News

On Saturday, January 9, 2021, the world lost an inspiring woman named Mary-Jo Nadeau.

Mary-Jo Nadeau (MJ) was an activist, professor, leader, mentor and comrade. 

She was also a former CUPE 1281 Staff Representative, who for many years worked tirelessly to defend the rights of workers, organize new workplaces, and educate and mentor everyone around her. She uplifted and inspired CUPE 1281 to grow as a local and we would not be where we are now, if it weren’t for MJ. Even after MJ stopped working at CUPE 1281 due to health concerns, she remained present in our local, and still provided us with guidance and support.

MJ was also well known as a fierce defender of human rights which included Palestine solidarity organizing and the BDS movement. In 2018, her passion was recognized by the CUPE 1281 membership with the creation of an annual award in her name, the Mary-Jo Nadeau Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Award. This is an award dedicated to an organization fighting to end support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, and pressuring Israel to comply with international law.

MJ never shied away from speaking truth to power and holding bad bosses accountable. As unapologetic as she was in standing up to injustice, MJ was equally as committed to building meaningful and lasting relationships with our members. She radiated genuine warmth, humour, and laughter as she supported our confidence and capacity to collectively make our workplaces and communities better places. 

CUPE 1281 is collecting memorial statements from our members to post on our website to pay tribute to MJ. Please send all memorial statements to communications@cupe1281.ca.

As we continue to grieve the loss of MJ we will keep our membership updated with ways that members and the community can continue to celebrate her life and activism.

CUPE 1281 will miss and love you always MJ.

As the holidays are quickly approaching and the year of 2020 is finally coming to an end, the CUPE 1281 Executive Committee would like to announce that the CUPE 1281 Office will be closed for the holidays from December 14, 2020 until January 4, 2021. If during the holiday closure an emergency servicing issue arises and you need to be in contact with CUPE 1281, please contact the CUPE 1281 President, David Simao at president@cupe1281.ca.

CUPE 1281 wishes everyone all of the best throughout the rest of 2020 and we’re looking forward to seeing all of you (hopefully in person) in 2021!

BACKGROUND 

As a progressively minded organization, CUPE 1281 is seeking to improve its practices as an Employer and Union, and to promote equity for marginalized groups within our communities. We seek to ensure these principles are reflected throughout the Local’s policies, procedures, practices, relationships with staff, members, allies, and communities within which we work and live. We understand the importance of working towards ending the mistreatment, oppression, and violence often targeted at marginalized groups. 

CUPE 1281 understands that racism against BIPOC, and oppression more generally, are systemic within our societies and our structures and, therefore, within CUPE 1281. We must continually review and question our practices and work to change the way we confront discrimination and bias, whether conscious or unconscious. We must confront and dismantle racism and oppression within our internal structures and provide a safer work, and union, environment. 

GOALS 

CUPE 1281 is seeking a consultant to undertake a structural assessment of the local, with a focus toward barriers for equity-seeking individuals, and to provide recommendations in regards, but not limited, to: 

● the local’s current by-laws and related appendices; 

● the local’s governing, and participatory, structures more specifically; 

● the local’s policies and practices, as they currently exist, or may exist from time to time; 

● the local’s current approach to its work as an Employer. 

In addition to reviewing these items, we are looking for a consultant who will also undertake anonymous interviews with willing staff, executive officers, other elected members, and members at-large, to gather feedback based on their experiences within CUPE 1281 spaces. The consultant would also review email, text message and social media communication as deemed necessary. 

BUDGET AND OTHER PARAMETERS 

CUPE 1281 is currently able to immediately allocate $5,000 to this work in its current fiscal year, ending June 2021. In addition to its current fiscal year, CUPE 1281 intends to allocate additional funding in its next budget for consideration, and approval, by the membership. 

We acknowledge that the current budget allocation may hinder the extent to which this review may initially be undertaken and are committed to working with a consultant, and our members, to allocate additional funds within the current fiscal year. 

Our office is in Toronto, Ontario, but is currently closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, meetings would take place over Zoom or Google Meets. Should there be a need for travel and in-person meetings, this will be discussed and mutually agreed upon beforehand. Any in-person meetings must be fully compliant with public health guidelines and scientifically proven best practices. 

TIMELINE AND PROCESS 

We welcome expressions of interest until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, December 11, 2020. We welcome any questions you may have prior to submitting an expression of interest. 

If you would be interested in undertaking this work, please provide an expression of interest that includes the following: 

● Background on your related experience 

● A description of your related area of expertise, methodologies, and approach(es) to the goals outlined; 

● An approximate costing of the work involved. 

CUPE 1281 would hope to receive a mid-term report with recommendations on interim measures that can be taken by May 1, 2021, with a final report timeline to be negotiated between the parties. 

Questions, queries, and expressions of interest may be sent to David Simao, President, at president@cupe1281.ca. 

The Request for Proposals: Anti-Oppression Consultancy/Equity Review can also be found in PDF format here.

