"If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first."

Sister Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Fedeeration of Labour, knows how to talk to employers:  

May 25, 2024

VIA EMAIL: president@utoronto.ca
Meric Gertler
Office of the President
University of Toronto
27 King’s College Circle, Room 206
Toronto, ON M5S 1A1

Dear President Gertler,

I am writing in my capacity as the President of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), which represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario.

As the voice of Ontario’s labour movement, the OFL unequivocally supports the right of students to engage in peaceful protest on campus, as they call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that are complicit in war and occupation.

I was therefore disappointed to hear about your ultimatum to the student encampment at the University of Toronto: clear out by Monday at 8:00 a.m. or be in violation of a trespass notice. As trade unionists, we know what good-faith bargaining looks like. You should, too. In most instances at the bargaining table, our members and your representatives have successfully negotiated numerous collective agreements, without resorting to strikes or lockouts.

The same approach should apply here. Negotiations must continue in good faith, and without threats of police intervention. The recent successful conclusions to the encampments at Ontario Tech University and at McMaster University, for example, shows what’s possible.

By contrast, when administrators choose repression, it rightfully provokes a response well beyond the students. On Monday, thousands of academic workers at the University of California went on strike to protest their employer’s use of violence to clear the encampments.

Universities should be where we learn to debate and disagree with each other–without the fear of violence. For Canada’s largest university to decide unilaterally when the debate should end, and when police repression should begin, is a betrayal of the values we claim to uphold. Indeed, your own Statement of Institutional Purpose describes these values clearly: Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.

This is a mandate to support the students, not repress them. In this spirit, I urge you to reverse course immediately, and choose negotiations and discussion over ultimatums and repression. As a gesture of encouragement, I am calling on all trade unions and allies to join a solidarity rally on Monday at 8:00 a.m. at the student encampment at the University of Toronto. If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first.

Sincerely,
LAURA WALTON
President

A solidarity request from the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903

CUPE 3903 represents the contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and research assistants at York University in Toronto. With almost 3,700 members, CUPE 3903 is the largest trade union on campus. Our local is a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Canada’s largest union with over 740,000 members across the country. CUPE represents workers in health care, emergency services, education, early learning and child care, municipalities, social services, libraries, utilities, transportation, airlines, and more. CUPE has more than 70 offices across the country, in every province.

This post and this post will help you understand why Local 3903 is on strike.

A recent bargaining tream report from Local 3903 reports the following:

Since we began bargaining in June 2023, the Employer has repeatedly attempted to unilaterally define what bargaining is and how it works. Early on they told us that they would not engage with our monetary proposals (such as wages and benefits) until we had given them all of our non-monetary proposals. Now they have reversed their position, communicating via the Conciliator that they will not come to the table to negotiate other proposals until we lower our wage demands, while publicly pointing to “the advice of the provincially appointed conciliation officer” to justify their refusal to come to the table. Today the bargaining team met with the Conciliator and reiterated that we are ready to bargain at any time. We also pointed out that the two sides had reached substantial agreement on important equity and other proposals before talks broke off nine days ago, and that we could be meeting to resolve these non-monetary issues. The CUPE 3903 bargaining team intends to present unit-specific and all-units focused proposal packages to the membership at the next Strike SGMM. Meanwhile, we will continue to signal our willingness to bargain and call on the Employer to come to the table this week.

We can all help by hitting this link and sending our support message.