Meeting Summary
On March 3, the Units 1, 2, & 3 Bargaining Team held the first of five planned meetings in March. All voting members of the Bargaining Team were in attendance. Most of the meeting revolved around procedural matters, of which the most important is establishing an internal bargaining timeline for the next few months.
Following the resignation of a Unit 1 Bargaining Team Representative, Steff Mendolia (previously the Bargaining Team’s Recording Secretary) was appointed to the vacancy by the CUPE 3903 Executive Committee via the local’s established pro tem appointments process.
A subsequent by-election will be opened later this month at the union’s Annual General Meeting on March 19th. The by-election will require nominations the Unit 1 Bargaining Team Representative position, as well as nominations for the now-vacant Bargaining Team Recording Secretary position and the remaining three Unit 3 positions. Anyone interested in temporarily claiming one of these positions on a pro tem basis should reach out to the Bargaining Team by e-mailing bargaining@cupe3903.org
Future Activities
Bargaining preparation has heretofore been a slow-rolling process, as the local accumulates information and builds infrastructure for this round of bargaining. The pace of preparation will pick-up quite suddenly and quite forcefully, though, as we all work together toward the beginning of formal bargaining with the Employer1 in June.
All members are therefore encouraged to keep abreast, as best they can, with upcoming Bargaining Team meetings, subject-specific Bargaining Town Halls, and “Special” General Membership Meetings (SGMMs), as they appear on the CUPE 3903 calendar in the immediate future. These meetings not only allow for two-way feedback and discussion between the Bargaining Team and membership, but are essential to the process of securing membership approval for the proposals the Bargaining Team will present to the Employer.
Please make especial note of future SGMMs: ultimate approval of every proposal must be given by membership, and that approval (and/or rejection, and/or modification) is typically solicited and, if warranted, provided at SGMMs. But there is a lot of informational redundancy built into this process – and many opportunities to participate and observe all facets of bargaining! The more everyone contributes, the more we can accomplish!
The Bargaining Team will host their next meeting on March 10, 2026. Any members interested in reviewing the agenda or other records in advance of a Bargaining Team meeting are encouraged to contact the Bargaining Team by e-mail. See you there!
– Corey Orszak, Bargaining Team Unit 1 Representative
- Members will regularly hear the Bargaining Team refer to York University’s bargaining representatives as “the Employer”. This is standard labour vernacular. Why grant them the privilege of calling themselves “York” or “the University” anyway? ↩︎