A strike has been averted and 700 full time and part time front-line service workers have made important gains in a tentative agreement, says CUPE 3261.
“I’m so proud of the members for the powerful example of workplace organizing,” said Allan James, President of CUPE 3261. “Thanks to their historic organizing, we sent a strong message that the services we deliver are critical to the university community and that our jobs need to be good jobs.”
The elements of the tentative agreement include meaningful improvements on pathways to good jobs for our members and for the bargaining unit’s future. While the agreement does not guarantee limits to contracting out jobs to for-profit operators, one of the union’s key proposals, it includes significant steps in the right direction, according to the union.
“We built a lot of power through our members and with the support of our allies to expose the ways in which contracting out increases poverty-wages, worsens services, cuts important benefits, and is so clearly inconsistent with this university’s principles,” said James. “This is a strong base for us and I’m hopeful that we’ll make even greater gains in the next round of bargaining.”
