CUPE National that affect decisions that are made based on his understanding of whether we are deserving of that kind of strike pay. A job posting for a CUPE National Representative (see Appendix Six) reveals no explicit language regarding the National Rep's responsibility to protect the National Strike Fund.

It is not surprising that the job posting is vague:

The combination of duties performed by a servicing representative varies widely fkom assignment to assignment due to constantly changing priorities and needs. For this reason it is difficult to be specific in describing the role of the servicing representative.

However, the first listed duty for the National Rep is "to work to implement a11 policies and programs approved by the National Convention, National Officers and National

Executive Board." This is revealing in that the National Reps take their primary direction fiom National, not union locals.

(e) Trusteeship

In extraordinary circumstances, locals can be taken into 'trusteeship' by the

National office. Under the provisions of the National Constitution (2003), the National

Executive Board is empowered to remove the local leadership and seize control of the local's funds (see Appendix Seven). Article 7.7 (a) states that if "there is reason to believe that [a local] may be dominated, controlled or substantially influenced, in the conduct of its affairs by any corrupt influence, or that its policies or activities are contrary to the principles or policies" of CUPE, an investigation may be undertaken, and, on a two-thirds majority vote of the National Executive Board, the local placed "under supervision, trusteeship, or suspension."29 The only recourse against such an action is appeal to the next biennial convention of CUPE. While such far-reaching powers are rarely invoked, the lack of a clear definition of 'corrupt influence' and destructive 'policies or activities' leaves open the possibility of abuse against dissident locals. While the preamble to the National Constitution clearly states that "CUPE is a democratic union in which members make the decisions and set the policies.. . it is the rank-and-file members who determine by majority vote what the Union does," the organization is structured in such a way that the National leadership can override the majority decisions of the local Despite frequent references to 'local autonomy', relations between locals and National are defined by the ultimate recourse to trusteeship and other top-down methods.

According to Justin Schrnid, President of CUPE Local 374 (Saanich, Oak Bay,

North Saanich, Sidney, Colwood and Metchosin municipal employees), there are three main reasons why, in practice, a local may be taken into trusteeship: money is being stolen by the local's executive, the local's executive has resigned, or the local's executive is trying to decertify from CUPE. He also informed me that he has heard of other reasons for locals being taken into trusteeship. One example he cited was communists controlling the local's executive. I asked him if there was any way I could get proof of this happening. He didn't think documents were available and I did not pursue this matter any further. Interestingly, at the CUPE British Columbia Convention 2004, a motion was passed by the delegates to change the language in the National Constitution pertaining to trusteeship, which is also known as Administration (see Appendix Eight). In essence, a majority of delegates felt that the language in the constitution was too vague and allowed too much discretion in the hands of the National Executive Board. The motion approved at the convention read as follows:

29 Article 7.7 (a). CUPE National Constitution, 2003, p. 21. 30 Preamble. CUPE National Constitution, 2003, i. Therefore be it resolved that the CUPE BC division strike a committee made up of two Executive Board members and a majority of Local members who have been affected by an Administration [trusteeship] to completely review administration; and that the terms of Reference be developed that would make the Administration process open and accountable; and the committee bring back a resolution to the CUPE BC 2005 Convention to be taken forward to the CUPE National Convention 2005; and that CUPE BC with the support of Locals, pursues at CUPE National Convention 2005 a Constitutional Resolution to replace articles 7.7, 7.8, and 7.9 of the National Constitution.

Clearly the issue of Trusteeship has not been resolved satisfactorily for the members of

CUPE British Columbia. It will be interesting to see in the fkture how this unfolds.

(f) National or Local?

To meet servicing needs, many CUPE locals employ their own staff, in addition to or separate from National Reps. In the case of CUPE 4 163, three staff members are employed by the local, organized under the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers

Union, Local 467. The National Rep works with the CUPE 41 63 staff to fill in gaps that exist in the experience and skill of the membership. For example, in the contract negotiations that occurred between CUPE 41 63 and the University of Victoria in 2003-

2004, the CUPE National Rep acted in the role of lead negotiator for CUPE 4163 while local staff and volunteer bargainers provided information on local conditions, conducted research, and co-ordinated communications and organizing. (Members of the bargaining unit and CUPE 41 63 staff did not feel comfortable acting in the role of lead negotiator as most had never sat at a bargaining table before.31)Aside from bargaining, the National

31 This lack of confidence among CUPE 4163 staff and members likely derived from the expertise on the university's side of the bargaining table: the Human Resources department is staffed by professional bargainers trained to withstanding union demands, and capable of out-maneuvering those lacking in similar experience. While HR bargainers earn nearly $100,000 per year, CUPE 4163 bargainers were volunteer union activists, receiving an honourarium for each day of bargaining. Their regular employment was as teaching assistants and language instructors, with little or no experience in labour relations. Rep meets with CUPE 4163 staff and the members of various union committees to provide advice and answer questions that the staff and the members may have concerning grievances, union policies, etc. The National Rep attends union meetings as required by the local. In short, the CUPE 4163 staff and the membership rely on the National Rep to provide support when needed. This reliance may be due, in part, to the lack of experience in a local that is scarcely five years in existence, and which includes a highly transient and relatively youthful membership.

The degree to which locals rely on their own staff versus CUPE National Reps varies considerably. The TA unions at the University of Toronto (U. of T.) and the

University of British Columbia (UBC) do not require many of the services provided by their National Reps. This is in part due to the skills and experience of their own staff but also, and perhaps more importantly, due to a distrust of the role of the National Reps. The president of the UBC TA local, Adrienne Smith, an activist partial to locals refusing the services of the National Rep, explains:

Reasons for retaining local staff or being self servicing, as opposed to depending exclusively on the National union's staff, are numerous. Some local leaders feel that there is, at times, a significant discrepancy between what is best for the members in their local, and the political will of the National executive and bureaucracy. National Reps work for the national union. They don't work for the locals they "service". When they interview you to be a servicing rep they ask you a question about what you would do when faced with a "rogue" local. The correct answer is not the ethical one - and flies in the face of the democratic principles and the local autonomy principle that are supposed to be the cornerstones of our union.

Some local leaders--especially with many part time or low paid members-find it hard to believe that a person with a secure job who works for National and makes in excess of $80 000 a year and gets a $17 expense waiver for every day that they are in town (and more when they are out!), as well as a car, could ever understand the precarious position of their members. I think the contrast is disgusting. Also, National Reps, unlike the elected officials of a local, have incredible power in some situations and next to no accountability. A National Rep can sell you out at the bargaining table, manipulate the politics in your local, lie to your membership-and all you can do is request a change of rep-and gamble that the one they send you in trade is better than the one you got rid of That's not to say they're all dishonest-most of them are just too busy to fight hard anymore-but a rep is a rep. Our staff is loyal to the local.

The UBC and U. of T. TA locals have staff members who have served for long periods of time. These experienced staff have seen many union executives come and go as well as many CUPE National Reps. Both locals use their own staff and elected union leaders to act in the role of lead negotiator during contract negotiations. CUPE National

Reps are politely (and not so politely) kept at a distance fiom decision-making, during bargaining and at other times. The UBC and U. of T. TA locals have been in existence far longer than the UVic TA local. Their staff and activists understand from experience the contradictory role that National Reps can occupy.

The CUPE National Strike Fund and related regulations will now be explored to explicate how larger structures established by CUPE National influenced the collective bargaining process at the University of Victoria.

(g) CUPE National Strike Fund

CUPE has a National Strike Fund that it uses for strike pay to workers and to fund campaigns that put pressure on employers to avert or end a strike. As per the National

Strike Fund Regulations (June 2003), a "strike" is defined as "a cessation of work caused by a strike, a lockout or honouring the picket line of another CUPE local or trade union at a shared work site." The amount of strike pay is determined at National conventions. Currently, the regulations state that National pays out $40.00 per day to each CUPE worker on strike, to a maximum of $200.00 per calendar week, after nine days of being on strike. The first nine days are not covered by CUPE National and the strike pay ends when workers go back to work. CUPE British Columbia also has a defence fund that operates separately from CUPE National. CUPE BC will pay workers $10.00 per day on the third day of the strike and continue to do so until two days after the strike is over and workers have gone back to work. A local must be affiliated with CUPE BC in order to receive strike pay from CUPE BC.

Six cents for every dollar collected through the CUPE National per capita tax goes to fund the National Strike Fund. In recent years, due to an increase in the number, length, and size of strikes of CUPE members, CUPE's National Strike Fund has dropped below a $15 million balance. Because of this a 'Special Levy' in addition to the per capita tax has been enacted. The per capita tax is 0.85 per cent of a local's average monthly wages. The 'Special Levy' adds another 0.04 per cent to the per capita tax making the total 0.89 per cent. This 'Special Levy' is authorized by provisions in the

CUPE National Constitution and the levy is enacted whenever the National Strike Fund falls below $15 million. The 'Special Levy' remains in place until the National Strike

Fund reaches $25 million. Additionally, at the National Convention in 1999, a 'Solidarity

Levy' was adopted. "It amounts to the lesser of $1 per member or an additional 0.04 per cent levy on top of the per capita and special levy.'J2 The 'Solidarity Levy' was originally scheduled to end in November 2003 but instead was extended by the delegates

32 "National Strike Fund." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated August 22,2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 14,2004. at the November 2003 Convention. All of the 'Solidarity Levy' money goes into the

National Strike Fund.

As can be seen, the National Strike Fund isn't floating in surplus monies. Twice, solidarity levies have been needed to cope with the increased demands on the fund. I'm suggesting that National would be cautious about entering potentially costly strikes. I don't have conclusive evidence to this effect, as there are no documents that detail the mandate of strike aversion. However, I feel that it is important to mention. There are, of course, other options that exist to put money into the National Strike Fund other than the additional levies. A higher percentage of money from the per capita tax could be placed in the National Strike Fund. However, this would mean less money for CUPE's 600 staff and other resources.

In the event of a strike, in order to receive strike pay workers must support the strike by performing duties as assigned by the local's strike committee. The most common form of strike support is serving picket duty. Workers are expected to sign up for picket duty for a number of hours per day. If a worker is unable to perform picket duty, as in cases of medical concerns, he or she is usually required to perform some other service for the union (e.g., administrative work). Article three in the National Strike Fund

Regulations outlines "Entitlements to Strike Fund Benefits":

3.1 To be entitled to strike benefits, and subject to all other rules, a local union must comply with the requirements of Articles 3.2,3.3, and 3.4.

3.2 The National Representative assigned to the local union must provide the National office with a confidential assessment of the dispute whenever it appears that the local union may be in a strike situation. 3.3 The local union must obtain a strike mandate approved by a majority of bargaining unit members voting by secret ballot after the proper notice of the strike vote.

