Charles Fleury | National Secretary-Treasurer

Over the years, CUPE has built up national resources to support you in the many challenges you face at the bargaining table, to help you fight back against concessions and two‑tiered agreements. With these resources, a strong plan, smart campaigns and members on our side, we can work together to increase your chance of winning.

We have two important tools we can use: CUPE’s National Defence Fund and CUPE’s National Strike Fund.

Every local can apply to our National Defence Fund for campaign funding for a 50‑50 cost-shared campaign between CUPE National and the local.

To be approved, your campaign must involve member mobilization. You must work closely with national communications staff to plan it. Once it is approved by the National Executive Board, the spending can start.

This year alone, CUPE will dedicate $6 million to cost-shared campaigns to promote and protect our services and our members.

The National Strike Fund has $95 million in reserve. This is dedicated money that can only be used for strikes and interest arbitration-related issues.

When it looks like your local is in trouble, when bargaining is not going in the right direction, your local can apply for a strike averting campaign, 100 per cent funded by CUPE National.

This can be done when you are near the end of bargaining, your members have taken a strike vote, your issues are clear, you are in conciliation or if you need to involve your members and your community to put pressure on the employer.

When there is a strike or a lockout, CUPE’s National Strike Fund is there to support you. The fund covers strike pay, benefit premiums if the employer stops paying them, or emergency benefit coverage. It also covers strike support campaigns, strike-related legal costs, and many costs of interest arbitration for those who don’t have the right to strike, including 100 per cent of the local’s share of the cost of the arbitrator.

CUPE is strongest when we all work together. With these tools, together, we will continue to bargain forward, not backward.