By Matthew Dunleavy

On March 21st 2018, CUPE 3903 filed an Unfair Labour Practices (ULP) complaint against York University. Although this complaint brought up three separate instances whereby the university clearly broke the Labour Relations Act, at its heart it was an attempt to reign in a exploitive President, bargaining team, and Board of Governors; to get them to stop their media smear campaign against CUPE 3903, get them back to the bargaining table, and finally begin to bargain in good faith. The hearing for that case is scheduled for April 4th.

Five days later, on March 25th, the CUPE 3903 bargaining team invited the employer back to the bargaining table (again) and clearly outlined the “red lines” agreed upon by our members.

Rather than see that their offer does not address the needs of 60% of the educators at the university, the employer read the ULP and our offer to bargain and, on March 27th, chose to by-pass the negotiating table to request a forced ratification vote via the Ministry of Labour.

Once news of this spread, members of the union have been posting on social media, informally talking on picket lines, and discussing at length during the SGMM on March 29th about why we should vote NO—or, in union parlance, why we should KILL THE RAT!

With over 3,000 members, we have a wide range of lived experiences as contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and research assistants (and part-time librarians who, though not on strike right now, are valued members of our collective). Due to these individual experiences, some members may be considering a vote of yes during the ratification vote. For that reason, this post is intended to present why a vote of NO is necessary; remember, your vote is not just for yourself but for the well-being of the current members in our union and the thousands of future members that will follow in our footsteps in trying to obtain a basic standard of living through negotiation.

No Back-to-Work Protocol = No Pay, No Protection

The forced ratification vote presented by the employer currently includes no back-to-work protocol. What this means is that the university is free to remunerate us for the work we do on our return to work however they see fit. Should the university settle on a 60-70% assessed grade, we could be looking at a 30-40% reduction on a final pay cheque. Should the university extend the semester for just two weeks, we would be expected to cover all the missed materials and complete the end-of-term marking as if a strike never happened, but we could be receiving pay for just two weeks of work. Considering York gutted the summer funding for Unit 1 and many members of Unit 2 cannot guarantee contracts for the summer, some members won’t receive a full pay cheque until September. York has assured us that we will be paid when we return to work. However, without back-to-work protocol included in the ratification, there’s no guarantee that they will stick to their word and sticking to their word is not something York has been very good at recently, considering their anti-union campaign and aggressive [non-]negotiations.

If you returned to work (SCABBED!) and undermined the unity of our union, you will also lose any protections the university could include in back-to-work protocol. SCABS will be unprotected from the sanctions laid out by CUPE National, as they decided to be unsupportive of the union, which would likely include losing all union benefits. There are numerous union members that have been proactive in collecting the data on those who returned to work during the strike, so SCABS will not be overlooked when the sanctioning process begins.

Finally, we know York has been surveilling our members each day, most notably by a private security firm hired specifically for the purpose (one of a number of issues that prompted the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to attempt to intervene). We are also aware that during this strike, even as the employer pushes its “student first” narrative when discussing the fellowship model for Unit 1, York has made it clear that union members (even when also graduate students) are unwelcome on campus and do not have the same rights as other students. The current student effort to reclaim the renamed “Student and Community Chamber” has been mischaracterized by the university as a CUPE 3903 initiative, which completely undermines the efforts and political prowess of undergraduate students demanding accountability from an institution that strips them of thousands of dollars each year. Some of our members, unconnected to strike activity, have visited the chambers with messages of solidarity and thanks, in addition to some supplies. With no back-to-work protocol, and knowing the Student and Community Chamber has been surveilled, members who offered support to our students could be unprotected from employer retribution.

Sexual Violence Survivor’s Fund = Supporting Our Members

Our bargaining team has requested $50,000 for a Sexual Violence Survivor Fund. These funds would be utilized by the Trans Feminist Action Caucus (TFAC) to support the invaluable work they do supporting survivors of sexual and/or gender-based violence. This would be money used in a way that places survivors first and gets them whatever help they need.

York has not refused the $50,000 but they wish it to be allocated to the Sexual Violence Response Office (SVRO), an office that the union was not adequately consulted on and does not offer the survivor-centric model that TFAC and CUPE 3903 want to support our members and the York community. With the money allotted to an office that is not autonomous to the institution, we cannot ensure that the needs of the institution are not put before the needs of survivors.

A vote no is a vote to support survivors.

“Tickets” = Stolen Jobs, Cheaper Labour

The most recent edition of On The Picket Lines nicely summarized the “domino effect” of more Unit 1 Course Director “tickets”. Some members of Unit 1 may have bought into the employer’s argument that these tickets offer a better job and better work experience, but what is the cost of that experience?

More time away from your own research. Building a course, selecting and ordering books, designing a curriculum, lecturing each week, marking, and a variety of other jobs will take up substantially more time than your regular teaching assistantship. More money in the pocket of York University. As a Course Director working on a ticket, you will see barely any movement in your pay cheques and, considering York’s offer does not place the fellowship in the collective agreement, who is to say they would not claw-back some of that funding? Stolen jobs. Many members of Unit 2 struggle to find enough courses to teach each semester (sometimes at numerous universities) and gain any semblance of a living wage; this new contract would take 55 courses away from professors who have dedicated years of teaching at York.