3.4 Immediately after a strike mandate is received, the local president and National Representative shall complete, sign and forward to the National Officers a Notice of Strike Mandate. The form shall include the following information: name of employer, municipality or geographic location of the bargaining unit, description of the bargaining unit, history of bargaining, details of outstanding issues, report on conciliation, date of strike vote and result, number of members affected, statement of local union finances, structure and responsibilities of the strike committee.

Article 3.2 is particularly interesting. Here we have the National Rep making "a confidential assessment of the dispute." In the case of CUPE 41 63, one of the pivotal bargaining issues for teaching assistants was tuition fees paid by TAs. Essentially, wages were of only relative importance; they meant nothing without control over increasing tuition fees. The university could give teaching assistants increased fellowship monies and wages, but, without control over the amount of tuition fees, any money given could be taken away. The National Rep likely knew that up to that point, the University of

Victoria had not been willing to bargain tuition fee reductions or any similar benefits for its unionized employees. The other CUPE locals on campus had tried unsuccessfully at the table. Also, the teaching assistants at UBC failed to get any language on tuition in the settlement imposed by the binding arbitrator.

If CUPE 41 63 were to go on strike with the goal of achieving language on tuition, it could have been a long, costly strike for CUPE National. Such was the case at York

University where Teaching Assistants and other academic workers who were members of

CUPE 3903 went on strike for 78 days to win a tuition rebate. (CUPE 3903 had tuition indexation language in the two contracts prior to the strike.) Importantly, an indexation clause, guaranteeing CUPE 4163 members a specified percentage reimbursement of increased tuition fees, would not bring in dues for CUPE National. Similarly, a free tuition clause would be an admirable achievement for graduate student members of Local

4163. But again, it would not bring in any money to CUPE National. Could this kind of information be included in the confidential assessment of entitlement to strike fund benefits that the National Rep provided to National Office? I suggest that it could. Other issues (such as 'rogue' elements in the local) would likely be accorded greater prominence, but the financial implications of the dispute to CUPE National would not be ignored.

Teaching assistants are not fbll-time workers. For example, an average teaching assistant might work 150 hours per semester or approximately 10 hours per week. At the rate of $17.49 per hour, this works out to roughly $175.00 per week. If teaching assistants were to go on strike, for a period exceeding 9 days, they would receive $200.00 per week fiom CUPE National and $50.00 per week fiom CUPE BC, provided they met the required criteria (e.g., by serving picket duties). In short, most teaching assistants would make more money being on strike than they would working as teaching assistants, at least for some time, provided grants and fellowships issued by UVic weren't suspended. Now,

I do not wish to underestimate the difficulties and hardships that teaching assistants on strike may have faced. For example, it is often the case that a complicated situation arises for teaching assistants who are compelled to perform TA work for the same person who has control over their academic future. Certainly, points such as these can not be ignored.

Despite this, what I would like to point out is that teaching assistants, once on the picket lines, might be a more difficult group of workers to bring back to work because the traditional economic hardships endured by striking workers may not be as strongly felt by teaching assistants. This is something that CUPE National might have considered. As discussed in chapter one, many of the teaching assistants who struck at UBC simply resigned in disgust following their legislated return to work. Compensation was such that these workers opted to forego this income rather than work for an employer they considered to be disrespectful, heavy-handed, and unfair.

In the end, CUPE 41 63 settled for fellowship monies totalling less than one million dollars. The total amount of increased tuition fees that CUPE 4163 members will pay during the length of the collective agreement exceeds three million dollars. With the approval of CUPE 41 63 members, an arrangement was made with the university to have union dues collected from the fellowship monies. The benefit to CUPE National was two- fold: the 'strike aversion' policy ensured that no strike funds were ever paid out to the local; and the agreement between the local and the university ensured that the increased compensation (explicitly not 'wages' according to the contract language) would increase the dues forwarded to National. Since tuition was never tied to wages, the financial loss incurred by graduate student CUPE members had no effect on CUPE National's dues base. This imbalance in the impact of tuition on members and on the union must necessarily have influenced how the respective parties approached the collective bargaining process.

(h) Strike Aversion

Because of the costs incurred by CUPE when workers go on strike, there exists a pool of money dedicated to strike aversion. In order to be eligible for these funds a local must have achieved a successful strike vote mandate. In the case of CUPE 4 163, members voted 92 per cent in favour of a strike. Strike aversion funds are used to develop campaigns to put pressure on the employer to move towards settling a contract, and averting a strike.

In the case of CUPE 4163, CUPE National provided the local with National

Communications staff to develop a publicity campaign. Leaflets and buttons were created to distribute to members of the university community. This campaign was successful in raising awareness about the local's issues and in raising the local's profile. Media skills development training was also an important element of the support the National provided the local. On two occasions, the National sent communications staff from Vancouver to

Victoria to work with the bargaining team chair and myself in developing clear messaging about the labour dispute. All costs associated with advertisements, buttons, and leaflets were paid for by CUPE National. This CUPE National-sponsored effort had the effect of strengthening the bargaining position of CUPE 41 63 and increasingly the likelihood of reaching a settlement without a strike.

(i) Conclusion

I have tried in this chapter to show that CUPE 4163 does not operate in isolation.

Ruling relations, such as those that exist in a capitalist economy, are involved in shaping the directions that the union takes. Most recently in Canada these have been articulated by the ideology of neo-liberalism. CUPE is therefore acting within the fkamework of a shrinking state sector and an increased reliance in the economy on the private market. For

CUPE members, because they work almost entirely for public sector employers, these have been difficult times. Considerable strain has been placed on the National Strike Fund, requiring two solidarity levies to ensure money will be there when CUPE members strike.

CUPE 4 163 has a relationship to CUPE National. For example, CUPE 4 163 pays dues to CUPE National, receives strike pay fiom CUPE National, and has a National Rep involved in the activities of the local. In order to address the problematic of this thesis it is therefore extremely important to keep these external relations of ruling at the core of the analysis. The outcome of the collective bargaining process was invariably influenced by the institutional role of CUPE as a trade union within the framework of Canadian capitalism. Chapter Three: Ruling Relations and the Collective Bargaining Process, 2003-2004

Institutional ethnography has been described as a sociology from below. Instead of focussing on abstract categories, institutional ethnography focuses on the relations that exist between real people and the relations that exist between people and the texts they activate. To this end, institutional ethnography attempts to avoid objectified discourse and instead provide a discourse that is located in the actual everyday life of those being studied. In this chapter, I will integrate the three research methods I outlined earlier - documents as text, talking with union activists, and participant observation.

As I stated in chapter one, it is important to examine the use of text to understand how ruling relations permeate the life of the union. It allows me to see how relations of ruling are coordinated through text. Here, I would like to look specifically at the union's use of text and how members of CUPE 4163 responded to this text during the ratification process that led to the collective agreement reached in January 2004. I will also include my reflections on the ratification process based on my experience during this time.

"Too often, solidarity within union structures - conceived primarily as loyalty to the leadership - is purchased at the cost of internal democracy"

- Panitch and Swartz (1993: 184)

After much debate between the contract committee members, late in the evening of Monday, January 13", 2004, with the assistance of a mediator, and after months of contract negotiations, a tentative agreement was reached between CUPE 4163 and the

University of Victoria. That night, the contract committee decided to call off all job action, including the work-to-rule campaign. Further, it was decided that all details of the proposed agreement would remain strictly confidential until the ratification meeting set by the committee for January 20&. These decisions were not reached unanimously and were difficult for some of the committee members to accept.

Both the union's bargaining committee and the university's Human Resources team agreed to seek support for the new collective agreement from their principals. In the case of UVic, they would be seeking approval from the university's Board of Governors and the provincial government's Public Sector Employers' Council (PSEC). CUPE

41 63's leadership would be seeking approval from members of the local. Both sides agreed to recommend unanimous support for the agreement. In fact, the University of

Victoria, in cooperation with the National Rep, had the CUPE members of the bargaining team sign a document to that effect. As Thomas, who was critical of the agreement, explains:

When we signed the tentative agreement with the employer, they got us to sign a piece of paper that said that we would. . . recommend as a committee the tentative agreement to the union membership. Now that is not unusual. It's something that happens in the industry. Because the administration knows that if the union leadership isn't unified in fiont of the membership, then this will encourage the membership to not be unified. So we all signed this piece of paper.

At the request of the mediator, the university's bargaining team and the CUPE

41 63 bargaining team also made an agreement that the details of the collective agreement would not be released until the CUPE 41 63 ratification meeting on January 20,2004.

Members of the CUPE 4163 contract were not permitted to give out information to other non-contract committee CUPE 4 163 members, including members of the CUPE 4163 executive, until the ratification. There were a number of reasons given by the contract committee as to why secrecy was vital. First, and these are not in any particular order of importance, the CUPE 4 163 contract committee was convinced by the university's Human Resources team that the agreement was somehow "fooling" the provincial government's Public Sector Employers' According to this argument, if details of the agreement were released before the agreement was ratified then the provincial government would be more likely to suspect that wage guidelines had been broken. This, in turn, would result in the government's refusal to ratify the agreement. Second, the National Representative from CUPE informed the contract committee that it is traditional in CUPE culture to keep agreements confidential until the ratification meeting where (theoretically) all members have an opportunity to view the proposed agreement at the same time. Third, members of the bargaining committee wanted to develop a plan as to how they would present the agreement to the membership.

A great deal of work would need to be completed in determining how the information would be presented to the members at the ratification meeting and in documents produced by the union.

The night the tentative agreement was signed, the members of the bargaining team decided to call off all forms of job action. Members had been working-to-rule and had participated in a traffic slowdown/leafleting campaign. I was directed to send an email informing members of the ratification meeting, and relaying the decision that no

33 At this final stage in the bargaining process, contract committee members were invited to participate in the bargaining decisions. Therefore, I refer to the bargaining team, from this point forward, as the contract committee, and distinctions between the two groups essentially disappeared. 34 The validity of this claim is undermined by the fact that the teaching assistants at the University of British Columbia received an 1 1.5% wage increase. However, this was awarded through a binding arbitrator and not approved by PSEC. details of the agreement would be released and that the work-to-rule campaign was called off. (See Appendix Nine for the email sent to CUPE 41 63 members informing them of the ratification meeting, etc.) What is interesting here is that the bargaining team had the power, without consulting the membership, to call off the work-to-rule campaign. A mass meeting of the membership had authorized the initial job action, but a sub-committee of the membership decided to call it off. While the union's bargaining team prevented members fiom seeing the proposed collective agreement, members were told to go back to work as usual and cease all job action, including coordinated leafleting. This left many members confused and concerned about the secrecy as well as the process. As Tina, a member of the local, explained on January 14":

The people that I've talked to are somewhat offended (That seems a bit too strong, but they are put off) by their perception that the emails we've received make it seem like the contract committee is keeping secrets from the membership. . . . Anyway, I know fiom conversations I've had and emails I've received that people are confused, and some are upset, so it might be worth addressing in the next few days.

