Concordia and the professional employee union sign collective agreement

Representatives from the Concordia University Professional Employee Union (CUPEU) and the university labour relations team gathered on November 12 to sign a new collective agreement and celebrate the success of the previous round of negotiations.

Carolina Willsher, associate vice-president of Human Resources, began the event by praising those who worked on the negotiations. Willsher highlighted that the negotiations were completed relatively quickly this round. She credited this success to the quality of discussions and to the people around the negotiating table.

“I think the speed of the negotiations speaks well to the people who were at the table,” she said. “We don’t always agree, and it’s not always easy, but it’s nice to know that we have the right people at the meetings who can sit down and have these conversations. Because of their hard work, we have an agreement that we can be proud of.”

Sigmund Lam, vice-president of negotiations for CUPEU, said that his first time leading the negotiations was an interesting experience. “Negotiations finished relatively quickly and I think things went quite well.”

The gratitude and recognition at the celebration was not only for those who participated in the negotiation, but rather, for the work of all CUPEU members.

Representatives from both the union and Concordia agreed that the university is enjoying a lot of success right now and spoke of the diverse activities that CUPEU members perform that are critical to that success.

Willsher went on to say that the positive atmosphere at the celebration, and indeed, during the negotiations, is a result of the present atmosphere on campus.

“Concordia is an evolving place, and that is an important thing for us,” said Willsher. “We will continue to have the important conversations, deepen our relationship and build on our successes, because evolution and setting our sights on what’s next is what makes Concordia the successful organization that it is.“

Participants representing the university in the photo: Pierre Claude Bourke, Graham Carr, Roger Côté, Sonia Coutu, Sabrina Lavoie, Mike Popoff, Gabriel Prévost and Carolina Willsher.

Participants representing the union in the photo: Daniel Carrier, Sheila Ettinger, Shoshana Kalfon, Sigmund Lam and Gillian Roper.