On July 9th & July 14th, CUPE 1281 staff at the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) returned to the table with YUFA’s negotiators. While the parties reached agreement on a couple of minor, mainly housekeeping, proposals, YUFA and its lawyers from Ogletree Deakins continue to push over 100 proposals with sweeping concessions it labels as “modernizing” and “streamlining.”
CUPE 1281 staff at YUFA continue to bargain in good faith, but the restructuring that YUFA is seeking starkly contradicts its own commitments to equity, collegiality, and labour solidarity.
What we heard is YUFA’s strong desire to hire more managers without a lot of detail about how it intends to pay for them. There are 14 Elected Officers whose course releases are paid back to York University with members’ dues. Top-heavy management diverts resources away from front-line servicing work.
We are a providing just a snapshot, in no particular order, of the significant number of concessions and what it means.
1. Top-down restructuring
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Opens the door to unilateral changes to roles and job duties without consultation with staff
- Destabilizes the democratic workplace culture and operations
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Undermines the collegial governance decision-making model YUFA advocates for in its own CA
- Breaches its own union constitution
2. Hiring out-of-scope managers to do the work of unionized staff
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Removes work out of the unionized bargaining unit and risks future job losses by contracting out
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Diverts members’ dues to management salaries
- Removes resources away from front-line service and hinders efficient service to member
- Blurs accountability and risks creating a mini-York style top-heavy bureaucracy inside the union
3. Removing provisions against electronic monitoring
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Allows surveillance of staff confidential emails, devices, and activities
How it hurts YUFA members:
- YUFA won freedom from electronic monitoring in its last round of bargaining with York; it lifted the same language in the CUPE 1281 collective but now wants to remove it for staff
- Normalises surveillance culture inside YUFA
4. Excluding staff from participation in YUFA meetings and slash Labour-Management Committee time
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Silences the people who take care of the day-to-day operations
- Guts a key problem-solving forum
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Reduces the flow of information and institutional memory available to members
- Slower service and poorer decision-making
5. Restricting shop steward responsiveness (e.g. require employer permission before stewards assist CUPE 1281 YUFA staff)
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Delays access to union representation
- Weakens timely defence of rights
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Hypocritically imposes restrictions YUFA would never accept for its own Chief Stewards, i.e. requiring decanal permission
- Sets a dangerous precedent for union interference by its own Employer
6. Scrapping anti-scab language and compelling staff to cross legal picket lines
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Strips staff of a basic union solidarity right and exposes them to discipline if they refuse
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Weakens YUFA’s own strike power by undermining the very solidarity YUFA expects from labour unions on and off campus
7. Giving YUFA veto power over staff participation in broader labour-movement actions (e.g. Canadian Labour Congress campaigns)
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Chills free expression and collective action
- Sets a dangerous precedent to discipline staff for engaging in union activities
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Sets a precedent for policing political activity; YUFA members have faced similar crackdowns from their employer, York University
8. Replacing existing anti-harassment/anti-discrimination article with a weaker policy
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Removes enforceable protections and neutral third-party recourse
- Enables abuse of professional authority by managers
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Sends a signal that equity language is negotiable
- Damages YUFA’s credibility on human-rights issues and erodes a respectful workplace culture that benefits everyone
- Increases staff turnover and sick leaves
9. Removing progressive-discipline safeguards
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Makes discipline easier and less fair
- Increases abuse of management power and fear and turnover
How it hurts YUFA members:
- High staff turnover means lost expertise and delayed grievance handling for YUFA members
- Emboldens YUFA’s employer to impose unreasonable discipline by showing YUFA does not uphold fair process for its own workers
10. Gutting partial-load provisions
How it hurts CUPE 1281 staff:
- Reduces flexibility and job security for staff doing temporary or reduced-hours work
How it hurts YUFA members:
- Undercuts a protection YUFA fought for with York
- Weakens its ability to defend similar language in future faculty bargaining
Bottom line: YUFA “reserved” on a significant number of monetary items, affecting at least 39 clauses. CUPE 1281 has yet to see the full scale of concessions demanded by YUFA. Every roll-back stripping rights from CUPE 1281 staff will inevitably rebound on YUFA members, draining resources, slowing down servicing, fracturing solidarity, and weakening YUFA’s credibility and moral authority at the very moment its own members’ are facing restructuring by their employer, York University.
CUPE 1281 staff and the YUFA Bargaining team return to the table on July 28th. A number of additional bargaining dates have been confirmed.
Show your support for CUPE 1281 staff at YUFA by demanding transparency from the YUFA Executive Committee and its Bargaining Team (listed below). Would the YUFA Executive, the YUFA Bargaining Team and its members accept these concessions from their own employer, the York University Board of Governors?
Professor Ellie Perkins
Professor Art Redding
Professor Anna Zalik
Professor Merouan Mekouar
Professor Gertrude Mianda
Professor Enakshi Dua