In fall 1975, the York University Graduate Assistants’ Association (GAA) won (enough of) their case before the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) to allow for the certification of the third union representing “part-time” academics in Canada. This was the first academic union in Canada to include both teaching assistants and sessional instructors, and the first example of graduate students receiving legal recognition as workers at the university at which they were enrolled.
Two name changes, three new units, seven strikes, thirty collective agreements, and one national affiliation later, CUPE 3903 marks this fiftieth anniversary with a public exhibition of records, artefacts, and memories from the CUPE 3903 Archive.
Beginning Monday, September 22nd and continuing through Friday, October 3rd, CUPE 3903 welcomes you to A Union for Academics???: 50 Years of CUPE 3903. Highlights from the CUPE 3903 Archive — the largest archive of “part-time” academic labour in Canada — will be on display throughout the exhibition, inviting visitors to imagine new ways of understanding York University; academic work in the Canadian university; and the many social, cultural, and activist histories latent to these records. Special presentations of additional documents, artefacts, videos, music, and digital objects will be presented over the course of the two-week run.
The exhibition is open weekdays, from 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., at the Eleanor Winters Art Gallery (129 Winters College, York University, Keele Campus). Admission is free, and pictures are welcome!
A Union for Academics???: 50 Years of CUPE 3903 is organized by the CUPE 3903 Archive Committee and numerous volunteer members of the local, with support from the Canadian Committee on Labour History’s Small Grants Program and the Eleanor Winters Art Gallery.