The nomination period for Chief Steward Unit 3, Unit 3 Bargaining Team Member, and Bargaining Team Recording Secretary will open on Monday, April 3 at 12 pm. Nominations will close April 17 at 5 pm. If the positions are contested, an election will be held as outlined in the bylaws.

Candidates must fill out a nomination form, available at the CUPE 3903 office (143 Atkinson), and sign the register. For Chief Steward Unit 3 and BT Unit 3, the positions are unit specific: candidates must be members in good standing of that unit. The members who sign the nomination form must also belong to that unit. BT Recording Secretary is open to all four units.

Interested members are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the positions as defined in the CUPE 3903 bylaws.

On Tuesday, March 28, members of CUPE 3903 met for a Special General Membership Meeting on Summer Funding and Mobilization. This report provides a short summary of the discussion, as well as ways to get involved.

The SGMM was centered on the current problems with summer funding. PhD students who are Unit 1 members will not be receiving their minimum guarantee over the summer as a direct result of York’s implementation of their union-busting fellowship funding model. In order to give PhD students this funding without actually increasing how much they pay, York has taken the minimum guarantee normally paid in the summer and rolled it into the fellowship funding, i.e. equally in the Fall, Winter, and Summer terms. This means that, besides the fellowship amount that will be automatically applied to tuition, Unit 1 members who don’t have scholarships or summer TAships will not receive any income over the summer.

The background materials provided at the SGMM — a FAQ on summer funding and a timeline of events concerning the fellowship funding model — are available as a PDF: Materials from the SGMM on Summer Funding and Mobilization.

Needless to say, this change to Unit 1 funding is bound to have a dire impact on many members’ finances. York’s response has always been a callous “budget better” (let’s not forget the time they offered our members “financial literacy lessons“). This violates the Unit 1 collective agreement, and a grievance was filed to that effect, which York ignored for months.

This SGMM was requested so that we could discuss, as a membership, how to address this issue outside of the legal paths that are already being pursued. Some suggestions include:

• Rhonda Lenton will be giving her first speech at Keele Campus as incoming President on Monday, April 3, 3pm. CUPE 3903 members and allies who are planning to attend are meeting in Vari Hall at 2:45. Bring noisemakers!
• Other actions are being organized on the short- and long-term
• Reaching out to other organizations on and off campus to build solidarity
• Media messaging and digital solutions
• Angrily knitting during bargaining.

We cannot post the details of plans or actions at this time for strategic reasons. If you would like more information, or to get involved in any capacity, email Graeme Reniers, Chairperson (cupe3903chairperson@gmail.com). Please indicate what kind(s) of organizing you’re interested in (i.e. actions, building solidarity, media, knitting, other ideas).

There are currently two vacancies for the position of Elections Officer (EO). While EOs are elected at the April GMM, two people are needed to take on this role until then, as nominations for Chief Steward Unit 3, Unit 3 bargaining team, and bargaining team Recording Secretary open on Monday, April 3.

In order to temporarily fill vacancies in this manner, the executive committee is empowered to pro tem members to committee positions until proper elections can be opened. If you would like to nominate yourself to be pro temmed as Elections Officer, please email cupe3903comms@gmail.com before Thursday, April 6, 3:00 pm.

Elections Officers organize the CUPE 3903 elections as per the bylaws. The work includes accepting the nominations, arranging for members to scrutineer, arranging and setting up tables for voting, and alongside the executive, communicating the details of the elections to the membership.

At the March 2017 AGM, a Bylaw amendment was given notice around executive honoraria. This post is intended to let the membership know about the proposal in advance to give the membership ample time to consider the suggested changes. Bylaw amendments require a 2/3 vote.

Here is the text of the proposed bylaw amendment. The strike-though text indicates cuts, the underlined text indicates additions:

Article 8 (k): Executive Honoraria

(k) Each member of the Executive Committee shall make a report of their activities to the general membership, in writing and communicated through union channels, and in person at General Membership Meetings, one (1) time per month. Monthly honoraria for Executive service will only be released by the Treasurer upon receipt of these reports. and by the Recording Secretary and after they were presented to the general membership. Additionally, monthly honoraria for Executive service will only be released after these reports are made available to the general membership, with exception of TFAC where monthly reports be presented and made available to the TFAC membership.

Since neither candidate for the position of Chief Steward Unit 1 received more than 50% of the vote during the executive committee general elections, a run-off election was held between Tuesday, March 28 and Thursday, March 30.

The new Chief Steward Unit 1 is Karl Gardner, congratulations!

The results of the vote are as follows:

• Karl Gardner: 65 votes
• Harjot S. Deol: 62 votes

Total ballots cast: 127

The Director of Community Safety at York, Samina Sami, is hosting a Community Safety Consultation with CUPE 3903 on Thursday, March 30 from 2-3pm in York Lanes 280A. All members are invited to attend. This meeting came about through a CUPE 3903 Joint Health and Safety meeting where we learned a strategic plan is being developed regarding campus safety at York. We asked for a consultation that is open to all of our members. York says they would like to hear from us about our experiences of safety – or lack of safety – at York. This seems like a good opportunity to ask why our members were not aware of recent bomb threats at Keele and Glendon campuses, and to ask why it took the employer so long to put out a statement condemning the bomb threats and hate graffiti in our workplaces. This is also a space to directly inform York about your experiences of racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia and homophobia on our campuses; to talk about the lack of lighting and the lack of sanding/salting and how that impacts your sense of safety at York; to talk about York’s sexual assault policy – the list goes on. If York wants to know what we think about safety on campus let’s tell them!