The email sent by the union (see Appendix Nine) exemplifies how union leaders and staff incorporate ruling relations into their practices through the use of text. For example, this email informed rank-and-file members that the ratification meeting would take place on Tuesday, January 20" at 5:30pm. It also informed members that secret ballot voting would occur Tuesday, January 20th after the meeting until 8pm, and

Wednesday, January 21 st and Thursday, the 22nd, fiom 9am to 7pm. In essence, members did not have a say in when or even ifthe ratification vote would take place.

They were simply informed that they would have to vote on the proposed agreement at a specific time and place. I should note here that in some provinces, there are laws that force the union to put the employer's final offer to a vote of the members. This circumvents the bargaining team entirely and establishes a direct relationship between the employer and the worker, ignoring all internal union procedures, the elected leadership, and the constitution. While such legislation does not exist in BC, the CUPE 4163 contract committee appeared to act in ways similar to the process implied by this legislation, where the employer's terms are dictated to the membership and discretionary power is taken out of the hands of the people directly involved.

Members, by a majority vote at a membership meeting, could have overridden the decision of the contract committee. Members could have decided, for example, to delay the vote by a week. Indeed, they could have fired the entire committee and elected a new committee to replace the one that had accepted the agreement with the university.

However, this information is not widely known among the rank-and-file CUPE 41 63 members. Additionally, there were very few rank-and-file members who had shown the leadership skills that would be needed to challenge the committee. While the possibility of delaying the ratification vote was acknowledged in a leaflet distributed at the January

2othmeeting to members, this possibility was never discussed and not acted upon.

The email notifying members of the ratification vote also explained that "the contract committee is calling off the 'work to rule' campaign, until the results of the ratification vote are known." Despite the information that the bargaining team was given,

I do not believe that calling off all job action before members have had an opportunity to view the proposed contract is standard trade-union practice. For example, in recent negotiations between the Canadian Auto Workers union and the Canadian National railway, the union's bargaining team was recommending that the contract be ratified.

However, job action continued until the members had ratified the agreement. In the case of CUPE 4163, there were a number of general membership meetings that culminated in the decision to take job action. There was a meeting, with much debate, where members voted in favour of taking a strike vote. Then a strike vote was conducted over three days of secret balloting where members voted 92 per cent in favour of job action in order to achieve their goals. As mentioned above, the final decision to initiate job action was made at an open meeting of the membership. A democratic process seemed to be in place and members were encouraged to participate. However, when the contract committee called off the work-to-rule campaign, the decision did not include the rank-and-file in any way.

Lastly, the email read: "Please note, procedures dictate that the details of the agreement not be made public until the members have had a chance to review them.

Thus, we will not be writing an e-mail nor posting the details on the website until after the membership meeting on January 20." The accepted practice up to that point had been that information flowed relatively fieely from the bargaining table to the union membership. This practice emanated out of a contract committee decision the previous

August, to the effect that the committee would communicate freely with the membership at all times. This reversal of practice in the final stages of the bargaining process therefore came as a shock to some members and seemed to go against the principles of union democracy. Prior to the ratification process, for example, if a union member wanted to know how talks were developing around parental-leave language, for instance, members of the bargaining team would provide the requested information. Below is an excerpt from Rosa, a shop steward in CUPE 4163, in an email sent to me concerning the secrecy involved with the ratification process. She is responding to the email she received on January 14'~~regarding the notice of the ratification meeting:

I just wanted to let you know that I had a couple of phone calls from colleagues over the last week . . .They told me that they find the secrecy around the tentative agreement unwarranted. They felt that if this agreement is a good one and the bargaining team is happy with it then there ought to be no secrecy regarding details-especially when it comes to the members that the bargaining committee represents. Further, one member commented that midterms are starting next week and as a single parent, student and TA she feels that the close proximity of the ratification information meeting to the ratification vote could pressure her (and possibly others) to make too hasty a decision. She also felt that this process may not allow proper reflection based on what is best for TA's over the next 2-3 years of a contract, and that the union should not be putting members in a position of making a decision based on information that they have only had 24 hours to mull over. (yes, technically the time fi-om the meeting to the last hour of the ratification vote makes the span of time approximately 50 hours, but let's face it, we're all busy with classes, exams, work, families etc. and can't be thinking about this one issue solely for the duration of that time) For these members, the lack of transparency creates suspicions around what is in the agreement AND doesn't allow for the union to utilize this development to get a message out (to the general public, student body, 4 163 and other union members) that a concerted effort is being made by the union to resolve contract issues for Teaching Assistants, Lab Instructors, COUS, Cultural Assistants, Lab Assistants, Second Language Instructors, & others in Components 1 & 2. Even just a quick summary or highlights would have been great food for thought, and would have avoided the problem of misinformation. Since media was so prevalent during the job action that occurred last week, being able to discuss the information surrounding this agreement would be positive. It is worth noting that that the Wicweb page promotes the ratification meeting as simply signing off on the agreement-as if it were a fait accomplit.

I need to make clear that I do not believe that the contract that was ratified by the teaching assistants was in their best interests. I view it as a concessions agreement inferior to one that could have been arrived at through a more determined and independent stance on the part of the union. However, acknowledging this bias on my part, I feel I can comment somewhat fairly on the process that surrounded this agreement. First, the ratification process was flawed fkom the standpoint of democratic decision- making in that it was heavily weighted in favour of a 'yes' vote. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the ratification process undermined the confidence that some members held in their relationship with the union's bargaining team. Whereas up until that point, members were kept well informed on the status of bargaining, gains and losses at the table, etc., at the most pivotal moment, when arguably they most needed information about the proposed agreement, they were denied access.

This struck a large blow to the immense gains in member participation and awareness that had been achieved in the preceding months. From an organizational development standpoint, therefore, the process surrounding ratification of the proposed agreement was unquestionably detrimental. The collective bargaining process had built up the union to a degree unequaled since the original organization drive in 1997, and the undemocratic nature of the ratification process largely reversed these substantial gains. In my position as Communication and Recruitment Director, I have a direct interest in how the collective bargaining process unfolded. One of my duties in this position is to recruit and strengthen the organization. I am therefore forced to conclude that the secrecy and poor process in the final days represented a clear setback for the union.

It is not surprising that the ratification process favoured a 'yes' vote. As was discussed earlier in this paper, a pressure exists within CUPE and the labour movement to get collective agreements ratified and to avert strikes whenever possible. I hope I have presented enough information to give a sense of why this is the case. By looking at the ratification notice issued by the union, and the responses fkom union members to this notice, I hope I have provided some insight into these processes. The bargaining team had an enormous advantage in achieving a 'yes' vote. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in the case of CUPE 41 63's collective bargaining, a

'no' vote was nearly impossible (although I will qualifl this statement later). First, the bargaining team had better skills as union activists than most rank-and-file members, because the bargaining team was familiar with the ways that union business is conducted

(e.g., the use of Robert's Rules of Order). They had the experience of months, in some cases years, of internal union debates centered on bargaining-related issues and general union business. Most members of the bargaining team were also members of the local's elected executive. Perhaps most importantly, they had authority among the membership to secure their desired outcome. As Marc, a shop steward who was not on the committee explains:

I think they [members] believe what they are told. So when they are told 'you make too much and this is all you're gonna get' that most people would just roll over and play dead. . . the people did what the bargaining committee told them to do. Both times. So there. That's where it came from. If the bargaining committee had of told them 'no', then they wouldn't have done it. It was all up to what they did.

Second, though it may be clichC, knowledge is power. Members of CUPE 4163's bargaining team had an enormous advantage over rank-and-file members at the union's ratification meeting because they were intimately familiar with the tentative agreement that was presented and subsequently voted on. Clearly, knowledge was socially organized in a way that disadvantaged the rank-and-file members. This example demonstrates how relations of ruling reach into the practices of union activists. As Thomas, a member of the contract committee explains:

So the contract committee, the union leaders, have a special kind of authority. They are the experts. They have been working in that field. And, the staff have a special kind authority - people recognize them as authority figures. They understand the legal ramifications. At least, this is what they tell people. . . So, you sometimes wonder after they make these recommendations why there is debate? Why do these issues have to be debated by the membership if through authority and social validation people are just expected to vote the way the leaders vote anyway. So if the leaders have maintained respect and have maintained their position of authority and if there is agreement among the leaders then I think it would take a special kind of membership to be able to vote against it.

Despite many requests fi-om rank-and-file members to have access to the proposed terms of the agreement prior to the meeting, the bargaining team held to its pact to keep all details confidential. Thus, at the ratification meeting, rank-and-file members were presented with the details for the first time and, in effect, expected to be able to debate the merits of the agreement on the spot. No time was allowed to prepare a critique of the proposal, nor to organize opposition within the local.

Third, the bargaining team had CUPE's organizational support behind it. Both

CUPE 41 63 staff and the CUPE National Rep put their resources behind the directives of the bargaining team. The bargaining team had access to membership databases, technical and legal support, two office spaces, as well as historical documents and a monopoly on the organizational memory of the local.

Fourth, bargaining team members were personally invested in the project. They had spent months preparing for bargaining and then negotiating with the university's

Human Resources team. Members of CUPE 4 163 knew this and many understood the commitment, time, and resources that the committee members had invested. Also, the committee members explained to the rank-and-file members that a 'no' vote would mean that they would be fired and replacements, from the rank-and-file, would be needed. This seemed like a drastic measure to some. Sarah, a shop steward, assessed this possibility: Oh, I really don't know that that would happen. I think they presented that as such a severe situation, like you would only do that if they really screwed up.. .. They wouldn't come to the members and say 'we really messed things up everybody - this is serious.' And I'm surprised at how well they were able to sell nothing, because they really did. I mean it got signed and it worked out and I don't think there was any talk about firing and rehiring. . . It was a scare tactic. It scared me too because I started looking around the room and thinking can I think of eight or ten people that would do a better job?

