CUPE 3903 Units 1, 2, & 3 are currently engaged in open bargaining. What this means is that our Bargaining Team never bargains behind closed doors or withholds information from the membership.
What is Open Bargaining?
Concretely, open bargaining means that:
- All members can attend bargaining sessions to observe, participate in caucuses, or pass notes to the bargaining team;
- The Bargaining Team posts regular reports of their meetings; nothing the employer says is exempt from being discussed in these reports where relevant;
- All bargaining proposals from both sides get posted to the CUPE 3903 website in their entirety;
- The Bargaining Team negotiates while following the directions it receives from the membership.
If you attend a bargaining session, you can expect to find the union and employer’s bargaining teams sitting across from each other and engaging in discussion — and often vigorous debates — of the bargaining proposals.
Members in attendance are expected to observe quietly while the employer is in the room, but you will have the opportunity to communicate directly with the union’s Bargaining Team and participate in discussions of next steps during union caucuses. You can pass notes to the Bargaining Team while the employer is in the room either non-obtrusively in-person or using the provided electronic notes document if attending remotely.
Why Open Bargaining?
CUPE 3903 has engaged in some form of open bargaining since at least 2008. We do this — often over the employer’s objections — because members deserve to be fully informed and in the driver’s seat when it comes to negotiating their own working conditions. Transparency in bargaining is obviously good in itself.
CUPE 3903 also engages in open bargaining because it works. The kind of closed-door bargaining that many unions engage in only benefits the employer, who use their access to the Bargaining Team to isolate them from the members they represent and whittle down their resolve. With open bargaining, the Bargaining Team can get the support they need from the members to make the best possible decisions for all of us.
Employers tend to hate open bargaining because they want to avoid accountability. We believe that our employer shouldn’t say anything at the table that they wouldn’t be willing to be quoted on — otherwise, what does it say about the bargaining positions they put forward?
Not Just Open: Coordinated Bargaining
CUPE 3903 Units 1, 2, & 3 also engage in coordinated bargaining, including Teaching Assistants, Contract Faculty, and RA/GAs at the same table. This means that the three units bargain together as one unified team with representation from each unit.
While each unit votes separately on its proposals and ultimately on its own agreement, coordinated bargaining means presenting a united front about the issues that affect all three units, and also showing that we are in solidarity with each other as workers with a same employer.
In terms of open bargaining, this means that, as a member, you have access not only to the representatives of your own unit, but also the other two units, as well as the overall strategy across all units. Come to bargaining to have a seat at the table for issues that impact you and issues that impact your fellow members!
Find out more: cupe3903.org/bargain