Thursday, November 12th 2009

By selma al-samarrai

The CUPE 3906 union held a ratification vote on Nov. 8 and Nov. 9 where 58 per cent of the membership accepted the University’s offer, consequently ending the union’s week-long strike. The University’s best contract was initially tabled on Oct. 31 and as a result caused the union’s bargaining members to call a strike, which started Nov. 2. The proposed contract has received no changes since. The union represents 2,700 employees at McMaster.

Derek Sahota, CUPE 3906 Unit 1 bargaining team member explained that the scrutineer decided against releasing the amount of union members who participated in the vote. “We certainly know it was a good chunk of the membership, certainly much more than the previous vote,” explained Sahota.

One of the union’s bargaining team, Rebecca Strung, explained that the university’s best offer that CUPE voted in favour of did not address or change any of the pressing issues that have been frequently addressed in previous negotiations. These issues include increasing the benefit fund, preventing the decrease of take home pay for graduate TAs that occurs due to rising tuition that isn’t compensated in their pay, placing class size caps and defining the role of a TA.

Specifically addressing the benefit fund, Strung added that the university’s lack of increase to the benefit fund is likely to cause cuts to the hardship fund and to the childcare fund and reduction to vision care and UHIP rebate.

Regarding the back-to-work protocol, the agreement stipulated that unless an employee submitted a Weekly Verification of Intent to Work form to their course constructor on or before Nov. 9, they will be paid 2 hours less for everyday that they participated in the strike, totaling a ten hour decrease in pay. The Weekly Verification of Intent to Work form entailed the union member’s signature verifying that they will be working throughout the strike.

Strung described this pay decrease as, “punitive” further adding that it eliminates approximately 7.7 per cent of this semester’s pay for all union members who chose not to work throughout the strike.

Sahota expressed, “I think it’s the democratic will of the locale and we respect that, definitely represents a divide in our locale, TAs across campus have different working conditions, which shows it’s something we need to work towards in the future to build solidarity in the union. Those who do have good working conditions in the moment need to help support those who don’t because we need to have these issues raised… our path as a union over the next two years is to get everyone to understand how important these issues are and we need to fight together for them.”

TA’s and RA’s returned to work on Wed. Nov. 11.

Tags: contract, CUPE, cupe 3906, ratification vote, Strike, vote