The Bargaining Team met for the first time this year on January 15th.

We continued our discussion regarding our interpretation and application of Bill 124. The BT received input from a member who has been engaged in collective bargaining under this legislation, as well as from our CUPE-National representative, Stephen Horner. We finalized a set of questions for our legal counsel. We are still awaiting the Employer’s document on their reading of Bill 124.

In the second half of our meeting, we discussed several equity-related concerns. Members of the Bargaining Team and of the Executive Committee have identified the need to better communicate to the rank-and-file membership the motivation behind our equity proposals as well as how such language would interact with existing seniority provisions. A subcommittee made up of members of the Bargaining Team and the Executive Committee was struck to focus on this plan.

Members are encouraged to join us on Friday, January 22nd, at noon, when bargaining with the Employer resumes, and we anticipate receiving counter proposals.

Register in advance for this meeting here.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the meeting.

Congratulations to YUFA for a resounding arbitration victory, confirming that York’s unilateral withdrawal of Graduate Assistant support harmed faculty research at York University.

The rollout of York University’s Fellowship Funding Model in September 2016 resulted in the loss of more than 800 Graduate Assistant jobs in Unit 3. This unilateral decision has since adversely impacted research conducted by members of the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) and has led to workloads that far exceed those outlined in the YUFA collective agreement. In the fall of 2020, Arbitrator Michelle Flaherty ruled in favour of YUFA, averring that York’s years-long union-busting campaign targeting CUPE 3903 Unit 3 GA jobs has impeded faculties to secure graduate assistants who perform an array of supports to faculty and research centres in the form of administrative, clerical, research and technical services.

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The next GMM will be held on January 26th from 1:00–4:00 pm. At this GMM, we will be voting on bylaw amendments and donation requests, as well as discussing bargaining. All members are encouraged to attend.

Please register in advance for this meeting here.

In order to register, you will need to provide your employee number, which will be kept confidential. If you don’t know your employee number, please click here for instructions.

After registering, members will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. If you are having any difficulties with registration, please get in touch with Vanessa Lehan-Streisel, VP Unit 2.

Keep reading for the tentative agenda, accessibility information and more.

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The following three bargaining meetings have been scheduled with the Employer for January 2021. All members are welcome to attend and observe.

Please register in advance for each of these meetings by clicking on the links below.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the meeting.

i) Bargaining Meeting with Employer – January 22nd (Noon–3pm)
Register in advance for this meeting here.

ii) Bargaining Meeting with Employer – January 28th (Noon–3pm)
Register in advance for this meeting here.

iii) Bargaining Meeting with Employer – January 29th (1–4pm)
Register in advance for this meeting here.

On Tuesday, December 22nd, 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 objective of the meeting was to respond to questions the Employer raised about our proposal package on December 17th. The following issues were addressed.

Bill 124
The Employer and the Union differ in how we understand the scope and impact of Bill 124. The Union has put forward several proposals that include financial penalties for late offers of appointment, late pay, and misclassification of GAs as RAs, as well as caps on workload for TAs, CDs, and CCDs, all of which the Employer interprets as compensation increases, which would then interact with the 1% ceiling imposed by Bill 124. Since members of 3903 are not paid by the student, the bargaining team does not believe that capping class size is an increase in compensation, and thus, proposals on capping class size should not be subject to Bill 124. The Employer has alluded to a communication laying out their application of this legislation which should be forthcoming in January, at which point the Union will be able to respond more completely.

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The Bargaining Team spent the majority of the meeting discussing and preparing the answers to the Employer’s questions about proposals in our package. More specifically, we discussed different interpretations of Bill 124, the importance of job security proposals, funding, and the way equity and seniority are being pitted against each other. A few items such as the intersectionality proposal are reserved for later when the subcommittee can do more substantial research and provide language for our membership to discuss. We also briefly discussed the plan to meet with the union’s lawyer to consider the possible avenues to push for affordable housing.

Next Meeting
All Bargaining Team meetings are open to members. The Bargaining Team would like to encourage all members to attend this last remaining meeting in December.

December 22, 11:00AM – Bargaining Meeting with the Employer
Please register in advance for this meeting here.

On Monday, December 17th, 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 Bargaining Team began by reiterating that, any items not directly addressed in the CUPE 3903 Extension Framework proposals were expected to roll-over into the next collective agreement, and that the Bargaining Team would follow up by reiterating this in writing.

The Employer then provided some opening remarks of their own, recognizing that we bargain under the unique context of Bill 124. The Employer then indicated that they likely understood the question of “compensation” under Bill 124 differently than the Union. Following these opening remarks, the Employer asked numerous clarification questions on the proposals included in the CUPE 3903 Extension Framework, presented to the Employer at the bargaining meetings on December 9th and December 14th. Many of the Employer’s questions dealt simply with clarifying intent. Other questions however pointed to more substantive disagreements between the two bargaining teams.

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In this round of bargaining, one of the key issues that the CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team is focusing on is employment equity. To gauge who we are as a collective, and what direction our needs and priorities should take, an accurate understanding of the composition of our membership is necessary. For this reason, it is imperative that 3903 members complete the self-identification survey sent by Annette Boodram, York’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Officer. The information received will be sent to the HR protected area, anonymized, compiled into data, and then sent to our CUPE 3903 Equity Officer. Please note that according to the Ontario Human Rights Code, all information provided, is by law, kept confidential.

This data will help craft and develop policies, and thereafter, could be inscribed into our Collective Agreements. With this crucial information, it will be possible to make our local an equitable place of employment, a highly desirable objective.

Please read Annette Boodram’s letter here.
Link to Self-Identification Survey.

Please note that you will need your employee number (not your student number).
If you do not have quick access to your pay stub, contact Annette Boodram, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Officer or Rob Lawson, Associate Director, Faculty Relations, to obtain your employee number.

The Bargaining Team met on December 15th. The December 14th meeting with the Employer was briefly reviewed. Report-back from the December 14 meeting can be viewed here.

Next, a concise discussion on wages, benefits, and funds took place. The BT also discussed the implications of Bill 124 on our monetary proposals.

There was then a brief discussion of the need for a definition of intersectionality, as a clause in the collective agreements. Having received feedback from TFAC, the BT explored whether such a clause would be truly enforceable, or if a better strategy would be to have intersectionality be reflected in proposals concretely.

The BT also discussed the ideas brought up by the Affordable Housing Committee for potential bargaining proposals, as well as the feasibility of taking up this issue in this round of bargaining, given the restrictions imposed by Bill 124 on monetary demands. The BT decided to get legal advice to determine how this issue can be tackled within the context of collective bargaining–if not now, perhaps in a future round of bargaining.

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The CUPE 3903 Bargaining Team presented the updated Proposal Framework to the Employer at the December 14th bargaining meeting. This is the updated framework of proposals to extend the Unit 1, 2 and 3 Collective Agreements. This document can be found in Bargaining Documents here.