An arbitration board says UPEI violated the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act when it failed to take reasonable steps to protect campus workers during the pandemic.
The university’s faculty association says the board ruled that in 2021, UPEI failed to tell maintenance and security staff that campus residences were being used as a COVID-19 isolation facility for students arriving from out-of-province.
The Board also ruled that in 2021, UPEI failed to timely provide the results of a campus-wide ventilation study to the UPEI Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee. It says that instead UPEI waited until early 2022 to release the report, which found that many campus spaces did not meet even pre-COVID ventilation standards.
The faculty association says it has asked for clarification on who the university intends to hold accountable for these violations.