The bargaining team could have taken steps to reduce the power imbalance between themselves and rank-and-file members. To do this, however, would have reduced the certainty of a positive ratification vote. In the end, the bargaining team's desired result was achieved. Sarah, shop steward and not a member of the contract committee, sheds valuable light on the dynamics within the ratification meeting:

Luckily we weren't having to vote right at that meeting and we had a couple of days to think about it. But the problem was that we got the documents and the meeting was already taking place before we could read them. I was having a bit of trouble trying to read the documents while we were having the meeting and talking about them and someone would say oh, on page three it says something about TAs being, we're going to get some sort of cheque back based on some sort of the number of hours we've worked because of the new agreement or something. So everyone was flipping around and like oh, yeah, page three oh, I work sixty-three hours which means I'm going to get a hundred and sixty-five dollars and people were working out all these calculations on what they would get and oh, it was just really hard to take part and ask questions of any substance if you haven't really read the document yet. So, at the end of the meeting I thought, well this is great, 1'11 go home and read the documents and then I have nothing to say because the meeting is over. It's kind of too late to bring that up. So, it was just unfortunate because I noticed a lot of people I was sitting with were more concerned with what they were going to get monetarily. It was some figure depending on the number of hours, so they were calculating it and saying like, oh great I'm going to get two-hundred and twenty dollars, oh yeah, and everyone was all excited about that and I was just thinking, oh my god, two-hundred and twenty dollars for four months of, you know, you just have to think about it differently and you know everyone was just thinking fairly selfishly about it. What am I going to get out of this? And then it was just some amount of whatever. Some people -maybe seventy dollars or, I don't know, maybe nothing. I mentioned earlier that a negative outcome to the ratification process was nearly impossible. I must qualify this statement by acknowledging two actions that could have altered the outcome of the collective bargaining process. Members of the bargaining committee, several of whom were critical of the proposal, could have used their access to, and authority among, the membership to disclose the contents of the proposed agreement.

This would have amounted to a violation of the agreement they had signed in the presence of the mediator and the university, which had a questionable legal basis.

Perhaps more significant were feelings of loyalty among committee members. Members of the committee had made an agreement to each other, and the attitude prevailed that

'come hell or high water, we're on this boat together.' These were the pressures acting against those critical committee members who could have played the role of whistleblower.

They could have highlighted the weakness of the agreement, particularly the disparity between wage increases and tuition increases. They could have organized a 'no' vote among the rank-and-file, and it is likely that the membership would have supported these committee members who, such as Thomas, were highly respected by the members.

Such counter-factual speculation can only be taken so far. Feeling bound to their fellow committee members, these dissidents who objected to the proposed agreement, concealed their dissent fiom the membership. In their absence, no leadership existed within the local to prevent the ratification of a concessions contract with the university. Thomas reflected on what might have been:

My analysis was wrong. I should have resigned and then I should have worked as a non-committee member in the union to make sure the membership was prepared to take on the union leadership. And you know, the simple act of resigning on Friday might have meant that the committee would have come back to me, I mean, the possibilities of my resigning then, are countless. Who knows what would have happened?

There is, however, a final qualification to the inevitability of ratification which I must disclose: My position as staff for CUPE Local 4 163. Like the dissident members of the bargaining team, I could have used my access to, and authority among, the membership to disclose the contents of the proposed agreement. I could have paraded the weaknesses of the agreement. I could have used my skills as an organizer to pull a 'no ' vote. However, I did none of these things. There are two reasons why.

First, despite the flaws I noted in the process, the contract committee was democratically elected at the outset at an open membership meeting, and they generally conducted their internal deliberations in a democratic way. As staff for the local and as a union member myself (Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Local 467), I respect the efforts that unions have made to adhere to democratic procedures. In short, the contract committee decided that the agreement would remain confidential and that they would put forward a unified fiont to support the agreement. I did not feel justified in undermining those decisions.

Second, I am an employee of CUPE Local 41 63. The local pays me a wage for the skills, labour, and services I provide. In turn, I rely on these wages to pay my rent, to eat, to attend graduate school, and to write this thesis. I was not prepared to suffer the consequences of disobeying the orders of my employer.35Nor was I certain that by disobeying those orders I would have had the courage needed to provide the leadership

35 It is not clear to what extent I may have been disciplined by the local. At the time of CUPE 4163's ratification vote, the staff for CUPE 4163 were in the midst of negotiating a first collective agreement with required to organize a 'no' vote. I also had concerns as to whether or not this would be an ethical stance for me to take, given that I was not employed as a teaching assistant by the

University of Victoria and was thus not an active member of the local. I would not have gone on strike, had my wages suspended, nor would I have suffered any negative effects

(other than stress!) from challenging the contract committee and the proposed agreement.

In truth, I may have stood to gain by working many over-time hours for the local, and experienced the gratification of knowing that the union had chosen resistance rather than accommodation, a position that derives from my socialist political orientation and

Marxian theoretical views. I should add, however, that I was not merely 'looking for a fight.' I still believe that a more determined stance on the part of the union would have improved the terms of the contract, scaled back if not eliminated concessions embedded within it, and advanced the economic interests of the membership. * * *

It should be noted the University of Victoria teaching assistants' collective bargaining coincided with a flurry of bargaining activity in other public sector unions in

British Columbia. The BC Ferry and Marine Workers withdrew their labour in December

2003, defylng back-to-work legislation in a wildcat strike to prevent the implementation of concessions. In February 2004, immediately following the ratification of CUPE 41 63's contract with the University of Victoria, the elimination of 1200 health-care jobs was announced by the Vancouver Island Health Authority. Members of the Hospital

Employees' Union (HEU) initiated a wildcat strike. Today, April 3oth,2004, as I write

CUPE 4163 as the employer and the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Local 467 representing the CUPE 4 163 staff. this many public services on southern Vancouver Island are paralyzed, as teachers, school support staff, municipal workers, and other CUPE workers take sympathetic strike action to support 43,000 HEU workers across the province who are on an 'illegal' strike against contracting out and wage concessions.

The deliberations over collective bargaining in CUPE 4 163 occurred within a climate of heightened industrial conflict and rank-and-file militancy. Some members of

CUPE 41 63 had taken part in the 'illegal' strikes of the UBC Teaching Assistants and the

BC Ferry and Marine Workers. In both cases, they witnessed the heavy hand of government interference in collective bargaining. This broader context invariably influenced the actions of members and leaders at Wic. Below is a quote fiom Sara, a shop steward, describing why she thinks members were afiaid to vote 'no' on the proposed CUPE 4163 TA agreement:

I think they [the members] were really really fearful of the next step and I think the bargaining committee made people think 'This is it.' 'This is the end.' 'This is all we can do.' 'There's nothing more.' 'If you want to do more, these are the horrible things that will happen.' And it really did scare people. And they thought - and I don't think many people were satisfied, honestly at all - but they thought: 'What's worse?' And, I thought that too. I thought, well okay, we could take this now - it's not great - or take the bigger risk and maybe end up with worse. Who knows? And the way the bargaining team presented it - it seemed like - this was the end of the road. 'You don't take this, then you get way worse.' So that was their pitch. I guess. It was a horrible agreement in the end. There was nothing, we didn't really get anything. I don't know how much we would have had to lose if we had gone further with it. Further actions or whatever. But I think people were really thinking it could get worse.

Thomas confirms that uncertainty over the future likely influenced the outcome: "What if it meant that our union would be decertified? . . . Or the government would just legislate

36 One may be inclined to ask why I was sitting in front of a computer rather than walking a picket line on April 30~,2004. When British Columbia finally reached the brink of a general strike, I was temporarily residing in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on a leave from work to complete this MA thesis. TA unions out of existence? And the National Rep threatened us with this a couple of times." When asked if he believed there was a democratic ratification process, Thomas was unequivocal: "I hated the agreement and I hated the ratification process." Conclusion

Three years ago, I would not have been able to write this thesis. It is through my lived experience within the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 41 63 that I was able to locate a point of entry from which to begin my research. I chose to look at the collective bargaining process and specifically the ratification process because I felt they highlighted the themes I wanted to explore. I approached my research with the following question: How are the daily lives and interactions of union leaders, staffand rank-and-

Jile members shaped by relations of ruling?

In the case of CUPE 41 63, relations of ruling shape union interactions and practices in subtle ways. The union leadership, holding power and knowledge, may set up processes that are not entirely democratic, as was the case in the ratification vote for the collective agreement. The latter process was not set up with malicious intentions. It is only upon further reflection and discussion of the process that one may reach the conclusions that I did. Textual documents such as emails, posters, newsletters, and notices are important because they often incorporate relations of ruling (e.g., by omitting certain kinds of information). Such was the case of the notice of ratification sent to members by the CUPE 4 163 leadership.

A pressure emanated from the policies set out by the CUPE National, and fiom the CUPE National Staff Rep, to settle the labour dispute instead of waging battle against the UVic administration. This may have been in part attributable to the National's dwindling defense fund. As was discussed in Chapter Two, the National level of CUPE promotes strike aversion by allocating resources to locals once a successfbl strike vote has been achieved and before members of a local have withdrawn their labour. Choosing institutional ethnography as a method allowed me to actively participate in my research. At no time was I an objective outsider trying to draw conclusions. It was through my knowledge, acquired from my experiences, that I was able to talk with union activists and explore the union's use of texts. The activists I talked with provided me with excellent insights into the question I wanted to explore. Institutional ethnography is political in nature. I chose this method of research because I wanted to know more about how events come to happen as they do. We are all constrained by relations of ruling.

However, having an analysis of our experiences gives us more "room to move and act, on the basis of more knowledge about them" (Campbell, 199856).

Much context had to be provided in order to address issues raised in this thesis.

Relations of ruling exist in all social relations and are constantly exerting a pressure on organizations such as CUPE 4163. Therefore, I had to look at what was happening outside of CUPE 4163 in order to understand how things were happening within the union. To focus my research only internally would be to ignore powerll forces external to the union. Thus, in all of the chapters, especially chapters one and two, I attempted to construct this broader context in which the collective bargaining process between the

University of Victoria and CUPE 4 163 occurred. CUPE 4 163 does not operate in a bubble. To do any sort of analysis, I felt I needed to look at the history of the labour movement in order to understand where we came from. In this endeavor, I could only go so far as to provide a glimpse of how things came to be the way they are. Still, I feel it was worthwhile.

Guided by a desire to make CUPE 41 63 a better organization, I needed to understand the social relations within the union and how they might work to prevent full membership participation. I needed to document how social relations of dominance are

recreating themselves and entrenching social inequalities. Dorothy Smith believes theory

exists in the social practices of everyday life. Thus, it is through the examination of these

practices that we can discover important clues regarding how activities are coordinated

and organized. This moves us away from the belief that the social world is chaotic and

inexplicable. The purpose of this thesis is thus to make social relations known and open

to scrutiny and improvement.

