Defence Fund President's Report
Fall 2013

I would like to first thank the CAUT Staff, Nancy Gordon, Gord Piché and Anik Godbout for all the excellent work they have done over the past year; and a special thank you to the former Secretary of the Fund, Peter Simpson. Peter has left CAUT to take on the position, Director of Dispute Resolution Services for Ontario's Ministry of Labour. Chantal Sundaram was approved as the new Secretary of the Fund.

The Defence Fund Policy and Planning Committee members, Albert Katz, Sue Wurtele, Larry Hale, John Kingma and I, along with Peter Simpson, met in June to discuss major changes to the Constitution and Bylaw of the Fund. Thank you to the members of the P & P Committee for their dedicated work on the revisions that were approved by the Trustees at the October AGM.

The Trustees approved strike support benefits for the following member unions since my last report to Council:

• APUO (University of Ottawa)
• UMFA (University of Manitoba)
• SJUASA (St. Jerome’s)

All the member unions above have now settled. The first strike vote in the history of APUO was held on July 31, 2013. I attended and spoke at this meeting and also delivered the million dollar cheque prior to the members voting on the strike mandate. The members voted eighty-two (82) % in favour of strike action, if necessary.

In October I travelled to Simon Fraser University to participate on a panel presentation on the merits of union certification.

I look forward to talking with Council delegates at our meeting in November, about the role of the Defence Fund. I am also available to attend membership meetings to give an overview of the role the Defence Fund plays for current and possibly future Defence Fund member unions.

Respectively submitted in solidarity,

Brian E. Brown
President, CAUT Defence Fund