About Us
PSAC Local 77000
Carleton University Postdoctoral Union
About Us
PSAC Local 77000, also known as the Carleton University Postdoctoral Union (CUPU), represents postdoctoral fellows whose internal funding is equal or greater than 50% of the minimum annual salary stipulated in the collective agreement or its pro-rated equivalent.
We are postdocs like you who work to uphold and improve our working conditions.
The work of the Local is done through an Executive Committee made up of peers who we elect at general membership meetings.
Our Local bylaws help guide how the Local functions. We, the members, also vote to adopt and amend the bylaws.
Collective Agreement
The collective agreement is our legally binding work contract. Our bargaining team negotiates it with the employer on a cyclical basis. We get to vote to accept (or not) the contract which the parties present us with (see the Collective Bargaining section below for more information). The collective agreement stipulates our rights and responsibilities as employees, as well as the rights and responsibilities of our employer towards us.
Relation with Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)
We are a directly chartered Local of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), a union representing more than 180,000 workers across Canada in every province and territory, with members in the federal government departments and agencies, community services agencies, Indigenous communities, and many other sectors. PSAC also represents over 18,500 academic sector workers and the largest number of postdoctoral fellows, including but not limited to those working at Queen’s, McGill, École Polytechnique, Dalhousie, Western, Memorial, and the University of Saskatchewan.
Collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining is the process through which we negotiate our contract, also known as our collective agreement. Our contract expires every few years. When the contract expires, we have an opportunity to negotiate with our employer to better our working conditions. This is what we call the collective bargaining process, and we enter into bargaining on a cyclical basis.
When our Local begins a new round of collective bargaining to improve our contract, we start with sending surveys out to postdocs in order to identify our bargaining priorities. We submit input to our union as to how we would like to see our working conditions improved. We also elect members of our Local to represent us on our bargaining team.
We then submit our notice to bargain to the employer, triggering the process through which our bargaining team will enter into negotiations. Negotiations are done over the course of several meetings. The process may take several weeks to several months.
It is important to stay informed about our negotiations. To this end, you might want to visit this website regularly and contact us to provide your personal email address for email updates. We cannot use the employer’s server to communicate strategic information to you. Furthermore, keep an eye out for membership meetings and sessions on collective bargaining in the workplace and visit the News & Events page regularly.