I am hopeful that there will be individuals who do not agree with parts of this

thesis. My wish is that this thesis will lead to further explorations of how union leaders,

staff, and rank-and-file members are impeded by relations of ruling within their

organizations. I have not been able to explore everything-much information has been

left out. I have tried to focus on elements of the collective bargaining process that highlight how relations of ruling shape the practices of CUPE 4163. In so doing, I have

focused on the weaknesses as opposed to the strengths of the organization. I apologize to

all those individuals who may feel an injustice has been done to them in this study. It was not my intent to blame individuals for the organization's weaknesses.

Ruling relations shape the practices of the Canadian Union of Public Employees

Local 4 163. As we saw with the ratification process, the union needs to educate and give members resources so they can participate fully in decision-making. The union needs to open up its procedures and never waver from the participatory, democratic principles upon which the labour movement is built. I would argue that the union acts in ways that are sometimes not in the best interests of its members. However, it is my opinion that despite these shortcomings, the presence of an educational employees' union at the University of Victoria is in fact in the best interests of its members and the campus community. In a climate of privatization and commercialization in the post-secondary sector, within the fi-arnework of neo-liberalism's assault on workers and the state sector generally, unions are desperately needed. They offer one of the only means of reversing the influence of private capital and the logic of the market in public institutions and in the provision of social services. Unions may, at times, fall victim to the authoritarian tendencies of private capital, but this trend can be challenged by the rank-and-file and more democratic practices and procedures restored. Organizations such as Local 4 163 provide the crucial structure needed for collective action to occur. It is through collective action that social change can occur, hopefully towards the ends of a more just social order where the balance of power favours the democratic forces of labour rather than the authoritarian tendencies of private capital. Bibliography

Aronwitz, Stanly. 1973 False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Campbell, Marie and Gregor, Frances. 2002 Mapping Social Relations. Aurora: Garamond Press.

Campbell, Marie. 1998 "Institutional Ethnography and Experience as Data." Qualitative Sociology 2 1.1 : 55-73.

Campbell, Marie and Manicom, Ann. 1995 Knowledge Experience and Ruling Relations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Carchedi, Guglielmo. 1977 On the Economic IdentiJication of Social Classes. London: Routledge.

Carroll, William K. 1986 Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Carroll, William K. (ed.) 1997 Organizing Dissent: Contemporary Social Movements in Theory and Practice (2nd Edition). Toronto: Garamond Press.

Carroll, William K. 2004 Corporate Power in a Globalizing World: A Study ofElite Social Organization. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.

Carroll, William K. and Little, William. 2001 "Neoliberal Transformation and Antiglobalization Politics in Canada." International Journal of Political Economy 3 1: 33-66.

Carroll, William K. and Ratner, R.S. 1989 "Social Democracy, Neo-Conservatism and Hegernonic Crisis in British Columbia." Critical Sociology 6: 29-53.

Clemens, Jason and Emes, Joel. 2001 "Returning British Columbia to Prosperity." Public Policy Sources Number 47. Vancouver: The Fraser Institute.

DeMaria, Alfied T. 1980 How Management Wins Union Organizing Campaigns. New York: Executive Enterprises Publications Company.

Dobson, Stephan. 2001 "Introduction: Institutional Ethnography as Method." Studies in Cultures, Organizations, and Societies 7: 147-158.

Doherty-Delorme, Denise and Shaker, Erika. 2003 Missing Pieces IVAn Alternative Guide to Post-Secondary Education. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Drakich, Janice et al. 2002 "The Academy in the 2 1" Century: Editor's Introduction." The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 39.3: 249-260.

Gramsci, Antonio. 197 1 Selectionsfiom the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Grant, Alex. "Lessons ffom the UBC TA Strike." ConJi-ontations[news magazine of the New Democratic Youth of Canada], Spring 2004: 8-9.

Grant, Karen. L 2002 "A Conversation on the Future of the Academy with James Turk, PhD, Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers." The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 39.3 : 26 1-247.

Haiven, Larry et al. 1990 Regulating Labour: The State, Neo-Conservatism and Industrial Relations. Toronto: Garamond Press.

Hurl, Chris. 2004 "Majority of WicBoard of Governors Appointed." The Unacknowledged Source 9.3: 4.

Hyrnan, Richard. 1975 Industrial Relations A Marxist Introduction. London: MacMillan Press Limited.

Kerstetter, Steve. 2001 BC Home to Greatest Wealth Gap in Canada. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Kinsmen, Gary. 1995 "The Textual Practices of Sexual Rule: Sexual Policing and Gay Men." Experience, Knowledge, and Ruling Relations: Explorations in the Social Organization of Knowledge. ed. Marie Campbell and Ann Manicom, 80-95. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Lenin, V.I. 1963 What is to be done? Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Magnusson, Warren et al. 1984 The New Reality. Vancouver: New Star Books.

Mandel, Ernest. 1970 An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory. New York: Pathfinder Press.

Marshall, Dale. 2002 Down the Value Chain: The Politics and Economics of Raw Log Exports. Vancouver: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick 1970. The German Ideology Part One. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Mm,Karl. 1978 Wage Labour and Capital. Peking: Foreign Language Press. McBride, Steven. 2001 Paradigm Shift: Globalization and the Canadian State Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

McCoy, Liza. 1998 "Producing "What the Deans Knows": Cost Accounting and the Restructuring of Post-Secondary Education." Human Studies 2 1: 395-4 18.

McInnis, Peter. 2002 Harnessing Labour ConJFontation: Shaping the Post- War Settlement in Canada 1943-1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Michels, Roberto. 19 15; Reprinted 1962 Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Toronto: Collier-Macmillan.

Myers, Marvin Scott. 1976 Managing Without Unions. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Nelson, Cary (ed.) 1997 Will Teachfor Food: Academic Labor in Crisis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ng, Roxanna. 1995 "Multiculturalism as Ideology: A Textual Ananlysis." Experience, Knowledge, and Ruling Relations: Explorations in the Social Organization of Knowledge. ed. Marie Campbell and Ann Manicom, 35-48. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Noble, David F. 2002 Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Palmer, Brian. 1983 Working Class Experience: The Rise and Reconstitution of Canadian Labour 1800-1980. Toronto: Butterworth and Co.

Palmer, Brian. 1987 Solidarity: The Rise and Fall of an Opposition in British Columbia. Vancouver: New Star Books.

Panitch, Leo and Swartz, Donald. 1993 The Assault of Trade Union Freedoms: From Wage Controls to Social Contracts. Toronto: Garamond Press.

Panitch, Leo and Swartz, Donald. 2003 From Consent to Coercion: The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms 3rd Edition. Toronto: Garamond Press.

Qualmin, Darrin. 2001 The Farm Crisis and Corporate Power. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Qualmin, Darrin and Wiebe, Nettie. 2002 The Structural Adjustment of Canadian Agriculture. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Quinn, Cornelius. 1982 Maintain Non- Union Status. Boston: CBI Publishing Company Inc. Sharrna, Nandita. 2001 "On Being Not Canadian: The Social Organization of "Migrant Workers" in Canada." The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 3 8.4: 415-439.

Shields, John and Evans, Mitchell. 1998 Shrinking the State: Globalization and Public

Administration "Reform" Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Smith Dorothy. 1987 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Stratford: Open University Press.

Smith, Dorothy. 1990 Text, Facts and Femininity Exploring the Relations of Ruling. London: Routledge.

Smith, Dorothy. 1993 "The Standard North American Family: SNAF as an Ideological Code." Journal of Family Issues 14.250-65.

Smith, Dorothy. 1999 Writing the Social. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Teeple, Gary. 2000 Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform. Aurora: Garamond Press.

Tudiver, Neil. 1999 Universitiesfor Sale: Resisting Corporate Control over Canadian Higher Education. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company Ltd., Publishers.

Turk, James L., Ed. 2000 The Corporate Campus: Commercialization and the Dangers to Canada 's Colleges and Universities. Toronto: James Lorimer.

Wallace, Ruth, A. (ed.) 1989 Feminism and Sociological Theory. Newbury Park: Sage.

On-Line Sources

"Public Sector Employer's Council." Government of British Columbia.

"University of Victoria Board of Governors."

"University of Victoria Financial Statements"

Agreement Between University of Victoria and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 4163 (Components 1 & 2), September 1,2003 to August 31,2006. Printed in Spring 2004 by the University of Victoria.

CUPE National Constitution. Updated to reflect the 2001 National Convention. Available online at < www.cupe.ca >

CUPE National Strike Fund Regulations. June 2003. Approved at the November 2002 National Executive Board Meeting and Revised at the June 2003 National Executive Board Meeting. Available online at < www.cupe.ca >

"About our Union." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated August 22, 2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 13,2004.

"Structure." Canadian Union of Public Employees. Date updated August 22,2002. < www.cupe.ca > Date last accessed April 13,2004.

Moroz, Melissa and Isitt, Benjamin. 2003 (Revised from 2002) History of CUPE Local #I 63 University of Victoria Educational Employees ' Union. CUPE 4 163 Records. Appendices

Appendix Two

University of VictoriaICUPE 4163 Bargaining Protocol - 2003 With appropriate notice, the parties reserve the right to bring in subject matter experts as required to speak to issues from time to time.

3. COMMUNICATIONS

The Parties agree that communications between the committees shall be through the committee chairs or designated spokespersons.

Each party may report to their respective principals on the status of bargaining throughout the negotiation process, and may communicate with their membership as required.

The parties agree not to communicate negotiating issues with the other parties' principals or with the public during the negotiation process to facilitate productive negotiations, subject to 24 hours' notice of change of this protocol to the other party.

Media releases, if any, while negotiations are progressing and at the time of settlement, shall be done jointly, subject to 24 hours notice of change of this protocol to the other party.

3- MEDIATION

In the event negotiations reach an impasse, the Parties will seriously consider making a joint application for Mediation.

4. BARGAINING PROCEDURE

Each Bargaining Committee will designate a Spokesperson.

Only the spokesperson may make or receive offers.

Discussions during bargaining will normally be conducted between the two Spokespersons unless, by mutual agreement, the parties awto haw a without prejudice discussion between both Committees to facilitate bwgaining.

Bargaining notes are for the put-posc of fwilitating recall of discussions only. If an interpretation note is made that is not part of the agreed upon language, both spokespersons will initial a copy of the note.

The parties will table their initial proposals on August 18.2003. No new proposals may be tabled after August 18,2003 without mutual agreement.

