With pandemic here and deadline fast approaching, CUPE 79 urges City of Toronto to ‘get this right’ and conclude negotiations

TORONTO – With a global pandemic here and the deadline for labour disruption just around the corner, the leader of Canada’s largest local union today urged the City of Toronto to reach a settlement. “The whole city is watching. The actions we all take in the coming days will be incredibly consequential. We have to…

Durham Region paramedics highlight ambulance shortages and call for real investment in paramedic services

WHITBY, ON – The union representing paramedics in Durham is calling on regional political leadership to join forces in calling for a greater investment in emergency health services. CUPE Local 1764, which represents about 320 paramedics in Durham Region, recently shared with Durham Region councillors a report that definitively shows the disparity between call volume…

International Women’s Day Statement 2020

(TORONTO, ON) On March 8, CUPE Ontario joins numerous other organizations communities around the world in commemorating International Women’s Day (IWD). CUPE Ontario recognizes the importance of connecting global and local struggles, and of approaching various systems of oppression with an interwoven fightback strategy. Representing 280,000 public sector workers within the province, we are proud…

CUPE alerts community to rushed March closure of Hamilton forensic pathology, calls for independent inquiry

HAMILTON, ON –The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 7800 has learned that Hamilton’s forensic pathology unit is closing hastily at the end of March, months earlier than the original proposed and controversial closure in July. The decision to end forensic autopsies at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is already riddled with “controversy, equivocations and contradictions…

Coalition of Ontario Unions Files Charter Challenge to Protect Free and Fair Collective Bargaining

A coalition of Ontario unions, coordinated by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), and representing approximately 270,000 thousand employees and over forty different unions, announced today that they have filed a constitutional challenge to Bill 124, the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act. Bill 124 violates the collective bargaining rights enshrined in…

CUPE 3908 and Trent University reach tentative agreement

Peterborough, ON – A tentative agreement has been reached between Trent University and the union representing the institution’s part-time instructors. Negotiators for Unit 1, Local 3908 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE 3908-1) and Trent reached the deal following a marathon round of bargaining between the parties, who were assisted by Provincially-appointed mediator…

Diverting bodies from Niagara down the QEW for autopsies in Toronto, “makes no sense”

HAMILTON, ON – The union representing staff in pathology at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is calling on the provincial government to reconsider a recent decision to divert pathology cases from Niagara to Toronto, by-passing Hamilton. The move to shuttle forensic autopsies from Niagara to Toronto, is the latest in a series of controversial and questionable…