CUPE 1281 Statement Opposing Canada’s Military Budget Increase

CUPE 1281 firmly opposes the federal government’s decision to dramatically increase military spending in order to meet NATO’s target of 2 percent of GDP. This decision reflects a deep betrayal of working people, both in Canada and globally, and marks a dangerous escalation in Canada’s alignment with U.S.-led imperialism.

As workers in the public sector, we see firsthand the devastating consequences of austerity. Health care systems are collapsing, housing is increasingly unaffordable, students and educators are under-resourced, and communities are being left behind. Instead of addressing these urgent crises, the federal government has chosen to pour billions into the military. These funds will go to arms manufacturers, surveillance technologies, and war infrastructure, rather than to the services people actually need to live dignified lives.

This increase in military funding is not about defending peace or protecting people. It is about deepening Canada’s role in NATO and maintaining access to global markets and resources on behalf of corporations. It is a commitment to the violence of empire, not the safety of ordinary people. As a union that has always fought for justice and equity, we reject this militarization of public funds.

Canada’s military spending is inseparable from its ongoing colonial and imperialist agenda. While Indigenous communities continue to live without clean water, proper housing, and basic infrastructure, the government continuously chooses to invest in militarizing and expanding surveillance. While workers are told to accept wage restraints, the government funnels public money into warships and fighter jets, and while Canada claims to support peace and human rights, it exports arms to regimes that violate them daily. From a working-class perspective, we understand that militarism is not a side issue, it is central to how capitalism maintains itself. As anti-imperialist activists warned us, war is the inevitable result of capitalist states competing for global dominance. In this system, military budgets rise not to protect people, but to protect capital. Our government may claim to act in the name of national security, but it is the security of profits, not people, that is being defended.

Militarism also divides workers. It fosters nationalism, racism, and fear, tools that pit us against one another, at home and across borders. It justifies police violence and repression. It normalizes surveillance. It directs our anger toward imagined enemies abroad instead of the very real systems of exploitation we fight every day in our workplaces and communities.

CUPE 1281 reaffirms our commitment to peace, to internationalism, and to the belief that working people, no matter where they live, deserve dignity, not war. We stand in opposition to Canada’s military budget increase and in solidarity with all those resisting militarism, colonialism, and imperialism everywhere.

CUPE 1281 Statement Opposing Bill C-2 and its Impact on Migrant and Precarious Workers

CUPE 1281 strongly opposes Bill C-2, the so-called “Strong Borders Act,” which expands criminal penalties and surveillance powers under the guise of national security. This legislation will have serious and harmful consequences for migrant workers and anyone living or working with precarious immigration status.

Bill C-2 introduces new criminal offences for providing “false or misleading statements” or withholding information during immigration and border-related processes. As a matter of fact, this vague and sweeping language threatens workers who may be navigating complex immigration systems or working under coercive employers, for example. The act of criminalizing mistakes, confusions, or fear-based omissions does not serve justice; it entrenches marginalization, particularly in groups where English or French are not their first language.

This bill will have a chilling effect on workers seeking help. Migrant and undocumented workers already face significant barriers to reporting workplace abuse or wage theft. The risk of detention, deportation, or criminal charges will push more people into silence, and those most likely to be affected are racialized, low-wage, non-unionized, and precarious workers.

Bill C-2 also increases the risk of surveillance and data sharing between Canadian and American authorities. This creates new dangers for those fleeing violence or economic hardship, and it strengthens the power of employers to intimidate workers by threatening to report them to immigration authorities. This will reinforce exploitation and undermine efforts to organize for better conditions.

As a union committed to defending all workers, CUPE 1281 rejects this legislation. It deepens fear, punishes vulnerability, and strengthens the power of employers and the state over those least able to defend themselves. It does not promote safety. It promotes silence, it does not uphold justice, it protects capital and borders at the expense of human dignity.

We stand in solidarity with all migrants, undocumented people, and precarious workers. No one should fear criminalization for seeking safety or speaking up about abuse. All workers deserve protection.

Apply for Vacant Committee and Delegate Positions!

It’s not too late to get more involved in CUPE 1281 and the broader labour movement! While many positions were filled at the Annual Convention in July, the executive committee is now accepting applications to fill the remaining vacant positions in our local.

To apply, please submit a concise – no more than half-page – statement of interest by filling out this Google Form and uploading the file to the final question by no later than Monday August 18. If you are unable to fill out the form completely, please email your statement to Leila at admin@cupe1281.ca.