The parties agree to identify any proposal or counter-proposal they table with a date, time, and reference number, as well as identifying which party tabled the proposal or counter-proposal. Appendix Three

November 26,2003 Act quickly CUPE tells UVic or risk another campus strike

VICTORIA, BC - Teaching assistants, language instructors and computing staff at the University of Victoria, members of CUPE Local 41 63, turned out in droves on Monday night (November 24) and approved taking a strike vote. The vote will take place the first week of December, days before final exams for students begin.

"We have been gouged with a 70% increase in tuition fees," said Sherwin Arnott, chair of the local bargaining team, "and though our contract expired on August 3 1,2003 the university continues to refuse to even discuss monetary issues."

Despite its 3" place ranking in MacLean 5 annual survey, the University of Victoria's TAS lag far behind their peers at other institutions. WicTeaching Assistants, earn $17 per hour, compared with $38 at York University, $27 per hour at SFU and $25 per hour at UBC. Along with language instructors and computing staff, the TAs are considering job action to win an increase in wages. " Wage parity with UBC and Simon Fraser University is a reasonable." Arnott insists on behalf of his local.

The local bargaining chair says tuition increases are driving the best graduate students away from Wic. He argues that universities that offer lower tuition and higher wages are more competitive. With this in mind, his local, comprised of 800 graduate student workers, is preparing to take a strike vote and bracing itself for'possible job action should negotiations not improve.

"Fairness is really what we are demanding from our university and our employer," Arnott said. "With UVic's $18-million budget surplus during last fiscal year our demands are more than reasonable."

Last October, the university's Gordon Head campus was shut down in a one-day strike against tuition fee increases and provincial funding cuts. Amott says CUPE 4163 is eager to avert similar disturbances at the university.

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Amott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163. Appendix Three

December 8,2003

Yes to strike, say UVic TAs-but not during exams

VICTORIA, BC - Teaching assistants, language instructors and computing staff at the University of Victoria, members of CUPE Local 4163, have voted 92% in favour of a strike.

"We don't want to strike during the final exam period," said Sherwin Arnott, chair of the local's bargaining team, "The union has applied for mediation to avoid job action during this crucial time for students." In the event that talks break down, the union is preparing for a strike when school resumes next year, possibly as early as January.

Arnott reminds that post secondary students at Wicand elsewhere have been struggling with huge tuition increases. "We have been gouged with a 70% increase in tuition fees and paying tuition is a condition of our employment. We need fair wages and benefits to pay for these rising costs."

University of Victoria's TAs lag far behind their peers at other institutions. UVic Teaching Assistants earn $17 per hour, compared with $38 at York University, $27 per hour at SFU and $25 per hour at UBC. They are demanding wage parity with other BC institutions. Negotiations have been underway since August but no adequate wage offer has been made to offset tuition fee increases.

"Wic relies on the work TAs do during the exam period and students rely on their TAs for support. We're giving it one more chance." said Arnott.

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 41 63. Appendix Three

December 8,2003 BACKGROUND: University of Victoria Teaching Assistants CUPE Local 4163

Who is CUPE 4163?

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Local 41 63, represents approximately 1300 educational employees at the University of Victoria-TAs, Sessionals, computing staff and language instructors. The union was organized in 1997. The union's first collective agreement expired on August 3 1,2003. A separate collective agreement was signed by Sessional Instructors last spring. At present, 800 teaching assistants, computing staff, and language instructors are negotiating a new contract.

What do we do at the Wic?

We are responsible for teaching, grading, conducting seminars, instructing labs, leading language courses, and providing assistance to students in the computer labs. We are the front-line educational workers on campus and have frequent contact with Wicstudents. It is estimated that WicTeaching Assistants conduct one-third of all instruction at Wic.

What are the bargaining issues?

TEACHRVG ASSISTANTS: Paying tuition is a pre-condition for employment for Teaching Assistants. Graduate tuition has increased 70% in the last two years. A tuition waiver is an important component of current TA bargaining since TAs currently pay the entirety of their wages to their employer in the form of tuition fees. Despite the fact that TAs provide one-third of classroom instruction at UVic, we receive virtually no compensation for rent, food and other non-tuition expenses. We receive no benefits for extended health or dental care. To survive in the academic environment TAs must have paid sick leave and parental leave. We argue that our current compensation package delays the completion of graduate programs and in the final analysis undermines the quality of education at the university. According to the university, 60% of graduate students are women and the average age of graduate students in 34. Appendix Three

LANGUAGE NSTR UCTORS: Language Instructors at the University of Victoria work an average of 38.5 hours per week. Many of us are long-term employees yet we have no flexibility in terms of vacation or scheduling where our employer is concerned. This results in our being denied basic, quality time with our families. At nearby Camosun College, language instructors are offered a superior compensation package.

Wages? How much do CUPE 4163 members make?

As a condition of our employment TAs are required to pay over $4000 per year in tuition fees. We earn $17.49 per hour, working an average of ten hours per week. In nearby Vancouver, Teaching Assistants at UBC and SFU make $24.97 and $27.61 per hour respectively. UBC offers lower tuition than UVic, and provides a tuition waiver for PhD programs. At York University in Toronto, Teaching Assistants are paid $38.50 per hour, providing for a portion of living expenses once tuition has been paid. Wic Language Instructors make between $21.20 and $25.88 per hour.

For further information, please contact:

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director Appendix Three

January 2ndy2004 Mediator books out of U Vic negotiations. Campus on the brink of strike.

VICTORLA, BC - Mediator Grant McArthur has booked out of negotiations between the University of Victoria and its teaching assistants, language instructors and computing staff. According to the union (CUPE 41 63) representing those workers, the university must decide if it wants to resolve the contract dispute or risk campus-wide job action. The University, which posted an $1 8-million budget surplus during the last fiscal year has, so far, refused to make a reasonable offer during the current round of negotiations.

Union negotiators requested mediation before Christmas as a means of moving negotiations forward. "We thought that mediation could help to resolve our differences by the New Year," said Sherwin Arnott, chair of the local bargaining team. "However, it became clear on the December 29&that the university has been told by the government to give the TAs zero percent wage increases. Our own University of Victoria president David Turpin who, himself, recently received a $60,000 wage increase, sits on the Public Sector Employees Council (PSEC) board," said Sherwin, "and PSEC seems to be calling the shots."

CUPE 41 63 members have been hit with major financial hardships in the last two years. Tuition has increased 70% yet there has been no corresponding wage increases for TAs. The university has offered workers nothing in terms of tuition protection and tuition is scheduled to increase again this spring.

"The university's offer does not even address tuition fee increases and would not amount to a wage increase," says Arnott. Perplexed and frustrated CUPE 4163 has offered to accept binding arbitration in order to resolve the contract dispute without shutting down campus.

Peter Harnpton, the union's strike coordinator says "Our members are becoming increasingly hstrated, they see through the smoke and mirrors that management is putting forward as a proposal. It's crap," says Hampton, "management knows it and so do our members."

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163. Appendix Three

January 6m, 2004 Wic72 - hour strike notice VICTORIA, BC - After months of bargaining, including an attempt at mediation in December followed-up recently by an offer to accept binding arbitration-an offer rejected by university administration-teaching assistants, language instructors and computing staff at UVic have tendered their required 72-hour notice before taking strike action.

"It seems pretty clear to us," says Sherwin Arnott, chair of the CUPE local 4163 bargaining team, "that strings are being pulled beyond this campus administration. While the union has done everything, including offering to accept binding arbitration, to avoid job action, the University is steadfastly offering us nothing. At this point we have no choice but to exercise our right to strike."

CUPE members expressed concern about a campus-wide shutdown during the Monday night meeting where the decision to give the 72-hour notice was taken. "We're students, and we want what's best for students," said Kristin Atwood, a graduate student in the department of Sociology. " Even at this final hour we hope the University will address the key issues of tuition and wages before we're forced to put up picket lines."

CUPE 4163 members have been hit with major financial hardships in the last two years. Tuition has increased 70% yet with no corresponding wage increases for TAs. Currently Wic TAs earn $17 per hour, while TAs at UBC and SFU earn $25 and $27 per hour respectively. Negotiations have been underway since August but no wage offer has been made to offset tuition fee increases.

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 41 63. Appendix Three

UVic TAs exercise restraint on first day of job action

VICTORIA, BC - After UVic's refusal to enter into binding arbitration, CUPE 4163 teaching assistants, language instructors and computing staff at UVic have been left no choice but to start job action. On Friday morning, 9am sharp, CUPE 41 63 will set up information lines at UVic's main entrences. Additionally, CUPE 4 163 will be 'working to rule.'

"We're professional educators," says Sherwin Arnott, chair of the CUPE local 4163 bargaining team. "We want to educate the Wiccommunity about the weak University Administration and the provincial government they appear to be serving."

Providing one final chance for Wic officials to offer a fair settlement, Teaching assistants and other workers decided to exercise restraint on their first day of job action. Almost all of the teaching assistants are graduate students and so they have a keen understanding of student life. About half of the workers admit to working more hours than they are paid. Working to rule is a tactic to cut Wicoff of that unpaid labour.

"We're still hoping that we won't have to shut down the entire campus," says Tayh Ince, Teaching Assistant in the department of Physics and Astronomy. "The university has refused to address the key bargaining issues of tuition and wages."

Teaching assistants have been told by Wicthat they must accept a zero percent wage increase, despite the fact that their tuition has increased by 70% in the past two years. Currently WicTAs earn $17.49 per hour, while TAs at UBC and SFU earn $25 and $27 per hour respectively. UVic TAs are required to pay in excess of $4000 per year in tuition fees.

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163. - -

Appendix Three

* * *For Immediate Release* * *

January 09,2004

Joint Release by the University of Victoria and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 4163

At the mediator's request, the University of Victoria and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 4 163 have agreed to return to the bargaining table on Monday, Jan. 12, Tuesday, Jan. 13 and Wednesday, Jan. 14. During this time, the union will continue its work to rule campaign, but will not picket or leaflet. The University will remain open while the parties seek to find a settlement at the bargaining table. No news releases will be issued during this time.

Media contacts:

Melissa Moroz Communications Director CUPE 4 163 213-9637

Bruce Kilpatrick, Director Wic Communications 920-64 13 Appendix Three

January 14,2004 Tentative agreement reached in UVic labour dispute

The University of Victoria and CUPE local 41 63, the union representing teaching assistants and second language instructors at the miversity, have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. The agreement was reached with the assistance of mediator Grant McArthur. Both parties are recommending to their principles that the agreement be ratified. Details of the agreement will not be available until after a local 4163 membership meeting on Jan. 20. A ratification vote for union members will be held later that week, with consideration by Wic's board of governors to follow.

