UofT strike deadline approaching
Archive 2015 Feb 24, 2015 Nuran Yumnu
As Unit 3 of CUPE 3902 has reached an agreement with the University of Toronto, there is still no resolution in the negotiations with Unit 1 as a deadline of Thursday at 12:00 a.m. looms.
Unit 3, which represents instructors and other staff hired under a contract of less than one year, reached a tentative agreement that must be approved by March 2, 2015. Unit 1 represents other academic staff, including graduate students employed as TAs.
Staff and members of all units continue strike preparations as the deadline for a final decision is approaching.
“It’s really inconvenient for students, especially students in their final year because this would prevent them from graduating” says Haya Kotob U of T Mississauga student. “The strike would be terrible for everyone. The semester is almost over, there’s only a few weeks left.”
Unit 3 CUPE 3902 Chair Erin Black said in an article for The Medium that the agreements concerns include “improvements to members’ healthcare funding account and small increases to compensation”.
U of T’s Unit 1 vice chair Ryan Culpepper has given little response to the media about this issue.
“We still face the same difficulties and obstacles to reaching that agreement that we did before [Unit 3 reached an agreement],” said Culpepper.
In the event that a strike were to take place at U of T, the institution has the option to declare “disruption” if the administration decides that university procedures are unable to proceed as regular. This would mean that administration would be granted greater control over how professors run their classes.
