First contract negotiations are scheduled to start later this month between the university and United Steelworkers Local 2010, the union representing general staff at Queen’s (grades 2-9).

Several meetings are scheduled between November 15 and the end of the year. Additional dates will be set for 2012.

An updated description of the bargaining unit and the status of a large number of disputed positions has also been decided after months of mediation/arbitration. A ruling was released today. 

United Steelworkers also represents a new bargaining unit of academic assistants, tutors and markers. The collective bargaining process for that unit began in late August and talks continue.

Talks with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), the union representing the Allied Health Care professionals in the Queen’s Family Health Team, are expected to start in the new year.

Finally, bargaining between the university and its post-doctoral follows, who are represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), is scheduled to begin next month.

To date this year, six contracts have been negotiated by the university and several employee groups.

New collective agreements were ratified in August with the Queen’s University Faculty Association and with the three campus locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

In June, the university and the Ontario Nurses Association ratified a first contract for the nurses in Queen’s Family Health Team, and in May, the university and PSAC agreed to a first contract for graduate teaching assistants and teaching fellows.