On Wednesday, December 9, the CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team met with the Employer. The Bargaining Team would like to thank members in the room for attending as observers, as per our open bargaining practice.
The following items were discussed at the bargaining meeting:
Closed Captioning
We would like to apologize to the membership for not having closed captioning available at this meeting. We were still in the process of clarifying responsibilities around this with the Employer, specifically relating to responsibility for booking. Now that this is clarified, we anticipate having closed captioning at all bargaining meetings moving forward.
CUPE 3903 Extension Framework
The CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team used this meeting to begin the presentation of our counter-proposal for an extension framework to the Employer. The Union’s extension framework can be viewed here. The proposals included in the framework fall into a number of categories including: wages, benefits, and funds; tuition and funding; workload, pedagogy and job security; equity; health and safety; and union rights.
The CUPE 3903 extension framework is in the spirit of the Employer’s framework which was first presented to the Bargaining Team on November 16, and was discussed further on November 25. The Union’s extension framework is updated to include areas of concern identified by the CUPE 3903 membership as well as concrete proposals on the issues brought up by the Employer.
The meeting began with a reiteration that equity and job security issues were important to both the Employer and CUPE 3903. The Bargaining Team also underlined that any monetary demands are in the context of the Ford government’s Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 which imposes on the union a 1% per year increase in wages and other monetary items in total. The Employer was made aware that in any other circumstance, CUPE 3903 would not accept such low increases. The CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team put the Employer on notice that our understanding of the Act means that we are entitled to 1% of the full costing of our collective agreements for total monetary compensation. The Bargaining Team also noted that our counter-framework for extension was being presented without prejudice to tabling additional, new, and/or amended proposals.
After the initial remarks, the CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team proceeded to present to the Employer our all-unit proposals (proposals for issues that concern all members of CUPE 3903 across units) as well as the proposals specific to Unit 3. After the presentation, the Employer asked for a caucus. On their return the Employer’s observed that they did not consider our counter proposal to be an extension framework. The Bargaining Team responded that their initial framework was not an extension framework either in the legal sense of the term, and that our proposal package was very much in line with what they had proposed, with concrete proposals on issues that were broadly identified by the Employer as desired areas of discussion for this round of bargaining. The Employer was not prepared to discuss other proposals at this meeting, but agreed to our plan to spend the next meeting on presentations of the remaining proposals that are specific to Units 1 and 2.
The meeting ended at 2:15pm with remarks from the Bargaining Team pertaining to the decimation faced by Unit 3–from over 800 positions to 37 currently–and a message to the Employer that Unit 3 issues would be front-and-centre this round of bargaining. This includes the over $70,000 misappropriated by the Employer from the Unit 3 Collective Agreement.
Next Meetings
All Bargaining Team meetings are open to members. The Bargaining Tam would like to encourage all members to attend the numerous meetings we have scheduled for December.
December 14, 12:00PM – Bargaining Meeting with the Employer
December 15, 2:00PM – Bargaining Team Meeting
December 17, 1:00PM – Bargaining Meeting with the Employer
December 18, 11:00AM – Bargaining Team Meeting
December 22, 11:00AM – Bargaining Meeting with the Employer
Registration links for meetings with the Employer can be found here.
Zoom links for Bargaining Team meetings can be found on our website calendar here.