Communicating with the Union

As some of you might know, there were three policy bulletins on Computing and Telecommunications posted on or about March 7th on the HUB: Email Usage, Internet Usage, and General.

There was some confusion of interpretation regarding bullet 4 on the E-mail usage policy which states “The use of Library e-mail for union business other than communication between Library managers and official representatives of a union (i.e., persons officially appointed as members of the Executive, the negotiating committee, Union stewards and those appointed to joint committees between the Library and the Union) relating to contract negotiations, grievances, labour/management issues, and meeting arrangements is prohibited.”

Likewise there was confusion of interpretation of a sentence in bullet 1 of the General policy which states ” Permitted personal use does not include uses related to a personal business, political, union or similar activity, or bandwidth/resource intensive activities described below…”

It was perceived that bullet 1 above conflicted with bullet 4.

I have sought clarification on this and using personal email including your cupe391 email account on non-work time to communicate with the Union is allowable within these policies.

Thanks

Gerard Batty
President, CUPE 391
Vancouver, Gibson’s & Sechelt Public Library Workers