Graduate Student Rally: Thursday, Jan 27 @ 11:45am
January 27, 2011
Emergency Membership Meeting
January 15, 2011
We will hold an emergency membership meeting on Thursday, January 20 at 5pm. We will be discussing the progress of our negotiations with the University, and our future strategy as a Union. This may very well be one of the most important membership meetings we will have - so don't forget to attend!
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20
5PM @ ERIE HALL, ROOM 3123
Graduate Students Letter of Concern
January 14, 2011
This letter was forwarded to us by some Graduate Students who have been affected tremendously by current cuts in GAship funds. If you agree with this letter, follow the link below and let the University know that you are being affected too!
Dear Fellow Grad Students,
As you all know, the departments have been cutting the
budgets - most importantly the budget for our GA-ships. We
continue to see an increase in the enrollment of grad
students each year, but many of our GA positions have been
lost, and for those that do end up with a GA-ship, their
contracts have less and less hours each semester! We
continue to do the same amount of work each semester, yet we
constantly see these cuts! Not only does this not make
sense, but it is completely unfair to all of us.
The GA-ships are the main source
of funding for grad students, and in some cases the only
source of funding. Some of us depend on these GA-ships to
pay for our living expenses as well as the sky rocketing
tuitions.
So it is time to let the
University know that we are being tremendously affected and
that we are truly concerned about what is happening to us.
We need to stay united and let the University administration
know that GA cuts are totally unacceptable!
Let your voices be heard by
sending an e-mail to the President, Vice President Academics
and Dean of Graduate studies by following this link:
http://4580.cupe.ca/petition/grad%20students%20petition.htm
(It should not take you more than 1 minute to submit the
email to University Administration by following this link).
Please make sure that you send
your concerns as soon as possible! By choosing to ignore
this email, you are simply telling the administration that
you do not care about these budget cuts and are giving them
a reason to continue to reduce our GA positions and money
available for GA-ships.
If we can stay united and get
enough students to express their concerns, we just might be
able to make a difference that will benefit us! Speak to
your peers about this, and encourage them to send their
concerns to the administration as well!
LETTER OF CONCERN - CLICK HERE
University of Windsor Workers Vote to Strike
October 12, 2010 by: Frances Willick, The Windsor Star
WINDSOR, Ont. -- The union representing 230 employees at the University of Windsor voted 83 per cent in favour of a strike Thursday night.
CUPE Local 1393 represents a wide range of workers, including plumbers and other trades workers, education assistants, hazardous materials technicians, web designers and communications officers.
Local 1393 president Aldo DiCarlo said he was surprised by the results of the vote. "It really tells you how fed up and how mistreated these employees are on campus to say, 'That's it, we've had it.'"
DiCarlo said the main issues are job security - particularly the contracting out of services to workers who are paid "two to three times" what union members are paid - services to students and faculty and what he called the university's unwillingness to negotiate.
The union has been without a contract since March 31, 2010.
Salary increases are not on the table, he said.
The local will be in a legal strike position 17 days after ministry approval, but DiCarlo said that approval - if it's granted - may not come for a couple of weeks.
He emphasized that striking is a "last resort" for the employees. "The one thing I can assure you is that we don't want to go on strike. The membership's got bills to pay," he said.
About three-quarters of the membership showed up for the vote.
DiCarlo said he hopes the strike vote sends a strong message to the university. "We're hoping that maybe the university will take it a little more seriously now and have the decency to respect the fact that we have a standing collective agreement and that they respect the process of negotiations," DiCarlo said.
Two other locals at the university are also without a contract.
Local 1001, which represents about 350 housekeeping, groundsworkers and food service employees at the university, will be holding its strike vote on Sunday.
Local 4580, which represents about 1,200 graduate assistants and teaching assistants, will also be holding a strike vote in the coming weeks.
U of W Support staff set strike deadline
October 11, 2010 by: Jeff Bolichowski, The Windsor Star
WINDSOR, Ont. – Chafing at provincial influence in their negotiations, support staff at the University of Windsor could walk off the job next week.
About 400 workers, including campus police and parking officials represented by CAW Local 195, operating engineers and full-time and part-time office and clerical staff represented by CAW Local 2458, voted overwhelmingly to set a strike deadline for Oct. 21 at 12:01 a.m. The four bargaining units backed a strike 96 per cent overall ...
Ruling gives U of T profs 4.5 per cent over two years
October 12, 2010 by: Louise Brown, The Star
TORONTO, Ont. – A labour arbitrator, saying he will not be a “minion of government” and bend to Queen’s Park’s call for a public sector wage freeze, has granted professors and librarians at the University of Toronto a 4.5 per cent raise over two years.
In a toughly worded ruling released Tuesday, Martin Teplitsky said he refused to give U of T faculty a raise of 0 per cent just because Premier Dalton McGuinty has asked for it through his new Compensation Restraint Act or because the university says it can’t afford to pay a raise from its recession-battered coffers.
Taking either of these factors into consideration would “compromise my independence,” wrote Teplitsky in a 15-page decision. “I would appear a minion of government.”
Instead, he noted his ruling echoes the average private sector wage hike this year in Ontario of about 2.3 per cent ...
Don’t target universities in debt fight
August 2, 2010 by: Mark Langer, The Star
There is no question that Ontario is in a difficult financial situation. The citizens of our province know it. Public sector employees know it. And the government knows it. To address our budget deficit, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has introduced the Public Sector Compensation Restraint to Protect Public Services Act. So far, this act has been portrayed in the media as a two-year salary freeze for all public sector employees, including university faculty. This is not the case.
The act only freezes wages for some public sector workers.
Employees who are unionized or who bargain collectively — including
teachers, nurses, doctors and university faculty — fall outside the
legislation. The government is asking these workers to accept two years
of net-zero compensation increases when their current contracts expire.
Duncan is using moral suasion to achieve a set of desired salary
outcomes that work within his current fiscal plan.
This means that the government’s compensation policy does not
prevent any public sector union or collective bargaining entity from
negotiating their next contract freely. These rights continue to be
protected by the Ontario Labour Relations Act and the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms. In the university sector, this means that every
faculty association can continue to bargain as usual. Duncan has
affirmed that collective bargaining will continue, both in his 2010
budget and in a meeting with public sector unions on July 20
...
Ontario government announces wage freeze “consultations”
July 21, 2010 by: Fred Hahn, CUPE Ontario
What we heard: Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan called unions
and employers to a closed door “consultation” session on July 20, to
announce the government's intention to launch a series of
“consultations” aimed at implementing its “zero-zero” two year public
sector wage freeze.
The meeting was attended by CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn, CUPE
Ontario First Vice-President and OCHU President Michael Hurley, and CUPE
Ontario Acting Regional Director Linda Thurston-Neeley, along with
leaders from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), and many of the
affected unions.
This initial “consultation” session appeared to be the next step in the government's previously announced plan to achieve two years of zero wage increases throughout the unionized and non-unionized public sector. The Minister said there is no new legislation planned beyond the wage freeze law (Bill 16) affecting non-union workers that came into effect following the 2010 spring budget. ...