University

Over the last 10 years, approximately 154 University of Toronto caretaking positions on St. George Campus – good jobs like the ones Deborah, Eugenia and Maria have – have disappeared, mainly due to contracting out to for-profit operators. These operators are in it to make a profit, and they pay their staff close to minimum wage and offer a tiny fraction of the benefits that workers deserve.

In the last three years alone, 27 more buildings have been lost to for-profit cleaning. As more U of T staff retire, their work is contracted out, reducing the number of good jobs in various classifications across the university.

Good jobs lift workers out of poverty, supporting racial justice and gender justice. Good jobs serve the U of T community and align with U of T’s values of “equal opportunity, equity and justice.”

If we do nothing, more good jobs could disappear. CUPE 3261 has made contracting out a central demand of this round of collective agreement negotiations. With your solidarity, it is possible to stop contracting out and to win more good jobs at U of T. Join us!

We call on U of T to:

• Stop the contracting out of good jobs across the University
• Directly hire U of T employees to ensure functional, clean, and safe campuses and buildings, including cafeterias, classrooms, labs and libraries
• Increase good jobs at U of T to meet growing needs

Every year, Ontario’s Universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, but aren’t required to disclose how or where those dollars are spent. Class sizes continue to grow, campus facilities go unmaintained and equipment grows ever more dated, hundreds of University administrators earn huge salaries and outrageous perks! It’s time to hold University administrations in Ontario to account! It’s time to ask: WHERE’S THE FUNDING?

Click here to learn more!

CUPE opposes all forms of discrimination and oppression. This campaign fights the rising tide of hate and intolerance on our campuses by mobilizing against hateful acts, promoting inclusivity and diversity, and educating students and workers about how to be better allies.

Health and safety at work includes mental health. This campaign seeks to de-stigmatize mental health in our union, raise awareness about the supports our members and families desperately need and make gains at the bargaining table.

This is a campaign to defend good jobs and high-quality education. As many as half of the university and college workforce are employed in precarious conditions in which workers experience temporary contracts, unpredictable hours and low wages. Precarious work is not inevitable. It is a choice made by employers and encouraged by government underfunding. We will collect and analyze data on our membership in order to craft bold solutions for bargaining improvements, and we will organize non-union workers on campus.

Students and workers need quality, affordable and healthy food options on campus. Food service workers deserve job security, high health and safety standards, and decent wages and benefits. This campaign presents the case to end contracting out of food services on campus and bring it back in-house.

For decades, CUPE 1975 and the University of Saskatchewan have negotiated changes to the pension plan at the bargaining table.

But now the University wants to leave workers out of the conversation about their retirement security.

The U of S is threatening to make unilateral cuts to the pension plan outside of the collective bargaining table – even though the Local is currently in bargaining. The Employer has stated that it plans to close the benefit pension plan and unnecessarily impose an inferior Defined Contribution (DC) pension plan in its place.

Local 1975 is currently in collective bargaining, hoping to resolve this issue and preserve both their defined benefit pension plan and their right to determine any pension plan changes at the bargaining table. Talks, however, have reached an impasse and a provincial conciliator has been appointed. The Local has a strong strike mandate from its members.

Like all workers, Local 1975 members deserve a decent and secure retirement after a career of work. Like all workers, Local 1975 members deserve to be able to bargain the terms and conditions of their employment, instead of having them imposed unilaterally by an Employer.

Send a message to the University of Saskatchewan and tell them to take their paws off our pension.

https://cupe.ca/tell-u-s-paws-our-pension 

Precarious Situation is a campaign coming out of the work of a team of dedicated Unit 3 members called The Precarity Working Group. Upon the conclusion of Unit 3 bargaining in 2017, the bargaining team was unable to make large headway on developing a clear path towards permanent work for employees working on precarious contracts. The University of Toronto was not even interested in forming a working group, so Unit 3 members decided that they would develop their own working group dedicated to research, mobilization, and member education around the precarious situation of contract academic workers on campus.

Check out the website at http://precarity.cupe3902.org/

In order to better understand what is happening across the country and whether there are additional tools and resources that CUPE National can offer the post-secondary sector that will help CUPE members to navigate the process of dealing with incidents of sexual violence and harassment, we are asking CUPE post-secondary members to fill out this short, informal survey.