The Association of Professors of Saint Paul University has won its drive to represent full-time faculty members and professional librarians at the university in Ottawa.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board formally certified the association last month, culminating a spring organizing campaign. Academic staff at Saint Paul voted by more than 2-to-1 in favour of forming a union on April 2.

“We knew the vote would be strong because so many of our members signed authorization cards supporting union representation,” said theology professor Kevin Coyle, who helped coordinate the card-signing campaign. “We were very pleased to receive such a solid mandate to unionize.”

Association treasurer Terry Lynn Gall said academic staff were ready to take the step to establish a union.

“Although we developed a framework for negotiating in 2002, the employer would not agree to include a mechanism for arbitration to resolve disputes,” Gall said. “As a result, this approach to negotiation proved inadequate over the years, finally leading the members to vote on formalizing our bargaining rights.”

With the OLRB decision, the association is moving forward with plans to negotiate a first contract with the university.

“Our challenge now is to keep up the momentum during contract talks,” said association president John Huels. “We will be working hard over the summer to prepare our proposals and train our negotiators.”