What: Community Safety Consultation
When: Thursday, March 20th, 2-3PM
Where: 280A York Lanes
Who: All CUPE members encouraged to attend

Voting for the Executive Committee elections closed at 5 pm on Wednesday, March 22. However, once the votes were counted, neither candidate for Chief Steward Unit 1 received over 50% of the vote. Article 14 III. (h) (ii) of the CUPE 3903 bylaws states:

A candidate must obtain a majority of votes cast, i.e. at least 50% plus 1, to be declared elected. When no candidate obtains a majority, the candidate receiving the fewest votes shall be dropped and a second ballot taken. The process shall continue until one candidate has obtained a majority.

While there is no candidate to drop, the bylaws appear clear that a successful candidate must always receive 50%+1 of votes cast.

Consequently, there will three days of voting for the position of Chief Steward Unit 1 only. Polls will be open from 10 am to 4 pm in the Vari Hall link on Keele campus from Tuesday March 28 to Thursday March 30.  Polls will be open from 10 am to 4 pm outside the cafeteria on Glendon campus on Tuesday March 28 only. Candidate statements are below.
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Voting for the contested executive committee positions, as well as the Unit 2 bargaining team (BT) run-off, closed at 5 pm on Wednesday, March 22. Voting for the positions of Trans Feminist Action Caucus (TFAC) Co-Chairs closed at 4 pm on Wednesday, March 22. The results of all of these elections are found below. New members of the Executive Committee will take office on April 1. The new BT member will take office immediately.

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Over the past three weeks, there have been several incidents at Glendon College where racist threats have been written on the walls, targeting Jewish and Black students. On at least two occasions, York Hall was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Such threats follow from the recent and alarming increase in far-right attacks on Muslim, Jewish, and other marginalized communities. As the union representing graduate student workers, contract faculty, and part-time librarians at York University, including Glendon College, CUPE 3903 stands against all forms of racism and hate and condemns these incidents. We wish to express our solidarity with students, staff, and faculty at the Glendon campus, and especially with the Jewish and Black members of our community that have been the targets of these threats.

We would also like to express disappointment with the response from York’s administration. While these threats have been made over the past three weeks, many of our members at Glendon, as well as the larger Glendon community, were left unaware until the last few days. They also ignored queries from the CUPE 3903 Chair of the Joint Health and Safety Committee. The York administration has an obligation to communicate these hateful incidents with the wider York community in a prompt and open way.

As students, librarians, and teachers at this university, our members can have a role in responding to this racism and generating the solidarity that is urgently needed on our campuses and in our wider community. One concrete way to help, which students at Glendon have requested, is to open the classroom to discussions around these incidents at Glendon and the wider context of racism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia. This is also an opportunity to inform students of the resources they have (including student government, organization and clubs, residence teams as well as the Wellness, Counselling and Accessibility Centre) should they wish further action or more support. There are also multiple city-wide organizations should members want to organize against racism and islamophobia in the wider community (see list below). In addition, Glendon is hosting a community meeting this Friday at 2:30 to discuss these incidents (more details to come). We encourage our members at Glendon to attend.

In solidarity,
The CUPE 3903 Executive Committee

City-Wide Organizations and Groups*

• Coalition Against White Supremacy and Islamophobia (CAWI)
• Organizing Committee Against Islamophobia (OCAI)
• Black Lives Matter – Toronto
• GTA Overt Bigotry Response
• Toronto Against Fascism
• Independent Jewish Voices

Are there more groups we should know about? Let us know! (cupe3903comms@gmail.com)

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the parent local of CUPE 3903, has filed an Unfair Labour Practices complaint against York University. This means that CUPE has made submissions to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, alleging that York has violated the Labour Relations Act.

In September 2016, York University rolled out a new funding model for its graduate students. While the university claims that this move was solely for the purposes of improving the graduate student experience, it was clearly designed as a form of union-busting. York eliminated 691 jobs unionized by CUPE 3903, cutting Unit 3 (graduate assistants) by roughly 90%. This occurred right on the heels of victories both in the 2015 strike and in the 2015-16 arbitration case that secured tuition indexation once and for all.

The loss of these jobs have resulted in hundreds of graduate students being denied the best health benefits package on campus. They have also lost access to funds for childcare, extended health care costs, emergencies, support for sexual assault survivors, professional development, and more. Our collective agreements also guarantee extensions for students with disabilities and protection from discrimination and harassment. Furthermore, we must consider the lost opportunities for professional development caused by the loss of good jobs on campus. All of these losses together paint a very clear picture of a graduate student experience which, rather than being improved, is dramatically worsened. York is making graduate education even less accessible for those most vulnerable, and trying to package it as an improvement.

Since this new funding model is not at all an improvement of the graduate student experience, York’s motivations appear clear: the decimation of CUPE 3903’s Unit 3 and correspondingly, our bargaining power. A change of this magnitude should have been discussed in bargaining, not forced through after two “consultation” meetings in which the union made it very clear that it categorically refused to accept this plan. To make matters worse, the roll-out of the new funding model was a disaster of epic proportions. York put off meeting with CUPE 3903 between August and November, and resisted answering emails as much as possible, showing yet more hostility towards the union representing their workers.

A mediation meeting concerning the Unfair Labour Practices complaint is scheduled for April 11, 10:30 am, at 505 University Avenue, 2nd floor. Come show York that you support the right to good, unionized jobs on campus.