To be certified a union must show to the OLRB that there is support from employees currently working in the proposed bargaining unit. The length of your contract or if you don’t expect to be employed after the certification or after the representation vote doesn’t disqualify you from signing a membership card and supporting the union. To the contrary, because you are currently under contract, you are part of the constituency that has the ability to make this campaign possible. You have a role to play so that future employees in your position can benefit from union representation and bargaining rights.

Your next position might be unionized because others before you went through this same process to form a union.

While it is correct that most funds used to hire contract research employees and PDFs come from research grants obtained by individual professors, but it is the University that is the Employer, and all grants are administered by the University.

The Union expects that the Employer, or even PIs may raise the issue of ability to pay or to increase salaries. The University of Ottawa is a public-sector employer. Arbitral jurisprudence speaks consistently to the need to look past the financial status of public-sector employers when considering ability to pay.

Indeed, if an arbitrator would consider research contract wages, benefits and other monetary demands it would evaluate the Province of Ontario’s ability to pay rather than the University’s. It has been clear in jurisprudence that employees should not be required to subsidize the Employer or the ultimate funding bodies. We ought to look beyond the bottom line of Employers like the University of Ottawa. The ultimate funder is the Province of Ontario.

We should look past the University’s budgetary and administrative procedures, and instead, to comparative elements to determine fair levels of wages. Such comparative analysis will be conducted by a PSAC Research Officer assigned to your bargaining unit once it is certified.

There is no reason that the Employer cannot allocate discretionary funds to top up researchers’ grants and ensure that PDFs and NR employees are afforded a reasonable and fair level of compensation and benefits, which is on par with other Universities.

Besides, the union will also negotiate non-monetary clauses and provide you with fair working conditions, and representation rights. All of those, will not cost any additional funds from your PI research grant.

That’s great that you have a good working relationship with your manager / PI. That’s the way it should be. The organizing drive isn’t about creating problems for them, but to actually make it easier by improving standards for all. Through the collective agreement the Employer will provide more resources and improved standards that will benefit employees in their labs and research groups.

If there are no problems now, there won’t be problems once the union is certified. But managers also come and go, and research contracts may be renewed under different PIs. Should any workplace issues ever arise, it would be the University’s responsibility to address them, and the union would represent you through the process. The union removes the burden and stress from having to represent yourself alone in front of your immediate manager.

If you are a postdoc paid even partially from research funds that are administered internally by the University, then yes, you are an employee.

If you are NR employee paid by uOttawa and currently do not have union representation, yes you are part of the eligible pool of employees.

If yout salary is fully administered by the Hospital Research Institute then you might not be eligible as the hsopital is a different employer.

If you aren’t sure, there is harm is signing a card. The Labour Board will make the final determination on who is eligible and if you aren’t your card will not count, but we may not know until we actually file the application with the Labour Board.

Yes.

The Ontario Labour Relations Act requires that employees have signed their union membership card within the last 12 months prior to an application for certification with the Labour Board. Those of you who have previously signed a PSAC paper card more than a year ago need to validate their membership by signing again.

Since the pandemic electronic cards have now been accepted by the Labour Board.

In 2019 the Ontario government Bill 124 legislated a 1% per year cap on total compensation increase for the public sector employees both unionized and non-unionized over a three-year period. The University receives its operating grant from the province. Therefore, even they aren’t paid directly from provincial finances, also Bill 124 unilaterally limited salary increases for PDFs and NR employees paid from research grants.

You were all subject to the 3-year cap from 2020 to 2023 and expires in May 2023.

PSAC and a coalition of unions came together to challenge the constitutionality of Bill 124 as it violates the collective bargaining rights enshrined in the freedom of association guarantee of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A hearing was held in September 2022 before the Ontario Superior Court of justice.

A joint campaign for both occupational groups will benefit all in the long-run and generate higher bargaining power. It will ensure bargaining and representations rights are secured timely.

The Labour Board will render the final decision on whether PDFs and NRs are certified in the same or in separate bargaining units.
At universities where PSAC represents both Postdoctoral Fellows and Research Associates or technicians they are sometimes together in the same collective agreement with specific provisions for each group to account for their different needs and workplace issues.

Other times they are in a separate certified unit and negotiate each their own collective agreement. Often they are within the same Local.