Bargaining Team Acclamations
Congratulations to the newly acclaimed members of the Units 1, 2, & 3 Bargaining Team (BT)! The acclaimed BT members are Alex Painter (BT Unit 1) and Steff Mendolia (BT Recording Secretary), who nominated themselves in recent by-elections.
BT Elections – Unit 2 Representatives
Voting on the contested Unit 2 BT Representative positions (two vacancies) opened on February 11 at the General Membership Meeting and will close on February 18 at 4PM. Only Unit 2 members are eligible to vote on the Unit 2 BT representatives. Voting will be conducted using SimplyVoting.
Unit 2 Candidate Statements
The candidates for the Unit 2 BT position are Ryan Kelpin, Sylvia Peacock, and Joseph Tohill. You can see their statements below.
Ryan Kelpin
My name is Ryan Kelpin, and I have been a Unit 2 member of Social Sciences/Work and Labour Studies for the last three years. I am also a father of a 2-year-old and am worried about increasing precarity in the university sector.
I have a long history in the union. I was in one of the last Unit 3 cohorts before they eliminated over 700 unionized positions. I was in Unit 1 when they started trying to further separate unionized work from fellowship and grants. And I was in Unit 2 in the last round when they tried to attack the entire seniority system. There is a clear need at the table for cross-unit pressure to be applied to York because they are targeting our collective agreement (CA), wages, and working conditions in the concessionary focus of their neoliberal restructuring plans. We need to use the CA’s scope and confines to resist this restructuring as much as possible.
The Bargaining Team (BT) should reflect the membership’s will, represent their demands, and act with clarity. In the last round, no doubt with the best of intentions, the BT advocated a major change to hiring that proved unpopular with Unit 2 and was abandoned at the last minute amid backlash. There should not be this level of disconnect between the membership and the BT, and I will ensure that the mistake is not repeated. The BT should work with not just the membership but also their stewards to ensure transparency and consultation at every step. That would be my aim as a Unit 2 BT member.
Sylvia Peacock
Since 2015, I’ve been involved with pension committee work for 3903, first as a rep on the Board of Trustees, and currently, as the All University Pension Committee rep for 3903. Our work pension is on solid financial grounds but our members draw from the pension in a different
way then members do from other unions on this campus. So allow me to suggest a few things where there is significant room for improvements in the language of our collective agreement, in addition to the usual demands like PER, wage negotiations, health benefits, etc.:
Unit 2 specific:
a.) Opt-out instead of opt-in: After a heads-up, automatically enroll unit 2 into the YorkU pension. It’s great! But for those who don’t want that, allow them to opt-out.
b.) Set the calculation of our pensionable years of highest earnings from the highest 5 years to the highest 4 years – it would get a lot of members a solid minimum guaranteed employer pension. Excellent for retirement. The AUPC agreed to do so, but so far the reaction from the employer is uncooperative. Bargaining can change that.
c.) Improve pension year counting for unit2 (from 3.5 to 3 courses for a full year of employment). Simplify calculation for our members.
d.) Adjust the pension planner to show the real years of service, not the irrelevant years contracted. The pension planner info may be misleading for our members instead of helpful.
e.) Remind every unit 2 in March of the same year that they can add AVCs to their pensions. A friendly reminder by email and not a big ask.
f.) Get a unit2 on the future presidential search (the Senate doesn’t explicitly say ‘no’, but they said it was *never considered* to have a unit2 joining the presidential search). Let’s help to get their next pick.
All unit items:
a.) Improve health benefits for members and pensioners. That’s overdue, because glasses, hearing aids, etc. they’re getting very expensive.
b.) Elect a 3903 member onto the BoG and get an additional seats in Senate, to talk, listen, and report back. We need representation.
Joseph Tohill
I am excited to run for the position of Unit 2 Representative on our 2026 Bargaining Team.
I am currently Vice President Unit 2, and over nearly three decades as a CUPE 3903 member, I have held numerous other elected positions, from steward to Chairperson. Through my union service, I have developed strong leadership and advocacy skills, as well as substantial, relevant knowledge and experience in collective bargaining and labour relations at York.
As a Bargaining Team member in 2023–2024, I researched proposals, wrote contract language, costed improvements to wages and benefits, managed the bargaining team’s records, and negotiated significant improvements to three collective agreements. Along with my bargaining experience, I would bring to my role considerable labour relations skills and experience dealing with York’s Faculty Relations, whom we will face at the bargaining table.
As Co-Chair of our Labour-Management Committee for the past two years, I have analyzed CA language, advocated for member rights, and negotiated with the Employer to resolve disputes, both informally and formally (e.g. negotiating Letters of Understanding and Memoranda of Agreement). I have extensively demonstrated my ability to work diplomatically and productively with our notoriously difficult employer to reach outcomes that make a positive difference for Unit 2 members.
We’re going into bargaining this year facing significant challenges and attacks from York University, including ongoing cuts to Unit 2 work, as well as increasing use of the “hotshot clause” to circumvent fair hiring processes and seniority provisions. We need a strong, coordinated bargaining strategy that defends and maintains our existing job security provisions, provides enhanced compensation for members losing work, and eases the transition to retirement for senior members.
Vote for me, so that I can continue advocating for the job stability and working conditions that CUPE 3903 members deserve.