Members can only serve on one standing committee, but may be selected to serve on multiple regional councils, if such an interest is stated and if vacancies remain. All current vacancies are listed below and can be viewed in this document. If you can not meet the aforementioned deadline but still want to apply, please send an email to Leila at admin@cupe1281.ca to inquire about the remaining vacancies.

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Congratulations to Guelph 4 Palestine, 2025 Mary-Jo Nadeau BDS Award Winner!

CUPE 1281 is pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Mary-Jo BDS Award: Guelph 4 Palestine!

In a field crowded by amazing organizations working for Palestinian liberation, it was difficult to pick a single group! G4P is a group of artists, healthcare professionals, students, people of faith and committed community members that have truly galvanized the city of Guelph. We recognize the creativity of their work, and how they have continuously connected with folks on many levels and in different places, including the People’s Conference for Palestinian Solidarity.

This award honours the legacy of Mary-Jo Nadeau, a former CUPE 1281 staff representative and activist, professor, leader, mentor and comrade to many.

Free Palestine!

YUFA Staff Fight for Equity, Protection From Harassment

Six CUPE 1281 staff at the York University Faculty Association YUFA) pose with anti-harassment posters.

CUPE 1281 staff at the York University Faculty Association YUFA) pose with anti-harassment posters.

Since June, we have been providing updates about the York University Faculty Association’s (YUFA) attempt to gut their staff’s collective agreement, the hiring of a union-busting law firm, and how this will impact YUFA’s own members. In this update, we focus on what the staff at YUFA, represented by CUPE 1281, are asking for in this round of bargaining: stronger protections around harassment and protecting equity in the workplace.

Protecting Against Harassment

The union introduced several proposals aimed at protecting workers against harassment, including prohibitions on public performance evaluations and a protocol by which employees can refuse unsafe work when faced with immediate harassment and abuse.

An important proposal for the union would include in the collective agreement a protocol to better ensure a healthier and safer environment for staff at both online and in-person meetings.

Given that this protocol had been established between the parties several months earlier, and YUFA’s earlier commitment to implement it, it was a shock that YUFA’s bargaining team has refused to include this protocol in the collective agreement.

Protecting Equity in the Workplace

The union proposed language to reinforce job security by extending the lay-off notice period, giving staff more time to prepare in the event of job loss. YUFA has also rejected this proposal.

Another union proposal is to extend bereavement and compassionate leave by five additional days. The union’s proposal remains less than what YUFA members are entitled to for these leaves.

The Fight Ahead

Comparing these modest proposals with the gutting of the collective agreement that YUFA’s team has proposed, we see deeply contrasting attitudes: staff who want small improvements to their workplace versus an employer that is participating in union-busting.

CUPE 1281 YUFA staff return to the bargaining table on July 28th.

Letter of Solidarity with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) Staff Union

The CUPE 1281 Executive Committee has sent the following solidarity letter to the ITF Staff Union.

We, CUPE 1281, a union representing union, non-profit, and social justice staff mostly in Ontario, Canada, want to express our unwavering solidarity with the ITF Staff Union as you resist escalating attacks on your job security and the growing wave of managerialism inside the ITF.

It is deeply hypocritical for an organization that claims to defend workers’ rights worldwide to undermine its own staff, erode union protections, and impose top-down control. The same leaders promoting labour solidarity and democracy abroad are silencing the very workers who keep their organization running.

We know this pattern of behaviour all too well. Many CUPE 1281 members are staff at various unions which call themselves progressive, yet engage in anti-union actions and rhetoric quite similar to what you are facing- despite an ocean separating us. One of our units, consisting of staff at the York University Faculty Association, is currently fighting off restructuring, increased managerial control, attacks on job security, workplace protections against harassment and discrimination, and union rights at the bargaining table. The circumstances may differ, but the pattern is the same: more management power, fewer worker rights, and silenced staff voices. We support your fight just as we support everywhere workers fight back — through solidarity and defending union principles.

We also recognize the severe toll this process has taken on ITF staff mental health. Constant uncertainty, the threat of job losses, and increased workloads come at a real human cost. No worker should face that kind of pressure — least of all in a labour organization built to champion workers’ rights. If the ITF claims financial distress, they must open their books. Workers deserve full transparency — not vague excuses to justify restructuring and erode rights.

