University commited unfair labour practises

Manitoba Labour Board rules coaches should be academic staff

Magally Zelaya, staff

Despite the university’s unilateral attempts to remove term instructors with coaching duties from UMFA’s bargaining unit, the coaches remain part of the union as a result of a Manitoba Labour Board ruling that found the university had committed unfair labour practices.

A 73-page Manitoba Labour Board report released on Oct. 4, 2007 detailed the reasons why the board found that “the university imposed the new employment model upon coaches in order to remove them from the bargaining unit and to free itself from the burden of complying with the provisions of the collective agreement.”

The report also stated that the board established that the “university offered incentives and made threats to the coaches’ continued employment” and also that “it is significant that at no point during the new employment model’s year-long gestation period did the university approach UMFA to discuss the problems which had been identified regarding coaches.”

The report summarized the process in which the university administration, led by vice-president (academic) and provost Robert Kerr, and executive director of human resources Terry Voss, initiated a plan in conjunction with other members of administration to remove coaches from the bargaining unit by stripping them of their academic rank in order to “professionalize coaching.”

According to the report the administration held meetings with six instructors with coaching duties from the faculty of physical education and recreation studies (now called kinesiology and recreation management) in December 2005 and in early 2006, without informing UMFA, the union that represents the coaches.

The administration gave the coaches the option of a new model of employment or no employment at all. The coaches accepted the new positions.

When UMFA discovered the university’s actions, the union filed a complaint with the Manitoba Labour Board and the board ruled on Jan. 11, 2007 that the university had violated the “Manitoba Labour Relations Act” sections five, six, 17, and 29.

“We have determined that the scheme to deny coaches academic rank and to remove them from the bargaining unit constitutes an unfair labour practice in contravention of sections five and six of the act,” said the report. These sections protect an employee’s right to be part of a union and to have union representation.

Violation of section 17 deemed the university guilty of seeking “by intimidation, by coercion, by threat of dismissal or any other kind of threat, or by the imposition of a pecuniary or other penalty, or by a promise, or by a wage increase, or by altering any other term or condition of employment, or by any other means, to compel or induce any person.”

And by not providing UMFA the dues owed to them, the university committed the unfair labour practice of “failure to remit dues” in violation of section 19.

“I can understand a smaller employer doing boneheaded things, if they don't know, but this is not the case,” Darlene Dziewit, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, said. “I couldn’t accept that the university had done this by accident. They know better.”

Though the ruling came in January and the university was meant to immediately reinstate the coaches’ positions as well as pay the dues owing to UMFA, Austin-Smith said, “The university kind of dragged its feet.” Before the university took action they first requested the report that explained the reasons behind the board’s ruling. UMFA also requested the report.

In the time between the ruling and the release of the report detailing the reasons behind the ruling, the coaches were still a part of the union in UMFA’s view but not in the view of the university, according to Austin-Smith.

Further, Austin-Smith said that a last-ditch effort was made by the university to modify the coaches’ position in the bargaining during this month’s negotiations of the collective agreement. She said the university proposed that the coaches remain a part of UMFA but not have access to numerous articles related to the way they are ranked, paid, and promoted. The effort was unsuccessful.

“We won this battle on two fronts we fought outside bargaining and then the university came at us inside bargaining,” said Austin-Smith.

Had the administration been successful, the coaches involved who had appointments with academic rank as instructors would have been stripped of their rank and would thereby lose coverage under the terms of the collective agreement. This, despite the fact that none of their duties would have changed. Coaches would still have to teach three credit hours, as they had been required to do when classified as instructors.

The report explained that Kerr believed that coaches at other universities were not classified as instructors and that this enabled them to be eligible for promotions and salary increases that are more difficult to attain under unionization, thereby making it difficult to attract and retain the best coaches.

The labour board report stated that, “Dr. Kerr somewhat derisively suggested that having a ‘master’s degree in English’ does not add to coaching and that he did not see academic qualifications as being relevant to coaching.”

Austin-Smith said that coaches have been classified as instructors in the UMFA agreement for 25 years and that there is “no reason why one should distinguish between instructors that do coaching duties and instructors who do art instruction or music . . . they are all instructors. They have specific duties that are related to their disciplines and there are areas but they are all united because they are all instructors.”

Both Kerr and Voss declined to comment on the ruling. John Dankas, director of public affairs at the U of M, said “We can address the question, but not until the UMFA membership has had an opportunity to vote on the agreement.”