Bargaining Team Meeting – February 23

The Bargaining Team met on February 23rd to review the Employer’s most recent proposals from February 16 and 18, implications of Bill 124 on our monetary proposals, and the benefits proposals recommended for inclusion in our package. We also prepared for the bargaining meeting with the Employer on Friday, February 26th. The Bargaining Team decided to focus on proposals relating to Nursing and Unit 3 at this meeting, as they are priorities for the Union in this round of bargaining. We also continued to prepare for the weekend bargaining sessions facilitated by mediator Chris Albertyn, which took place on February 27th and 28th. During these sessions, we continued to discuss job security measures. Members can see the Union’s job security proposals, as well as the counters exchanged by parties during the weekend session here. 

Bargaining Meeting with the Employer – February 26

The Bargaining Team met with the Employer on Friday February 26th. We would like to thank members in the room for attending as observers, as per our open bargaining practice.

The Employer presented one counter proposal for Unit 3, which is a proposed letter to CUPE on Graduate Assistants vs. Research Assistants. However, the Employer’s proposed letter does not address the ongoing misclassification of Graduate Assistants as Research Assistants. These misclassifications are a blatant violation of our collective agreement, and we continue to see new job postings advertising bargaining unit work as non-unionized RA positions despite an ongoing policy grievance. One of the Unit 3 core proposals for this bargaining round articulates the need for the Employer to adopt a review process to ensure that there are no longer misclassifications between RAs or GAs.

In addition to not having counters for the remaining Unit 3 proposals, the Employer also was not prepared to discuss our Nursing proposals. We reiterated that Unit 3 and Nursing proposals are some of the key priorities for the CUPE 3903 membership during this round of bargaining and requested that the Employer come prepared to discuss these proposals during our next bargaining meeting on March 8, 2021.

Next Meetings

Members are encouraged to join us for our upcoming bargaining meetings with the Employer. Dates and exact times of all meetings can be found on our calendar here. Please register in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the meeting.

Members can also get in touch with the Bargaining Team for questions and comments.