CUPE 3903 Strike
News VOTE NO! TO EMPLOYERS BAD DEAL
VOTE DOWN FORCED
CONCESSIONS!
York's PR machine is working overtime
to spin their so-called "fair, reasonable and
sustainable" proposal. Let's show them that we
see through this high-priced hypocritical hype.
Vote NO to the employer's bad offer. We are
ready, willing and able to bargain – York needs
to match this goodwill by coming to the table
instead of forcing a regressive deal on us. Forced ratification circumvents collective bargaining. We want the employer to come back to the table and negotiate. Instead the employer has consistently rejected bargaining in favour of binding arbitration, tacitly supported back-to-work legislation, and now is pushing towards forced ratification. Since the summer, and even more so since the strike began, the York administration has done everything possible to undermine our legal rights as a union.
Instead of sitting down with us they have
bargained in the media, turned us into walking
targets of undergraduate anger, driver road rage
and right wing talk-radio vitriol, and
paternalistically treated us like children
rather than valued educators. We cannot let
them succeed. VOTING NO WILL HELP US WIN A BETTER DEAL The strike is coming to an end. Unless a settlement is reached by mid-January the summer 2009 school term will be endangered. The University will use a forced ratification vote on its inferior offer PRECISELY because it anticipates coming under greater pressure as January nears. If we vote NO, the Administration will be under tremendous pressure to settle and the union will be in an unparalleled position of strength to make up the losses this offer represents and make gains.
The Administration wants us to believe that the only choice is to either ratify now or stay out until March, but the reality is that both sides will be very anxious to settle so that classes can resume in January. Our likelihood of gaining a better contract increases substantially with a NO vote against the University's so-called "final offer." This is a bluff and not the best we can hope for after a six-week strike. The union fully anticipates a speedy and favourable resolution to this strike at the table. The fact that they University is resorting to forced ratification is a recognition that we can win more by staying at the bargaining table.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE EMPLOYER'S OFFER?
The deal the University has just posted on its site is virtually the same offer they gave us on November 4th that pushed us out on strike in the first place.
Their offer of 10 full-time (YUFA) Teaching
Stream conversion appointments does not address
the situation of a large number of Unit 2
contract faculty who deserve increased job
security and the possibility of conversion to
full tenure-track (YUFA) appointments. It is
crucial that we hold the line for an offer
on both conversions and long-term contracts
that reverses the current trend. The employer's proposed wage increases are misleading because they don't talk about benefits and avoid the issue of total minimum funding for graduate students. When you take wages AND BENEFITS together and set them against inflation the University's wage offer actually adds up to a 1.4% reduction. Our present wage proposal is 4% in the first year and 4% or cost of living (whichever is higher) in the second. We've come down but they're refusing to shift.
The University is offering nothing on minimum
funding packages for graduate students.
Contrary to the propaganda, our funding is NOT
the best in the Province. Our research shows
that annual guaranteed funding for graduate
students at the Universities of Western Ontario,
Waterloo, Toronto, Trent and Queen's is better
than our present level. The University has also offered nothing on important issues such as class size, bursaries and leaves for Unit 3s, post-residency tuition fees, International student parity or child-care.
A Two-Year deal for better, coordinated public policy across Ontario York's proposal assumes a three-year deal. This will destroy any possibility of coordinated bargaining across the post-secondary sector. Our issues at York are not isolated concerns. The sector as a whole is drifting towards more short-term, underpaid, precarious jobs, higher tuition fees, pressuring students on completion times, larger class sizes and less supports for students at all levels. The Provincial government is responsible for setting funding levels and policies that protect the quality and accessibility of education. Coordinated bargaining in 2010 targets the government as our major funder, facilitates a more rational approach to policy-making, helps the university get the funding they need, and means we can stop fighting individual and isolated battles against individual employers.
DON'T LET THE EMPLOYER BYPASS BARGAINING!
VOTE DOWN FORCED
RATIFICATION!
CUPE Local 3903 | York University, 104 East Office Building 4700
Keele St., Toronto Ontario M3J-1P3
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