Our history and social mandate
CUPE 3903 works and organizes to improve the working conditions of the nearly 3,000 education workers at York University who comprise our membership. Improvements in our working conditions also improve the learning conditions and environment of the wider York University community. York University is credited with having one of the best funding packages for graduate students. This package is the result of hard-fought organizing efforts to win these rights and benefits in our Collective Agreements.
In order to sustain these gains, and through the democratic mandate of our membership, our local has used strike action and other tactics to oppose the administration’s attempts to cancel tuition indexation language and to erode job security. While we organize to defend our progressive contract, we also recognize the need to defend the learning conditions of all students who seek accessible, high quality education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Unions and the labour movement are committed to social justice and improving the lives of communities and working people. Our local is proud to be active in the struggle for living wages for all, an end to homelessness, for a women’s right to choice, for fair trade policies, for protection of the environment, and for good public services. We believe our social mandate is to improve the conditions of not only our members, but also the wider working class.