Preparing for a Forced Ratification Vote

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Preparing for a Forced Ratification Vote:

CUPE 3903 expects that the Employer may call a FORCED RATIFICATION VOTE at some point.

A forced vote is a tool of the employer, they are allowed to use it only once during a labour dispute.  These forced votes are often called when the employer thinks that they might be able to win concessions by bypassing the normal bargaining process.  This could happen at any time, and it might be difficult to mobilize fast enough when it does happen if individual members don’t know to take steps in advance. The employer can only force a supervised vote once though.

That’s why if it happens, you need to vote no!

When it fails, they will be pressured to do what we’ve been wanting to see for the past 8 months: bargain in good faith. Beyond that, you need to vote no in order to ensure fair contracts which include decent wages and a modicum of job security for all three units. Maybe most importantly, we need to be in charge of negotiating our back-to-work protocol, so that we are protected from reprisals and will get compensated for finishing our contracts.

How to prepare for a Forced Ratification Vote:

→Set up your EMPLOYEE email account now, before a Forced RAT is called←

While normal contract ratification votes are administered by CUPE, a forced vote will be run by the Employer. It can be in their interest to suppress voting. Even if you have never set up your Employee email address, your link for a forced ratification vote is likely to be sent there, not to the email address you most commonly use or have on file as your preferred address — and your employee address is not the same as your graduate student address.

The first step is making sure you can access your EMPLOYEE Passport York:

You can verify what your employee email is by logging onto your HR self serve with your Employee Passport York information. To view what your employee email is, please click:

–> Personal Details

–> Contact Details (your employee email will be visible there)

Setting Up an Employee/Central York Email Account

NOTE: These instructions may no longer be necessary. Most employees now automatically have Outlook 365 Accounts through York. Outlook accounts use your Employee Passport York username and password and do not require you to set up a separate password.Try logging in with your employee email login and password to https://outlook.office.com.

If your employee email account has not been set up for Outlook you can follow the following instructions to set your employee email password:

  1. Go to Manage My Services and enter the employee Passport York username and password you have previously set up (see instructions above).
  2. Under “Manage My Services” should be an ‘Activate Your Email Service’ link, click on this link.
  3. You must agree to the “Appropriate Use Policy for Electronic Mail Services” by clicking on ‘I Agree’ to continue.
  4. You will then be taken to an “Activate New Service” page where you can set a password for your employee email account by entering a new password and clicking ‘Submit’.  Guidelines for acceptable passwords are given on the page.
  5. Once your password has been submitted (and no error messages received) you now have a password for your central email account, and can log out of Manage My Services by clicking the Logout button (normally in the top right corner).

Some Faculties have Faculty-specific email accounts. Usually CUPE 3903 members are not given a Faculty-specific account but you may contact your hiring unit, department, or Faculty helpdesk for more information. The Faculties with Faculty-supported email accounts are:

  • Schulich Email – ends in @schulich.yorku.ca
  • Osgoode Email – ends in @osgoode.yorku.ca
  • Glendon Email – ends in @glendon.yorku.ca
  • Faculty of Education email – ends in @edu.yorku.ca

If you need to RESET your employee password, or if the steps above do not work, you have two options:

  1. Visit the York IT office IN PERSON, and show government issued ID or your YU card.  They will reset your password on the spot and you can change your password from their terminal.

Stacey  Building
136 campus walk, rm 107c
Open 8:30 am to 9:00pm

  1. Have your department or manager email askit@yorku.ca on your behalf including:

A statement that you are an employee
A statement that you need your EMPLOYEE PASSWORD reset
Your Employee #
A non-york email address at which you can be reached.