As a steward, one of your major roles will be to provide advice and assistance to members in the workplace with respect to the resolution of members' problems and alleged violation of members' rights. Although each member should have a copy of his/her collective agreement, few members actually read the collective agreement and even fewer truly know how to apply and interpret the agreement. As a result, these members will come to you, the union "expert" in the workplace in order to determine if their rights have been violated and to seek the proper form of redress in order to deal with their problems.
Consequently, it becomes vital for you, the steward, to know the various collective agreements and to be able to provide the member with the correct application or interpretation of the agreement. This does not mean that you have to be able to recite each article or clause of the agreement from memory and be automatically able to provide the correct interpretation. Instead, you should be able to identify the relevant article or clause and after some study, be able to provide the member with a logical, reasonable interpretation.
From time to time, the proper interpretation may appear ambiguous or unclear and it may be necessary to seek assistance from a Local Officer, the Grievance Committee, RVP, the PSAC Regional Office, the UTE National Office or even the PSAC. It is not a reflection of lack of knowledge on your part if you do not know the correct interpretation.
In fact, quite often, the PSAC and the employer share a completely different and opposing interpretation of a specific article or clause of the collective agreement even though these two parties negotiated the agreement. This is why we have the process of adjudication so that an Independent Third Party may render a decision with respect to the proper interpretation or application.
In order to assist you in this regard, we will now have a look at some specific articles or clauses and provide you with some practical experience in interpreting the collective agreement.
As you can see from this exercise, interpreting the collective agreement is simply finding the relevant clause or article of the collective agreement and analyzing the wording to arrive at the proper interpretation.
As we discussed earlier, from time to time, the correct interpretation may be difficult to arrive at. The best method of dealing with problems of this nature is to have the member submit a grievance in order to protect his/her time limits while seeking assistance at a higher level. If eventually you find that the correct interpretation does not support the grievance, it may subsequently be withdrawn.
As you gain experience and gain more exposure to the relevant jurisprudence, you will find your job easier in interpreting the collective agreement.