So if you are a member of Unit 1 and considering a vote of “yes” to up your chances of a course directorship during your PhD, consider the three points above and remember that CUPE 3903 represents all of us.

Conversion Concessions = York Offers Non-existent Positions

A concession is when an employer takes away something from a union that was won in a previous contract. In our last negotiation we won eight conversions (per year) for contract faculty to move into tenure-stream positions. These conversions allow a small number of devoted educators to move from precarious work to secure, full-time positions. In this round, York is offering two conversions (per year) and consistently lying to our students and the public that they are not offering any concessions. I am completing my PhD in English Literature so have very little mathematics experience but, even with my limited knowledge, I can safely say that two is less than eight. Therefore, York’s offer of two conversions is (say it with me) a CONCESSION!

To fill this gap, York has offered six (per year) Special Renewable Contracts (SRC). These contracts allow the university to exploit our Unit 2 members by offering them full-time work but in a contract that is riddled with no guarantee of renewal, higher teaching loads, and lower salaries than their York University Faculty Association (YUFA) counterparts.

One of the other issues with the SRC option is that York is not even in a position to offer them. SRCs fall under the jurisdiction of YUFA and although York is offering them to us in their ratification vote, YUFA has not implemented them into their collective agreement, thereby making the offer void. YUFA has released a statement explaining that they will not accept this major amendment to their collective agreement.

Fellowship Model = Goodbye Employment

Members of Unit 1 that have earned (and been lucky enough) to receive scholarships and awards while completing their graduate studies are well aware of York’s insistence on clawing back other funding (the funding that is now allocated under the “Fellowship”). If this has impacted you, it is easy to see how a vote “no” is the best option if you want to block the administration from taking more of your money away.

If you have not received awards, you may not see why CUPE 3903 insists on having the fellowship (about $5,400) under our collective agreement. It not only protects funds from claw-backs but also allows the union to protect this funding from any other changes. What I mean by protecting the funding is that, without the fellowship being protected under the collective agreement, York is not accountable to anybody as to how it reaches the “minimum guarantee” for students, they could make unilateral changes and graduate students would be at the mercy of our merciless employer. Basically, we would have no control how graduate students receive over a quarter of their funding; York would decide when it comes, how it comes, and if it comes.

York insists that their fellowship model and their attempts to subsume more and more funding under that title is an attempt to view graduate students and members of Unit 1 as “students first”. Basically, this amounts to stripping funding from its connection to employment, which is what lost us the 700 jobs in Unit 3 since our last collective agreement.

Without giving a clear, unified NO to this forced ratification vote, we are losing our opportunity to reclaim those lost jobs for our Unit 3 colleagues, and opening the door for the same union-busting decimation to take place in Unit 1. A vote yes is a vote for union-busting.

Employee Lists and E-mail Address = Can We Guarantee a Fair Vote?

York has aggressively tried to ensure that this forced ratification vote is as undemocratic as possible. Members of the bargaining team have reported discrepancies with the list provided to the Ministry of Labour (by York) and our own list. The former list contains more employees, including many that we know to never have been members of our union. In addition to this, many members have reported receiving no communication from the university or the ministry regarding this vote as their listed e-mail addresses are inactive “employee e-mails”. York knows that, at least for graduate students in the union (the bulk of Unit 1 and 3) we use our student York e-mail address or the designated alternate e-mail address on file; we have never been instructed to set-up an employee address. Selecting these unused, inactive addresses is a clear attempt to ensure many members are unable to access the vote in time.

No Breastfeeding and Pumping Space = Supporting Parents

On March 29th 2018, a number of mothers, parents, guardians, and supporters held a lactation-in at York University (in addition to an open-letter to Lenton) demanding that the university address the inadequate support for mothers to breastfeed and pump on campus. The university claims that it adheres to the Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC), but in reality, there is no space on campus that is always available to provide a clean and private area to breastfeed and/or pump. Nor is there a system in place to store milk or properly clean pumping equipment.

York pushed back on even considering any of the demands above as they claimed they were already fulfilling the demands of the OHRC; the fact that this has to even be considered in a labour negotiation and in a collective agreement is disgusting as it is a protected human right in Canada. We need to ensure the university is accountable to parents on our Keele campus, our Glendon campus, and our future Markham campus. As many new parents must return to work early at York because we do not qualify for the full maternity/paternity benefits that are a staple in Canada (because York refuses to acknowledge our labour correctly when recording our insurable hours), this is the least they can do for breastfeeding mothers (again, considering it is a right under the OHRC).

Strike To Win = Do Not Give In

The forced ratification vote will take place between Friday April 6 at 9 am and Monday April 9 at 10 am, placing the close of the vote in our sixth week of striking. The offer that we are being forced to vote upon is no different that then offer voted down to begin this strike. Should we let ourselves give in and take this offer, the weeks on the picket lines or performing the numerous other tasks that give us a unified voice demanding a fair contract from our over-paid employer will be for nothing.

We must strike to win.

We must vote no.

WE MUST KILL THE RAT!