The Collective Bargaining and Economic Benefits Committee of CAUT has developed a series of guidelines and procedures to be used by CAUT in its fight against the increased number of threats to collective bargaining at Canadian universities. The document, entitled "Guidelines for an 'Alert': Measures for Response to Threats to the Collective Rights of the Profession and/or to the Collective Bargaining Process at Canadian Universities," received final approval at Council.

Vic Catano, chair of the committee, in presenting the guidelines to Council members, expressed the committee's view that the ALERT can be used as an important weapon in stemming serious threats to collective bargaining in the university sector.

Under the guidelines CAUT's Executive Committee may invoke an ALERT in such instances where it determines there is an extreme form of bad faith bargaining, where the university or government is seriously inhibiting the free collective bargaining process or where a university or government is clearly acting to undermine or to abrogate the existing collective bargaining rights of the member associations of CAUT. Such an ALERT would only be invoked following full consultation with the Collective Bargaining and Economic Benefits Committee, legal counsel and the local or provincial member association(s) involved.

If an ALERT is imposed by CAUT, a series of measures would be implemented beginning with letters to the president and board of governors of the offending academic institution or government, protesting the actions at issue and warning that such practices exceed the norms of collective bargaining, and as such constitute the grounds for invoking a national and international ALERT. If the matter remains unresolved the Executive would be authorized to take a series of measures to publicize the confrontation to the academic community across Canada and internationally as well as more generally in the Canadian media.