Important Announcement

Dear Members,

On January 7, 2011, APSA was officially notified that CUPE's
numerous applications to the Labour Relations Board seeking declaration
that approximately 560 current APSA employees should be included in its
bargaining unit instead of in APSA will be adjudicated around mid April 2011.

Background

Since the early 90's, CUPE
has been challenging the University on the posting of APSA positions
that it deems should more properly fall within its' bargaining unit. As a
result of negotiations in 1996, CUPE and the University agreed on arbitration over 11 positions, six of which were deemed to be CUPE positions by arbitrator John Kenzie with five positions remaining in APSA.

Since then, CUPE has challenged many more positions and all attempts at mediation have failed.

Current Situation

CUPE and the University have until March 31, 2011
to submit their positions on the issue to the adjudicator. In response,
APSA has engaged legal counsel, Bruce Laughton, QC, to apply for
interested party standing and to represent the Association and its
members before the BC Labour Relations Board. Interested party standing
will enable the Association to be present during the adjudication and to
make submissions to the Labour Relations Board on the members' and
Association's behalf.

Mr.
Laughton has an extensive labour, administrative, human rights and
employee benefit practice and represents a large number of trade unions
with respect to the provision of summary advice, court proceedings,
injunction proceedings, judicial review applications and matters before
the B.C. Labour Relations Board, Canada Industrial Relations Board,
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. He has
been consistently recognized as a leader in the areas of Labour and
Employment Law and we are confident that he will represent us well in
this matter.

Next Steps

As we wait for CUPE
and the University's submissions, APSA continues to gather resources
and prepare for the next steps in order to protect our current
membership. The APSA Board of Directors along with Executive Director
Anne Mason and myself are committed to representing your best interests
and keeping you informed on this issue as it progresses.

We will continue to provide information alerts such as this one and have created a secure space for questions and comments. The discussion forum on APSA Central titled "CUPE Challenge" is a place for open discussion about this issue. We welcome your participation.

Thank you for your attention and support as we address this issue.

Sincerely,

Jeff Bryer
APSA President



Next article: February 2013: CUPE Challenge Update