N.A.S.A. began to actively recruit stewards after the last Annual General Meeting. The whole process has been new for all the volunteers involved in it. And as I prepare to report on how far we are from the goals we set for ourselves, it is apparent that we truly didn’t imagine the scope of the undertaking. We have also had reaffirmed for us the enormous need there is for member education. Because we have not been a union with stewards, there is not the traditional understanding of our RIGHT to have union representation whenever we feel we need it. Nor is there that understanding on the part of management. Those in Human Resources understand because many of them came to us from organised workplaces such as Regional Health Authorities. They too, must educate their managerial membership about the rights of workers to union representation.

This process has already begun for all of us. Materials Management has undergone a reorganisation and was the first test of Article 20 – the Position Disruption/Layoff article. This was also one of the first areas where we elected stewards. The stewards have been working very closely with N.A.S.A.’s staff throughout the entire process.

Our goal was to have elected 30 stewards by November, 1998 and have of them accredited. Education and mentoring by N.A.S.A. staff must occur before accreditation can occur. ( there has been such a positive response by the members to having a steward in the workplace, that most of the stewards were asked by the members to resolve their issues from their initial appointment date. For many of the stewards it has been a case of jumping in with the support of the staff, in doing their steward work) With the addition of the third L.R.O. in the office, the process of electing, training and mentoring more stewards will be accelerated. There is a real working relationship developing between the stewards and the staff and the confidence and knowledge base of the stewards is developing. We presently have 24 stewards, most of whom have completed Level 1 training. We have lost a number of stewards for various reasons, however the goal of electing 30 stewards has been met.

There will be an article in an upcoming Hot Topics naming the stewards and listing the clusters that elected them. In the meantime, if you do not have a steward in your area, please contact the N.A.S.A. office and we can arrange to hold an election in your area. There may soon be steward elections in the Registrar’s Office as well as in Athabasca/Assiniboia Halls. We are presently working on organising those elections.

What do stewards do? Why should you want to have one in your area? Well, stewards are N.A.S.A.’s presence in your workplace. Steward education involves understanding the collective agreement and interpreting it. If your collective agreement rights are being violated, your steward is the first place to go for an interpretation of the agreement, and then for help assuring that your rights are not violated. Stewards are intended to resolve workplace issues before they become grievances. If that is not possible, the stewards will help take members through the grievance process. One of our goals would be to eventually have stewards handle grievances through Step 2 and up to arbitration.

Stewards help to identify issues that need addressing. In fact, stewards have already forwarded a number of issues to the Labour Management (Article 42) Committee for discussion and resolution. Examples of such issues so far include health and safety issues, as well as confirming every employee’s right to a GPU account for email and internet access. Other issues, such as how part time service is counted toward vacation entitlement upon securing full time employment was raised by stewards in Building Services. The Employer was pro-rating part time service in the calculation of vacation entitlements and that practice was in direct violation of the collective agreement. The issue was resolved and the practice ended, thanks to the stewards in Building Services.

The stewards have been active advocates for the membership, and it is our intention to find ways to communicate those successes to the membership. The Rep’s Council has created a "Stewards Corner" on the Council Website and stewards will begin making contributions to that website. We are also hoping to take advantage of bulletin boards and other means of communication to keep the membership informed on issues of concern to us. A communications committee within the steward body has recently been formed to begin co-ordinating this work.

The rest of the targets from last year include:

• filing system organised: largely done
• steward program computing facility plan in place, set up of steward WEB page, listserv, email, resource library initiated: in progress. Listserv is set up for stewards.
• N.A.S.A. bulletin board locations: in progress. We are presently looking into headers for the bulletin boards.
• budget to treasurer: premature. There is a line item in the budget to cover potential costs of time-off and publications, but it is much too early to accurately predict what our needs will be.
• run level 2 training and have had a steward conference: again, somewhat premature. We are still not fully staffed in terms of support for stewards in the area of education and communication. Trust bargaining also cut into the time available for meeting many of the steward goals.

Although the target dates were somewhat ambitious, we have made progress and will continue to do so.

We shall soon be in contract negotiations once again. It is my hope that the stewards will play a proactive role in the negotiations in terms of keeping the membership informed and providing a communication conduit between the bargaining team and the membership. Electing stewards in the Fall takes on a significant emphasis if we are to keep the communication flowing in setting proposals and during negotiations.

N.A.S.A. has recognised the importance of Health and Safety in the workplace. A health and safety officer, Russell Eccles, has been appointed and is in the process of establishing a N.A.S.A. Health and Safety Committee. There will be an ongoing relationship between that Committee and the Steward body as Health and Safety is one of the areas where stewards must play a significant role. Because only N.A.S.A. staff and Stewards are recognised as official union representatives, I hereby move that the N.A.S.A. Health and Safety Officer be a Union Steward. The Health and Safety Officer should be a regular attendee at Steward Council meetings and should also undergo the Steward Training. This would be an exception to the policy of electing all stewards, so does need General Meeting approval.

Stewards currently meet monthly. We discuss issues from the workplace and how to resolve them. We also have educational sessions, two of which included Health and Safety in the Workplace presented by a member of the Alberta Workers Health Centre and the Job Evaluation System on Campus presented by Nancy Furlong. The Education sessions are an important component of the steward meetings.