The Grievance and Contract Administration Committee (GCAC), here to help you when you have questions about your rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement or University policy, has had a busy start to the year. Our committee, made up of UA members from six units on campus, supported 24 faculty members during the fall term to resolve workplace conflicts.
To give you an idea of what kinds of conflicts we can help you resolve, the cases from this fall ranged from access to UO childcare, improper promotions reviews, workload disputes, definitions of research productivity, discrimination complaints and accusations of research misconduct. In the majority of these cases, we were able to help members find informal solutions without filing a formal grievance, but we also assisted several members in navigating the formal grievance process.
The GCAC aren’t the only people you can talk to if you have a workplace concern. Your UA representatives (link here to UA rep page) and stewards (link to UA Steward page) can often help you with questions related to issues within your college or unit. To help the stewards and reps help you better, at our November Representative Assembly meeting the GCAC led a training, “What can representatives and stewards do when a member comes to them with a workplace problem?”, with a review of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (link here), the University of Oregon Policy Library (link here), and the United Academics website with updated sections dedicated to grievances (link here). They are ready to help.
Still have questions about what the GCAC does? Interested in future service on this committee? Think you might have an issue we can help you with? I would love to hear from you.