For further information, please contact:

Sherwin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 41 63. Appendix Three

January 22ndy2004

UVic TAs and Second Language Instrutors Ratify Agreement with UVic

VICTORIA, BC - Teaching Assistants, Second Language Instructors, Computer services staff and Cultural Assistants at the University of Victoria voted 78% in favour of a new collective agreement with the University. Details of the new agreement will not be made public until after the University's Board of Governors approves the contract.

For further information, please contact:

Shenvin Amott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163. Appendix Three

January 23r42004

UVic TAs won't give up the fight for tuition

VICTORIA, BC - Teaching Assistants and Second Language Instructors at the University of Victoria have a new contract. It doesn't include any language on tuition.

"Teaching Assistants are disappointed that the contract does not address tuition and benefits," says Sherwin Arnott, chair of the CUPE 4163 bargaining team. "However, short of taking on the provincial govemment, this is the best contract our team could achieve."

In the last two years, CUPE 4163 TAs have been hit with a 70% increase in tuition fees. The new contract offers TAs no protection from future tuition fee increases which are scheduled for May 2004.

"All financial increases we receive will be paid for by increased tuition," says Arnott. "At the end of the day, Teaching Assistant will be paying to do a third of the instruction at Wic."

The Canadian Federation of Students is organizing a National Day of Action against tuition fee increases, on February 4fi. "CUPE 4 163 members will continue their efforts for accessible education in the political arena," finishes Arnott.

For further information, please contact:

Shenvin Arnott, Bargaining Team Chair Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163.

Melissa Moroz, Communications Director, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4 163. Appendix Four

SPORTS: Sports. D5 Canucks edged Comics, D8 THE CAPITAL Classified. D9 by the Avs, D5 AND VANCOUVER ISLAND Obituaries, Dl3

STRIKE THREAT UVic on brink of labour strife

BY JEFF RUD teaching at UVic. including marking chairman Sherwin Arnott said Friday. The UVic Web site (www.uvic.ca) tuition break for its members. almwt all Times Colun;st stuff essays &d exams. ~utoridsaid tcachinH "But we're prepared to back up our includes informtion for students and fac- of whom are students. labs. and are the "front-line educational demands and, if it comes to that, it comes ulty in the case of job action. Sick leave, puental Isa\e. henldr and Frustrated teaching assistants at the workers on campus." to that." "In the event of a labour dispute. it is denwl beneli~r.v~cmons and ihcdul~nc University of Victoria say they are pre- But university spokeswoman Patty Befoie any job action, the unim would the university's policy to maintain insnuc- are other issues. pared to strike if their employer doesn't Pitts said UVic is preparing to maintain have to serve 72 hours strike notice to tion in as many courses a$ possible, pro- Members have faced a 70 per cent accept a proposal to enter binding arbi- classes "as best as possible" in the event both the Labour Relations Board and vide access to core library services and tuition hie over the last two ysm. Amott tration. of a strike. After a holiday break, classes WIC. Internet connectivity (unless the computer said UVic teaching assistants now pay Mediator Grant McAnhur this week are set to resume at Wicon Monday. Pins said UVic is still considering the system has to be shut down)." the site more graduate tuition than their counter- booked out of negotianons krween WIC The union made a request for binding union's request for binding arbitration says. parts at the University of British Colum- and about 8M) members of CUPE Local arbiuation this week but has yet to hear and will provide a response early next Union members voted nearly 92 per bia but, at $17.49 per hour, make over S7 4163, a group which also includes lan- from the university. week. cent in favour in a strike vote taken Dec. less than teaching assistants at UBC. guage instructors and computing staff. 'The vast majority of our members 'The university is still hoping there 8. The union then asked for a mediator Teaching assistants at UBC make $24.67 These workers' COnlIaCt expired Aug. 3 1. are students - we don't want to see job won't be a strike." Pins said. 'We're hop to try to move along negotiations. an hour and those at Simon Fraser Uni- The union estimates that teaching action. just like nobody else wants job ing for the best and preparing for other- Amon said WIChas refused to enter- versity em$27.61. assistants do about one-third of the total action at WIC," union bargaining team wise." tain the idea of any wage increase or Pleasc see UVr. D3

UVic: No wage increase offered From Page Dl Arnott said the union believes the uni- each facility will post a list of course can- versity has been told by the provincial cellations, at his office, the administra- Although a union release said the uni- government to provide no wage increase tive registrar's and on the school's Web versity "must decide if it wants to resolve to teaching assistants. site. the contract or risk campus-wide job Pins said that "the university has to be If classes can't be held, students will action" Arnott said he didn't want to spec- mindful of government wage guidelines still be evaluated for all the required read- ulate on what effect such job action might but is attempting to find creative ways to ings or "other sources for which they have. put more money into the pockets of teach- could reasonably be expected to be "At this point, I'm hoping that the uni- ing assistants." responsible (including all course sessions versity agrees to an arbitrator," Arnott In the meantime, the UVic Web site not affected by a picket line), but will not said. "If they accept that process, we'll says it will respect the right of students be evaluated on material that would have go down that road and avoid job action or instructors, as a matter of conscience, been available only in cancelled classes at UVic. to refuse to cross a picket line. .or portions of course sections (e.g. labs "We're just in a comer here." In the event of job action, the dean of or tutorials)." RELIGION: Cowboy churches prove popular, F4 AND VANCOUVER ISLAND TNES COLONIST SITLRDUJIYIIARY 10 2004 - -- - - Editor: Denise Heh Telephone: 380 ------z-=- -- - . _ s to resume talks One-day information picket staged as union for 800 employees reviews latest offer BY KIM WESTAD Tmes Colonist staff - ~he'labowimpasse that sparked pre- ,$minary shik action amoung University :pfVictoria teaching assistants Friday took :q,op!h$ic hun by the evening, with the umon and university issuing ajoint state- ment that they have agreed to return to the .bargaining table. At he mahator's request, the tuo sides wlll meet Mundav, Tuesday and Wzdnes- day. The union will not picket or hand out pamphlets on those days, but will con- tinue its work-to-rule activities. The union was in a legal strikepsi- tion Friday morning, but opted for an .information line and work to rule rather ,than picketing. The union, representing about 800 employees, is reviewing an offermade by the university during me&, ation on Thursday. Shenvin Amott, leader of the union bargaining team, said earlier -Fridav. .. . in^ ~iida~'information picket, some students honked in suppor~while others had no ideawhat was going on. Groups of 'kachingassistants,who arealso all UVic shldents taldne eraduate deem. thronged mund \ehicl&rmczs f&nvo hours, ltandinr out Ihouunds of intona- tional pmphJ& to motonsrs. Other thm slow~nctrafric. there was little obvious impact & campus, But so.- dents and others at the universitv were tdkng obout 11, and so hr, that's (he am of irnhn:: CUPE Loud 4163 member$. "We'ri gening people to think about the issuss and thmk about how the eov- ernmmt 2nd [he university m afieZing the liles of stUdents:' %idAmoft. "We want to avoid shutting down the campus," he said. '9t would be great if we could all yo back to work, each do our thesis and graduate." Work to rule measures for teaching assistants mean they will'rnrk only their prescribed hours. An earlier union survey found that 40 per cent of teaching assis- tants worked for no pay beyond those hours. Key issues for the union. without a contract since Aug. 31, include pay, tnition costs, sick leave and parental leave. The union says teaching assistants do about one-third of the total teaching at UWc. That includes marking essays and Physics graduate student and teaching assistant Tayfun Jnce holds 3 Ira& sign while other Ths hand out literature to erarns, tutorials and teaching labs. They drivers entering the UVie campus Friday. Roy Smirh/Tinres Co1oni.v work between six to 14 hours per week, and eman average of $2,850 for eight Fraser Umversity em$27.61. $4,000 per year needs to be taken into sity's directorof communications.Butthe months. Being a student is a precondition of account through a rebate or indexing, the school is bound by provincial government At $17.49 ail hour, they &e among the employmentas a teaching assistant, so the union says. guidelines that do not allow for any gen- lowest paid teaching assistants in Canada, rising tuition - the union says it has risen ' Wkdoes want to make teaching assis- eral wage increases in the public sector for Ainott ,said. Teaching assistants at TJRC 70 per cent in two ycars, while the uni- t3nts morenationallycompetitive in terms three years. rnake $24.67 an hour and those at Simon versity says it is 50 per cent - to just over of pay, said Bmce Kilpatrick, the univer- Please see CONTRACT,F2 Appendix Four

! i :i Contract: Money ' I ! From Page F1.

, Because the university can't providi a direct wage increase, I Kilpatriek said it looks to other. ways to increase benefits,wch ( as bursaries, scholarships, research assistantships and fEllow- I ships. ' i The university's most recent contract offer includes a 21 per I cent increase in financial support over three years while staying within the provincial government no-wage increase guidelines, Kilpatiick said. I Some $728,0a) would be dirmbuted over three to teach- 1 ing assistants in the form of fellowships. The 21 per cent is on tgp of a $1.4 million increase that Kilpatrick said'wic has already 1 put @ward teaching aSsistants over the past two years. 1 A- break on tuition is difficult, Kilpatrick said, given that UVic has to balance the interests of all students, notjust the 22 per cent ' of grad students who are teaching assistants. Shidents varied in their sf~pportand knowledge of the work action. 'Teaching assistants do a lot of work and they should getpaid for what they do. But at the same time, we do a lot of work too and we'pay for i,t, too," said Rachel Grant, a third year sciences student. , - Appendix Four

Tii?zes Colonist staff teaching assistants works out to about $1.40 per hour in each of the three years, The University of Victoria has ratified to be added to their current $17.49 an a three-year contract with teaching assis- hour. tants and second-language instructors that Members of CUPE 4163 voted 78 per includes wage increases but no way to cent in favour of the contract proposal, deal with rising tuition. which the UVic board of governors rati- The agreement provides a 23 per cent fied Friday. increase in financial support for gradu- "I think there was some ambivalence, ate-student teachfig assistants over three but what was the alternative -to take on years, in the form of a fellowship. As well, government?" Arnott said. "That comes there is an eight per cent market adjust- with its own consequences. I think it was ment to the wages and benefits of second- the best we could do, given the circum- language instructors. stances." "They're calling it a fellowship, but Students are expecting another tuition it's functionally a wage increase for teach- increase this spring. ing assistants," said Sherwin Arnott, "All financial increases we receive will spokesman for CUPE 4 163. be paid for by increased tuition," Arnott Arnott said the wage increase for the said. Appendix Five

CUPE National Constitution 2003 Article I1 Objectives

2.1 The Union has as its objectives: (a) The organization of workers generally, and in particular all workers in the public service of Canada. (b) The advancement of the social, economic and general welfare of active and retired employees. (c) The defence and extension of the civil rights and liberties of public employees and the preservation of fiee democratic trade unionism. (d) The improvement of the wages, working conditions, hours of work, job security and other conditions affecting all employees including retirees pension benefits. (e) The promotion of efficiency in public service generally. (0 The promotion of peace and fieedom in the world, and the cooperation with fiee and democratic labour movements throughout the world. (g) The utilization of our world's natural and human resources for the good of all the world's people while promoting the respect and conservation of the environment and the creation of sustainable communities and jobs. (h) The elimination of harassment and discrimination of any sort or on any basis; for the equality of treatment regardless of class, race, colour, nationality, age, sedgender, language, sexual orientation, place of origin, ancestry, religious beliefs, or mental and physical disability; and the active opposition to discrimination of same wherever it occurs or appears. (i) The establishment of strong working relationships with the public we serve and the communities in which we work and live.

