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UHIP Grievance: Explained!

Want to know more about how the employer is unilaterally preventing dependents of international students from accessing healthcare funds? Curious what CUPE 3903 is doing to resist this? Check out this graphic explainer to know all the key details!

A grievance has been filed to address the employer’s move this summer to unilaterally stop allowing money from the GA Bursary Fund (which has a surplus) to be used to cover dependents for UHIP. This means that members have to pay out of pocket for their families’ healthcare, even though this money already exists. The union was told in June 2024 that the employer had already decided on its own in April 2024 not to pay retroactively for the entire 2023-2024 year.

The unilateral changes to UHIP funding by York are unfair and impact some of our most vulnerable members, especially at a time when international students and workers are already subject to growing attacks and instability! Get the facts below.

A green gradient graphic with the CUPE 3903 logo and images of an anger symbol and a broken dollar bill. The graphic’s text reads: UHIP Grievance: Explained! How York U is preventing dependents of international students from accessing healthcare funds.
A green gradient graphic with the CUPE 3903 logo and images of the Earth and a healthcare crosses. The graphic’s text reads: What is UHIP? UHIP is the health plan for international students and their dependents living in Canada. If you're an international student, you have to have UHIP, but it’s expensive! That’s why CUPE 3903 has bargained and won a UHIP Fund to cover those fees. For at least 10 years, those funds also covered the cost for dependents.
A green gradient graphic with the CUPE 3903 logo and an image of a broken heart with a bandage. The graphic’s text reads: What changed? Historically, if there wasn’t enough money in the UHIP Fund to cover dependents, York would ask CUPE 3903 permission to move money from the GA Bursary Fund (which has a surplus) to cover them. In June 2024, FGS unilaterally said they wouldn’t do this anymore, and members would have to pay out of pocket for their families’ health care costs, even though the money exists and is available.
A green gradient graphic with the CUPE 3903 logo and an image of an exclamation mark. The graphic’s text reads: What is CUPE 3903 doing about this? Over the summer, CUPE 3903 exec tried to raise this issue with York several times, without success. The union then allocated some of its own funds to help cover members’ dependent fees, just over $12,000 (very little compared to York U’s budget). On August 22nd, the union filed a grievance against this unfair unilateral change.
A green gradient graphic with the CUPE 3903 logo and an image of a megaphone. The graphic’s text reads: What’s the big picture? What York is doing to UHIP funding is not okay! It’s not transparent, and most of all, it impacts those who often have the hardest time accessing health care already. International students and workers have already been subject to growing attacks and instability. This move by York places a burden on some of our most vulnerable members.

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The CUPE 3903 logo, with white bold stencil-style font that reads "CUPE 3903" and a star outline in the centre, offset by decorative flourishes on each side.

CUPE 3903 represents the contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and research assistants, part-time librarians and archivists, and Canadian Observatory on Homelessness workers at York University. 

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Office address

  • 143 Atkinson Building, 96 The Pond Road, York University, Keele Campus

Mailing Address

  • CUPE 3903, 143 Atkinson Building, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3
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