Year-end Message from Fred and Yolanda

Year End Message 2022 Sisters, Brothers, Comrades & Friends What a year 2022 has been! As pandemic restrictions eased, we re-engaged with one another in person and at numerous CUPE Ontario conferences and events, reigniting our participation in community events like Pride celebrations, Carnival, and Labour Day. Our 55,000 school board workers made labour history…

Execution of protesters in Iran

CUPE Ontario has added its voice to the growing chorus of condemnation around the executions in Iran of two young people who were involved with the nationwide protests triggered by the death in custody of Jina Mahsa Amini. CUPE Ontario expressed its profound shock and condemnation at the deaths of Majidreza Rahnavard and Mohsen Shekari,…

City employees shocked by pre-Christmas lay-offs as Mississauga contracts out emergency dispatch services to private firm

Mississauga, ON – On Tuesday, December 6, just weeks before the Christmas holidays, CUPE 66 emergency dispatchers for the City of Mississauga were told they were immediately being laid off, as a private contractor took over their jobs on the same day. “This was completely unexpected after we had received such exemplary reviews in August,”…

“We need higher wages, not higher rents”: Striking teaching and research assistants block graduate residence construction

(Hamilton, ON) Today, striking teaching and research assistants at McMaster University blocked the construction of a graduate residence owned by the university to shed light on wages failing to keep up with the cost of living. “We’re on strike mainly because McMaster is still pushing little more than poverty wages on us,” said Chris Fairweather,…

CUPE Ontario congratulates, praises education workers and OSBCU on ratification of historic deal

TORONTO – CUPE Ontario leaders heaped praise and admiration on CUPE education workers and their central bargaining team, the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), following the announcement that union members had strongly endorsed the tentative agreement negotiated by OSBCU in late November. Results of the province-wide ratification vote were released this morning, following…

Education workers vote to ratify first freely-negotiated collective agreement in a decade

TORONTO, ON – Ontario’s lowest-paid education workers have voted to ratify their next collective agreement with the Council of the Trustees’ Associations (CTA) and the provincial government. A total of 41,559 out of 55,000 frontline CUPE education workers cast ballots, and 30,330 –73% – voted “yes” to accept the tentative agreement that was reached by…

CUPE Ontario statement on education workers’ ratification of OSBCU agreement

Following the announcement of CUPE Ontario education workers’ ratification of the tentative collective agreement negotiated between OSBCU, the CTA and the Crown, CUPE Ontario shared the following statement with members: On behalf of all members of CUPE Ontario, we send our heartfelt congratulations to our union’s education workers, members of the Ontario School Board Council…

CUPE-OSBCU bargaining committee will bring tentative agreement to frontline education workers for vote by end of the week

TORONTO, ON – The central bargaining committee for 55,000 frontline education workers who are members of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) has reached a tentative agreement with the provincial government and the Council of Trustees’ Associations (CTA). “The tentative agreement includes a flat-rate wage increase, instead of a percentage,” said CUPE-OSBCU president…