Legal Decisions

While the vast majority of disputes can be resolved informally or at local levels of the grievance procedure, there are occasions on which the Faculty Association has to take issues to a third party to be resolved. The resulting decisions have the force of law and bind both the University and the Association in future dealings.

Most frequently, we take these issues to a Labour Arbitrator appointed under the BC Labour Relations Code. Arbitration decisions are important because they interpret the provisions of the Collective Agreement and clarify the rights of our members. They set standards and models which hold for our members and which sometimes set precedents for other Canadian university faculty as well (the Bryson case is a good example).

In addition to arbitrations, the Faculty Association sometimes has to take matters to the courts, either to appeal an Arbitration decision or because the matter falls or may fall outside an Arbitrator’s jurisdiction. An example of this is the Faculty Association’s case at the BC Court of Appeal regarding the authority of the Senate to create policies which override our collective-agreement rights.

The following is a partial list of arbitrations and documents related to other legal proceedings handled by the Association since voluntary recognition under the BC Labour Code in 2000. For more information on these or any other rulings, please contact the Association.