When unions are undermined from within, the entire labour movement suffers. Your fight is not only for ITF staff — it’s for every worker the world over who believes in fairness, dignity, and the right to organize without fear or retaliation.
Stay strong. We see you, we are with you, and we will amplify your fight.

In solidarity,

Sam DeFranco, President
On behalf of CUPE 1281

YUFA’s Proposals to “Modernize” and “Streamline” Mimic York University’s Playbook

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.

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Who is Ogletree Deakins, YUFA’s Union-Busting Lawyers?

At our latest bargaining session on June 25th, CUPE 1281 staff employed at the York University Faculty Association (YUFA) made some movement on housekeeping items and explained our objections to a significant number of YUFA’s proposals. We called out the alarming direction YUFA is taking — hiring the international union-busting law firm Ogletree Deakins to restructure our workplace.

Ogletree Deakins is a well-known employer-side law firm that is notorious for undermining workers rights, including specializing in “union avoidance” (i.e. union busting) strategies, and pushing top-down corporate restructuring. That’s exactly what we’re seeing in YUFA’s proposals, which seek to gut protections against harassment, restrict union rights, and ram through management-heavy changes — all to create space for expensive new managers, while eroding the core values that define YUFA as an academic workplace union.

This approach marks a sharp and radical departure from YUFA’s own structures and principles. YUFA, as a union, has long championed democracy, equity, collegial governance, and solidarity. Yet their current approach abandons those values — sidelining staff voices, importing union-busting lead negotiators, and paving the way for corporate-style control over a small professional office of hardworking, dedicated staff. We are both perplexed and disappointed as to why YUFA is actively supporting a law firm known for union busting and advancing a global anti-worker agenda, and more recently, co-opting nonprofits and progressive organizations as a strategy to advance its goals.

The drastic changes being pushed are not only out of step with YUFA Executive’s stated principles, but are also at odds with YUFA’s own constitution and bylaws. They include proposals that YUFA staff have helped YUFA members fend off during recent rounds of bargaining with their own employer, the York University Board of Governors.

YUFA staff are proud CUPE 1281 members committed to advancing equity, dignity, and democratic workplaces. We reject this corporate-style attack on our rights and stand firm against rollbacks.

No to Ogletree Deakins union busting. No to concessions. No to top-down restructuring.

See the previous update for more information on YUFA sub-unit bargaining.

Register for CUPE 1281’s Annual Convention!

It’s time to register for the CUPE 1281 Convention! If you are elected as a delegate, an executive officer, or are a sub-unit steward, or if you intend to participate as a non-voting member, including as a retiree, please complete this registration form to confirm your attendance at Convention. If your sub-unit has not run an election yet to form a delegation, and has over 5 members, please do so as soon as possible.

Convention Details

This year’s annual convention will be held on Monday July 21, 2025, and will run from 10am to 5pm. Convention will be hybrid: in-person at the Workers Action Centre in Toronto, as well as virtual on Zoom. At our annual convention, sub-unit delegates of our local gather to receive reports from the executive committee, discuss new business items and elect the executive committee and convention and council delegates for the upcoming year.

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YUFA Staff Sub-Unit Bargains for Equity and Job Security while Employer Tables Over 100 Proposals, Hires External Lawyers

On June 11, the staff at the York University Staff Association (YUFA), represented by CUPE 1281, presented a focused set of proposals to strengthen protections against harassment and discrimination, advance equity and job security, and prioritize health and safety. These workers fight for the rights of full-time faculty, librarians & archivists, and postdoctoral visitors at York University every day.

In an unprecedented move, YUFA has hired external legal counsel to lead their negotiations. In the first meeting between the parties, YUFA stated that bargaining negotiations should remain confidential and behind closed doors, a practice that YUFA itself does not exercise in recent bargaining rounds with their own employer, York University. It would also mean that their bargaining team would remain less accountable to their membership. CUPE 1281 made it clear that we cannot agree to confidential bargaining with media blackouts.

YUFA’s opening package contains over 100 aggressive proposals aimed at restructuring the workplace and weakening our union by splitting the bargaining unit, reducing our rights to participate in our union, stripping anti-harassment and discrimination protections, and reducing job security, among many others.

We are dismayed and disappointed, but CUPE 1281 is committed to collective bargaining and reaching a fair and respectful agreement at the table. We look forward to the next bargaining sessions on June 25, July 9, July 14 and July 28.