Who is TFAC?

The Trans Feminist Action Caucus (TFAC) is an autonomous body of CUPE 3903 that consists of all women, trans, gender queer and gender variant members of the Local.

We welcome and strongly encourage involvement of persons with one or more disabilities, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirited, queer and trans persons, persons from racialized groups, and Indigenous persons.

What does TFAC do?

We have a long history of activism to try and make changes in the union to address traditional and oppositional sexism, cissexism, transmisogyny, ableism, racism, and other forms of oppression that we’ve had to deal with.

TFAC works in coalition with other relevant critical feminist organizations on campus in an effort to improve the position of all women, trans, gender queer and gender variant people at York University and within the labour movement. To this end, TFAC defines ‘sexism’ to include any type of gender or sex based discrimination or oppression. With this we also recognize that other factors such as race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status and/or ability, may exacerbate discrimination on the basis of sex.

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We would like to welcome Nadia Kanani as our new Equity Officer! Following the retirement of Sheila Wilmot in February 2020, the position has remained vacant. Nadia will join our team on November 9th. Thank you to the Hiring Committee for their work navigating hiring in the midst of a pandemic.

Nadia comes to the position with a wealth of experience in both community and post-secondary organizing and advocacy, specifically through an anti-racist and disability justice framework. Most notably, she held advocacy and student support roles at Students for Barrier-free Access and played a substantive role in the campaign against UofT’s mandated leave policy. Nadia brings experience in mounting harassment complaints, representing members in human rights cases, and facilitating mediation to the role of Equity Officer. She also has a strong background in leading trainings and educationals.

Save the date! We will be hosting a membership meet and greet for members to meet Nadia on Tuesday November 17th at 1pm. You can find the Zoom info here: Equity Officer Meet and Greet.

The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies is striking a working group to “collectively create a faculty-wide security plan.” This working group will be composed of representatives from YUFA, YUSA, CPM, and SCOLAPS, as well as two members from CUPE 3903 (one each from units 1 and 2). The last few months has seen a number of safety issues emerge within LAPS for our members. Having representation on this working group will ensure that the concerns of contract faculty and teaching assistants within the Faculty are heard.

If you teach in LAPS as either Unit 1 or Unit 2 and want to nominate yourself for one of these positions, please email Stacey Berquist at cupe3903vpu1@gmail.com by 5pm on Thursday October 22nd. If the positions are contested, there will be a vote at the October 23rd general membership meeting.

For more information on the working group, see the memorandum from the Dean here.

The Affordable Housing Committee (AHC) is holding its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, October 28^th from 6–8pm. AHC is a coalition of students, staff and faculty working towards the creation of affordable co-operative housing in the vicinity of York University. 3903 members with an interest in affordable housing and who want to get involved are welcome to attend.

The AHC meets every 6-8 weeks during the school year and currently seeks two 3903 representatives. The representatives will represent the interests of the union on the committee and report back to the union after each meeting. Interested members should email VP Unit 1, Stacey Berquist, by Wednesday October 21st to nominate themselves. Continue reading →

The nomination period for the position of Chief Steward Unit 2 will open at the GMM on October 23rd. At that time, members interested in nominating themselves will fill out a nomination form on the CUPE website. The nomination period will run from October 23rd to November 6th and will be followed by a 5-day voting period.

The Ways and Means committee met in the first week of October and again on October 13th to adjudicate W&M applications, as well as applications to the Remote Course Delivery Fund. If you applied in September to either fund, you should receive a response from the committee soon. The committee has been dealing with a very high volume of applications and the new committee members have just been transitioned, so thank you for your patience.

Notice From David B. Cuff, Dean’s Office, LA&PS:

The Dean’s Office can provide assistance for LA&PS faculty members with the creation or update of a Canadian Common CV (CCV). As many of you know, creating a CCV can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task, and we generally advise faculty who are targeting opportunities that require a CCV (e.g. SSHRC Insight Development Grant, NSERC Discovery Grant) to complete the CCV well in advance of deadlines.

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Elena Chou was acclaimed to the position of Chief Steward Unit 2 on October 8th and now joins the 3903 executive committee. If you have any union-related questions or concerns, please contact her. Welcome Elena!

The following committees have vacancies and are open for nominations. Interested members should email VP Unit 1, Stacey Berquist, by Wednesday October 21st to nominate themselves.

• Accessibility Committee (1 vacancy)
• CUPE Toronto District Council (1 vacancy)
• Distribution Committee (2 vacancies)
• Forum Moderator (1 vacancy)
• Joint Health and Safety Committee (2 vacancies)
• Senate Representative Alternate (1 vacancy)
• Toronto York Region Labour Council (7 vacancies)

Information about committees can be found here