Handling Grievances Workshop Report (CUPE course)
Friday, June 21st, 2013, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Ottawa Area Office, Ottawa
Facilitator: Kim Monette (CUPE Local 4000 – Health Care Workers)
Reported by Debbie Rebeiro
The course was a part of a two-day workshop ‘Introduction to Stewarding – Handling Grievances’. I attended a part of it to learn about ‘Handling Grievances’ since I had done earlier the ‘Stewarding’ part by itself.
The following are my notes:
- Types of grievances were discussed:
- Individual
- Group
- Policy/Union Grievance
- How to investigate a grievance and get the facts. CUPE /COPE has a grievance form which can be used to record facts.
- Ask member for authority to view their personnel file. Get all records and history of any discipline in the past, etc.
- All facts must be properly recorded.
- After investigation is done, if possible try to fix the problem before filing a grievance.
What is a grievance? was role played – by experienced steward (in role) training a new steward (in role).
A grievance is when the employer is in violation of: A Collective Agreement
Article No.
Health & Safety is violated
Workplace Policy is violated
A legislation is violated
Full redress and rectify if possible.
An exercise on ‘How to fill out a grievance form’ was done.
Mock grievance meetings were role played.
‘Non-effective grievance meeting’ vs ‘Effective grievance meeting’ with the Employer were role-played to show the difference in effectiveness.
The workshop went well and was good.
dr/cope 491
June 24, 2013