About 40 delegates gathered from across the country recently to participate in the 20th Annual Collective Bargaining Conference at Val David, Quebec. Both collective bargaining training and policy workshops were offered over the five days of the conference held at the Hotel La Sapiniere, and organized by CAUT's Collective Bargaining and Economic Benefits Committee.

In a slight departure in format from previous years, about half the delegates arrived on June 6 to begin two days of training in basic negotiating skills through a series of lectures and exercises under the tutelage of CAUT professional officers Christiane Tardif, Pierre Choquette, and Kevin Banks. The next day the remaining delegates arrived for plenary and parallel policy sessions over the next three days.

Since the 20th year of the conference, and the retirement of Don Savage as Executive Director of the CAUT coincided, Don was asked to give the evening keynote address, entitled Twenty years of Collective Bargaining, wherein he provided an overview of CAUT's role in the development of collective agreements and special plans over that period.

The following morning, the delegates convened for a plenary session on pensions and benefits, convened by Gary Tompkins of the CBEBC, and led by Louis Martel, of Aon Consulting, Saskatoon. Mr. Martel provided a full morning of practical, hands-on information about pension surpluses, flexible benefits, pension design, and planning.

This was followed by a session on the emerging issue of e-mail security, led by Dan Schap, of the law firm Goodman and Carr, Toronto. Mr. Schap offered the clear message that university faculty associations should develop policies on e-mail privacy, and that this may not be easy, since the industrial norm is that the employer has virtually complete control over e-mail use by employees.

After some free time in which the negotiating trainees were given their bargaining simulation, delegates gathered outside to participate in a round table on collective bargaining issues. Dr. Savage spoke about the recent issues arising from the York strike, and especially some of the successful techniques the York University Faculty Association used to draw attention to the issues.

Joyce Lorimer, past-president of CAUT, reported on the situation at Trent where she and Harry Arthurs recently conducted a review of the administrative structure there. Gordon Unger, retiring executive director of the Association of Academic Staff: University of Alberta, provided an overview of recent negotiations in Alberta.

The final full day of the conference had the negotiating trainees embroiled in their bargaining simulation exercise, while the remaining delegates participated in four mini-sessions.

In the first, entitled Life in a Non-certified Association, Gordon Unger provided a case for special plans, and Annette Burfoot (Sociology, Queen's and former president of Queen's University Faculty Association, including the period in which Queen's was certified) described the successful, and arguably necessary, transition from a non-certified association to a certified bargaining unit at Queen's.

In the next session, Doug Lorimer (History, Wilfrid Laurier, and WLUFA chief negotiator) summarized ways in which an association executive and negotiating team should conduct themselves during negotiations to ensure a smooth conclusion to bargaining.

The third session, conducted by CAUT Professional Officer Kevin Banks provided a practical checklist of the characteristics of bad faith bargaining, and what to do about it.

The final session, led by Paul Hobson (Economics, Acadia) dealt with the ongoing problem of how to compare salary structures across the country.

The final evening of the conference brought all the delegates back together -- the negotiating trainees fresh from the rigours of their bargaining simulation, and the remainder from the policy sessions -- for a social evening and entertainment by the Beth Cahill Trio.

Ed Byard is in the Biology Department at the University of Winnipeg and is a member of the CAUT Collective Bargaining and Economic Benefits Committee.

The Collective Bargaining & Economic Benefits Committee is continuing to look for the right mix of training and policy sessions for the annual collective bargaining conference. Local associations have been requesting, and have received, on-site negotiating training over the past year, thus prompting the training component of the 1997 conference to be reduced somewhat.

The 1998 conference has again been tentatively scheduled for Val David in June.

Special thanks go to committee members Gary Tompkins and Vic Catano, CAUT Professional Officers Christiane Tardif and Pierre Choquette for developing the training session materials; and CAUT staff member Nancy Gordon, for conference arrangements.