2.2 The objectives of the Union are to be accomplished through the following methods: (a) Establishing cooperative relations between employers and employees. (b) Promoting required desirable legislation. (c) Conducting'an educational program designed to enlighten the general public with respect to the problems of public employees. (d) Organizing and supporting central and provincial bodies of public employees for dealing with matters peculiar to a particular area or province and for assisting in the organizational efforts of this Union. (e) Cooperating with the Canadian Labour Congress, its chartered federations and labour councils, its affiliates and its departments in furthering the general well- being of the whole labour movement. (f) Cooperating with the Public Services International and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in their work. Appendix Six

CANADIAN UNION OF I'UBLIC EMPLOYEESISYNDICAT CANADlEN DE L

SERVICING REPRESENTATIVE - POSITION OUTLINE

In keeping with CUPE's principle of hiring from within its ranks, this brief outline of the general elements involved in a servicing representative position is being distributed to seek out potential staff from among the many active sisters and brothers throughout Canada. CUPE is committed to employment equity and encourages applications from women, visible minorities, aboriginal people and persons with disabilities.

The combination of duties performed by a servicing representative varies widely from assignment to assignment due to constantly changing priorities and needs. For this reason it is difficult to be specific in describing the role of servicing representative. Potential staff, tiowever, should be aware that a representative may be expected to perform, but is not limited to, the following duties:

Work to implement all policies and programs approved by the National Convention, National Officers and National Executive Board.

Organize groups of unorganized workers within CUPESsjurisdiction.

Assist local executives in establishing and maintaining an effective union administration, guided by the CUP€ Constitution and complying with national policies.

Advise and assist local unions in interpreting. . contract language and processing grievances......

Advise, assist and guide local unions in preparing contract demands and conducting negotiations.

Encourage jurisdictional coalitions, and coordinate joint bargaining within a jurisdictional group on a provincial or regional basis.

JUDY DARCY GERALDINE McCUlRE National Prcsidenflrisidente nationak National ketacy - Treasu~tr/Seaitaire-hCsoriirenationak 2 1, rue Florence Street, Ottawa, Ontario K2P Ow6 PhonJTCICphonc: (6 t 3) 23 7-1 590 FaflCICcopieuc: (6 1 3) 2 3 7-5 508 cupemail9cupe.ca courrie&cfp.ca Appendix Seven

CUPE National Constitution Re: Administration facilities and requirements of the Locals. District Councils. Provincial Divisions and Service Divisions and, where it is deemed advisaMe, to return sufficient money to maintain such internal servicing as is necessary. in lieu of direct assistance from the Canadian Union of Public Employees personnel. The number of appeals made undeiArtide 7.6 and the outcome of the appeals must be reported by the National Executive Board to the next Convention.

7.7 (a) The National Executive Board shall have the power to conduct an investigation of any situation in which there is reason to believe that any chartered organization may be dominated, controlled or substantially influenced, in the conduct of its affairs by any cormpt influence, or that its policies or activities are contrary to the principles or policies of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Upon the completion of such an investigation by the National Executive Board, or its designated representative, and including a hearing before the National Executive Board if requested by the chartered organization, the National Executive Board shall have the authority to make recommendations to the organization involved. It shall have the further authority, upon a two-thirds vote of the National Executive Board, to place the organomtionunder supervision, trusteeship, or suspension. Any action of the National Executive Board under this section may be appealed to the next Convention.

(b) Administration imposed by the National Executive Board shall not be withdrawn until an audit has been completed. Appendix Seven

CUPE National Constitution Re: Administration

7.8 (a) In cases of emergency and having received substantive evidence from members of a chartered organization that it would be in the best interests of the chartered organization of the Canadian Union of Public Employees that immediate adion be taken, the National President may place a chartered organization under an administrator who shall forthwith exercise the authority and carry out the functions set out hereunder. Such action by the National President shall be considered by the National Executive Committee within 14 days. The President and Secretary-Treasurer of the chartered organization shall receive notice of the decision of the National Executive Committee.

(b) The National Executive Committee shall have the authority to confirm or rescind the action of the National President. If the said action is confirmed, the administrator shall continue to function without interruption and, if the said action is rescinded, the administrator shalt be recalled and shall cease to function within 48 hours of the date of the decision of the National Executive Committee.

(c) The adion of the National President and the deasion of the National Executive Committee thereon shall be subject to review by the National Executive Board at its following meeting. The chartered organization shall receive notice of the place and date of such meeting not less than 7 days before such date and the officers and other members of the executive board of the chartered organization or any of them shall, ifthey so request, be given every reasonable opportunity to make representations to the said meeting of the National Executive Board. Appendix Seven

CUPE National Constitution Re: Administration

(d) If the decision of the National Executive Board confirms the action of the National President. the administrator shall continue to function without interruption, and if the said decision rescinds the action of the National President, the administrator shall be recalled and shall cease to function within 48 hours of the meeting of the National Executive Board.

(0) When a chartered organization is placed under an administrator, such act and the decisions thereon by the National Executive Committee and the National Executive Board shall be reported at the next National Convention.

(f) Subject to the authority of the National President and the National Executive Board. the administrator shall have full authority to condud the affairs of the chartered organization, to receive or disburse its funds, and in general to carry out the duties which would otherwise devolve upon officers of the chartered organization, provided that disbursements of funds by the administrator shall be confined to the regular and necessary business of the chartered organization and shall not be made for any other purpose; and provided further that the funds and other assets of the chartered organization shall be and remain the pmperty of the chartered organization. The administrator shall also call meetings of the membership in the normal manner and keep them informed of the details concerning the administration. The adminlstrator shall be responsible to and shall regularly report to the National President and the National Executive Board. Appendix Seven

CUPE National Constitution Re: Administration

(9) An administrator may only control the affairs of a chartered organization under this Article up to a maximum of twelve months. After this period, new elections must be held within the administrated chartered organization unless the National Executive Board, by a two-thirds majority, approves a further period of administration. If at any time during the period of administration, twdhirds of the National Executive Board are satisfied that a chartered organization placed under administration is no longer dominated, controlled or substantially influenced in the conduct of its affairs as per Article 7.7, the administrator shall be recalled.

7.9 Sections 7.7 and 7.8 shall not be &nstnred as an encroachment on the autonomy of the chartered organizations as pmvided in the rest of this Constitution. It is the intent of these sections to protect both the chartered organ~ationsand the members of these chartered organizations. The intent of these sections shall be interpreted in the stridest legal sense and any adion taken under them may always be subject to appeal to the National Convention of the Union.

7.1 0 No monies of the Canadian Union of Public Employees shall be expended unless prior authorization through budget, or approved by the National Executive Board, or specifically provided for by the acts of Convention, and the manner and method by which monies are withdrawn, or cheques issued, shall be determined by the National Executive Board. Appendix Eight

Resolution Passed at CWE BC Convention, 2004 873

WHEREAS a conflict of interest would arise if a National Represenl recommended Administration and then became the named Administrator ot sald Local; and .. WHEREAS inaccurate information in the form of a recommendation to National to place a Local under Administration may be biased; and --

rC WHEREAS the procedure in place for Administration is ambiguous; and - WHEREAS the "Step by Stepn Administration Guidelines need to be reviewed; and

WHEREAS Articles 7.7.7.8 and 7.9 of the National Constitution may be m interpreted differently by the CUPE Local involved, the CUPE members involved, the National Representative involved, and the National Union;

4 THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that CUPE BC Division strike a committee made up of two Executive Board members and a majority of Local members who have been affected by an Administration to completely review Administration; and ,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Terms of Reference be developed that would make the Administration process open and accountable; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the committee bring back a resolution to the CUPE BC 2005 Convention to be taken fonvard to the CUPE National Convention 2005; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that CUPE BC, with the support of Locals, pursues at CUPE National Convention 2005 a Constit~ltionalResolution to replace Articles 7.7.7.8 and 7.9 of the National Constitution.

CUPE Local 523, CUPE Local 608, CUPE Local 3523 & Okanagan Mainline District Council

Committee Concur / Non-Concur Convention concur 7 Non-Concur

CUPE British Columbia Convention April 21-24,2004 Vancouver, British Columbia Appendix Nine

Notice of Ratification Vote to CUPE 4163 members (Email of 14 January 2004)

TO: All Teaching Assistants, Lab Instructors, COUS, Cultural Assistants, Lab Assistants, Second Language Instructors, & others in Components 1842

NOTICE OF RATIFICATION MEETING Tuesday, January 20, 2004, 5:30pm Michele Pujol Room, Student Union Building Please note: The meeting on Thursday January 15th has been cancelled.

A tentative agreement between the union and the university bargaining teams was reached late last night (January 13). The tentative agreement was reached with the assistance of mediator Grant McArthur.

As a consequence, the volunteers on the Contract Committee have rescheduled the membership meeting (originally scheduled for Jan 15th) to January 20th, in order to give everyone time to show up. It is important that you attend the meeting to discuss the details of the tentative agreement.

In addition, the Contract Committee is calling off the "work to rule" campaign, until the results of the ratification vote are known. Results of the vote will be available after the ballots are counted on the 22nd of January.

Both parties are recommending to their principals that the agreement be ratified. The University will seek ratification from the Board of Governors and PSEC (i.e., Provincial Government). The Union will make copies of the new agreement, and have them ready for the meeting on January 20th, and the two days of secret balloting. In order for this new agreement to take effect, the members must ratify it by secret ballot. A 5O0/0 plus one vote is needed.

Please note, procedures dictate that the details of the agreement not be made public until the members have had a chance to review them. Thus, we will not be writing an e-mail nor posting the details on the website until after the membership meeting on January 20. Appendix Nine

Notice of Ratification Vote (cont.)

By way of this e-mail, we are serving notice of the Ratification. We also ask that stewards post notification posters, which will be provided by our communications director very soon.