Bargaining Bulletin #4

Executive Summary

• CUPE 3902 Unit 3 has been without a renewal Collective Agreement (CA) for 412 days.
• At the bargaining table between your Bargaining Team (BT) and the Employer, there has been continued progress. For example, there have been productive conversations with the Employer about ways to recognize service and professional experience that you bring to your work as members of Unit 3.
• Your BT spent a lot of time discussing Article 14 (Hiring), which sets an important tone for our upcoming conversations about the advancement process.
• Since filing for conciliation two weeks ago, your BT has continued to move through the process to build power that can be put behind the ambitious proposals that you and your colleagues have asked the BT to bring to the bargaining table.
• Your BT invites you to a virtual meeting from 5-7pm on October 26, 2022, to ask you to vote “yes” to open a strike vote. While Unit 3 is not yet poised to go on strike, a strike vote is a mechanism that gives your Executive Committee the legal mandate to call a strike if that becomes necessary.
• To attend, you need to register on the Member Portal. For support, consult this guide. You will be sent a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.
• To be able to register for the meeting, you need to have signed your Union card! This is what makes you a political member of the Union. Just follow the steps below.
• If you missed previous bulletins, see Bulletin #1, Bulletin #2, and Bulletin #3.
• If you have not yet signed the pledge to indicate your support for your BT and the bargaining process, you are strongly encouraged to do so.

Please see below for more details. 

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Expanded

Your Unit 3 Collective Agreement (CA) expired 412 days ago. Despite this, your Bargaining Team (BT) has now only been able to meet with the Employer twelve times. The BT is encouraged by gains made at the table, yet frustrated by the scarcity of dates offered by the Employer. 

Some gains made since Bulletin #3 include an agreement in principle to recognize, in Article 14 (Hiring), the importance of both “relevant professional experience” and “lived experience” for equity-seeking groups. This is significant because the Employer is beginning to understand that Unit 3 members have no intention to erode the quality of service delivery for students at the University of Toronto. The groundwork laid in the updated Article 14 also sets an important tone for imminent discussions about the advancement processes, as the Employer’s willingness to recognize “relevant professional experience” may prove helpful to members applying for advancement.

The “tone” at the table – more times than not – is cordial, collaborative, and civil. There are times, however, when the Employer makes it clear that they are mainly interested in preserving managerial rights to give themselves flexibility, relying on the outdated and inaccurate belief that Unit 3 only exists to fill gaps and vacancies when tenure-track folks are on leaves and sabbaticals, and viewing hiring as a “supply and demand” equation to ensure the profitability of the institution. The Employer’s flexibility is your precarity. Their inaccuracy is your precarity. Their profit is your precarity.

As you may recall from Bulletin #3, on October 5 your BT filed for conciliation on behalf of Unit 3. Following along in the process to build power that can be put behind the ambitious proposals that you and your colleagues have asked the BT to bring to the bargaining table, your BT invites you to a virtual meeting from 5-7pm on October 26, 2022, to ask you to vote “yes” to open a strike vote. While Unit 3 is not yet poised to go on strike immediately, a strike vote is a mechanism that gives your Executive Committee the legal authority to call a strike if that becomes necessary. Note that this is a two-step process. Step One: At the virtual meeting on October 26, your BT will ask your permission to open a strike vote. Step Two: If Unit 3 decides to move ahead with a strike vote, voting would begin on October 26 and would continue until November 2.

In any union, when large numbers participate in a strike vote and unanimously vote “yes” to give the Executive Committee the legal mandate to call a strike, Employers pay attention. Your Employer needs to pay attention, make themselves more readily available to meet with your BT, and recognize that their insistence on maintaining the status quo contributes to your precarity and erodes the quality of service delivery to students of the University of Toronto. 

Your BT urges you to complete the pledge and to attend the important Strike Vote Meeting from 5-7pm on October 26, 2022. Here is the agenda package.

To attend, you need to register on the Member Portal. For support, consult this guide. You will be sent a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

To be able to register for the meeting, you need to have signed your Union card! This is what makes you a political member of the Union. Just follow the steps below.

In solidarity,

The Unit 3 Bargaining Team

Erich Vogt

Frédérique Vézina 

Thomas Robles

Kenneth McNeilly

Thomas Laughlin

Keshav Krishnamurty 

Amy Conwell

David Simao

Leila Meskine