Having a functional faculty association with effective bargaining power strongly influences our ability to negotiate for faculty wages, benefits, and teaching conditions, such as safety in the classroom.
Our goal as organizers for Lecturers Connect is to create a new union called the University of Waterloo Teaching Stream Faculty Association (WatTSFA), which would be a certified bargaining agent for all Lecturers at UW. When you sign a membership card, you are asserting that you would like WatTSFA to represent you in negotiations with the employer. For some Lecturers, joining an association like WatTSFA feels (or has been made to feel) like a big, radical step; in fact, forming workplace unions is a fundamental right in Canada.
The right to collectively organize a workplace is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, Section 2, paragraph d. With respect to union activities, “Freedom of association guarantees the right of employees to meaningfully associate in the pursuit of collective workplace goals, which includes a right to collective bargaining.” Charterpedia Section 2(d) - Freedom of association. The right to collective bargaining is thus a fundamental freedom that we all share; workers (in our case, we are all faculty members) are free to form a union where we can engage in discussions amongst ourselves and with the employer to improve our working conditions.
At the provincial level, labour relations between unions (in the Act, these are called “trade unions”; we will use the term “union”) and employers are governed by the Ontario Labour Relations Act, 1995 which reaffirms each person’s right to join a union of their choice. In legal terms, a union acts as a certified bargaining agent for its members, i.e., it is able to negotiate working conditions on behalf of the collective. To become a certified bargaining agent, WatTSFA will, amongst other things, need to meet the definition of a trade union. The OLRB has a five-point test:
The association must have a constitution that sets out the purpose of the organization and procedures for electing officers (President, Vice-President, etc.) and calling meetings;
The constitution should be presented to the membership at a General Meeting for approval;
The potential members of the association who attend a General Meeting should be admitted as members;
The constitution should be ratified by a vote of the members; and
Officers of the association should be elected in accordance with the constitution.
Furthermore, the Act states that when no certified bargaining agent exists, a union can apply to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) for certification as a bargaining agent for those employees (Ontario Labour Relations Act, 1995 7(1)). This is precisely the situation at UW: Lecturers are not currently represented by a certified bargaining agent and we are therefore free to choose which association we would like to represent us in labour negotiations.
Although forming a union is a fundamental right, it is not uncommon for employers or agents of employers to try to dissuade employees from organizing. To the employer, unions can redress existing power imbalances that typically favour them, and therefore they pose a threat to the status quo. Examples of union-busting tactics include hiring union-busting consultants; promising improvements in working conditions which are recanted when union-talk dies down (e.g., the administration’s December 2021 memo on P76); using employees to form anti-union committees; creating campaigns that compete with ongoing unionization efforts; and positioning unions as a threat to collegial governance. It is important to recognize these tactics for what they are: an attempt to curb our ability to exercise our freedom of association.
We believe that proper representation of Lecturers is fundamental to building an equitable UW community. As Lecturers, we deserve to be at the negotiation table and to have our concerns heard and prioritized. We look forward to a future where changes to our working conditions happen on regular schedules; where negotiations have a legal duty to occur in good faith; where our concerns, including those related to classroom safety are taken seriously; and where we build solidarity across faculty, student, and staff organizations.
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