On Tuesday, October 27, 2020 the Ontario Government made the anti-democratic choice to bypass the committee consideration and public consultations on Bill 168, the Combatting Anti-Semitism Act and instead adopted the flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism through an Order in Council. Once again, the Ontario Government has abused their power and stifled democracy by abruptly disrupting the legislative process and adopting the definition without public consultation or the due legislative process as promised.

Bill 168 aims to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism and its illustrative examples into law. The flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism and its illustrative examples conflate legitimate critiques of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism and therefore silence Palestinians and their allies, further normalize racism against Palestinians, and threaten freedom of speech and academic freedom. Antisemitism is real and deadly and its threat is increasing with the rise in white supremacy and the far right around the world. We join our allies in Independent Jewish Voices in rejecting the flawed and vague IHRA definition of antisemitism and its list of illustrative examples as unhelpful in combating antisemitism, and we stand with them in this important fight.

The Ontario Government panicked and passed Bill 168 abruptly because of the strong opposition they faced by the general public. The Palestinian Youth Movement and the Toronto BDS Network organized mass phone calls to the Standing Committee to block Bill 168 and Independent Jewish Voices Canada

organized a petition garnering thousands of signatures that targeted Members of Provincial Parliament to vote no against the bill. More than 100 Ontarians and organizations had also requested to attend the public hearings and present their views on the Bill. Bill 168 continues to have strong opposition from many academics, researchers, labour unions and community organizations, such as; CUPE Ontario, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, the Candian Federation of Students- Ontario, and more.

It’s crucial that Palestinians, academics, activists, labour unions and the general public, must have the right to criticize the State of Israel for continued human rights violations, land annexations and their illegal occupation of Palestinian territory; just like we have the right to criticize Canada and foreign states.

CUPE 1281 rejects Bill 168 and the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its list of illustrative examples and will continue to act in solidarity with the Palestinian community and fight all forms of biggotry, racism and discrimination, including Islamophobia and antisemitism. 

On Wednesday, October 21, 2020, CUPE 1281 will be hosting a digital Restore Services at RSU Day of Action. The Day of Action is a part of the escalating tactics CUPE 1281 has organized in response of 5 full-time unionized employees being laid off at the RSU.

Over the course of the Spring/Summer of 2020 the new RSU Executive Committee laid off the following workers: 

• Campus Groups Coordinator
• CopyRITE Printing Service Manager
• Events Coordinator
• Graphic Design Coordinator
• Good Food Centre Coordinator

Take action with CUPE 1281 on Wednesday, October 21 and support essential workers who have lost their jobs.

Here are 3 ways for you and your organization to participate.

1. Post your support online! Take a solidarity selfie or post online our, I Support Student Services at Ryerson graphics on your social media and use the hashtag #RestoreRSU All graphics can be found here here.

2. Sign and share our Change.org petition that goes directly to the 5 RSU Executive Committee members demanding they Restore Services at RSU and recall their 5 full-time employees. Petition can be found here.

3. Sign and share CUPE Ontario’s e-action that goes directly to all RSU Board Members and urges them to mandate the RSU Executive Committee to reconsider their decision of cutting student services and laying off workers. E-action can be found here.

Please share the graphics, petition and e-action with your colleagues, friends and family. Together we can Restore Services at RSU and support workers being reinstated into their jobs. #RestoreRSU

Dear Ryerson Students’ Union,

We, the below signatories from the Campus Coalition, are sending this letter to request that the Ryerson Students’ Union consider opening the Good Food Centre for the 2020-21 academic year. We ask this with the understanding of the current climate of COVID-19, limited campus activity and the current labour disputes between the Ryerson Students’ Union and the Canadian Union of Public Employees 1281. Several students have reached out to our organizations regarding concerns about the current closure. Some of our organizations have made our positions known regarding the labour dispute, but the purpose of this letter is to focus specifically on the necessity of the Good Food Centre in building a campus that values food security, poverty reduction and anti-stigma for students and workers accessing food banks on post-secondary campuses.

We understand that there is a desire to reduce operations during the reduction in campus spaces but we implore the Ryerson Students’ Union to consider creative and safe approaches to maintaining operations for the food bank as several other post-secondary students’ unions have implemented, such as pre-booked appointments, curbside pick-up or deliveries. For instance, the York Federation of Students is currently providing food hampers on specific days (http://www.yfs.ca/food-support-centre). We also implore the Ryerson Students’ Union to maintain the Good Food Centre Coordinator to ensure health and safety protocols and procedures. The RSU collects a semesterly fee for the Good Food Centre, in the same way that fees for the Centre for Safer Sex and Sexual Violence Support are collected, explicitly for the reason to provide these services with a full-time and part-time staff component that focuses on providing food relief services to students. COVID-19 means our members need us more than ever before, particularly members facing food insecurity.

All of our organizations recognize and respect the autonomy of the Ryerson Students’ Union to determine their own operations – which is why many of us supported the campaign to Rebuild the RSU. We ask that you take these considerations to heart and consider the re-opening of the Good Food Centre for the Fall and Winter terms.

Thank you for your time and we are happy to discuss further.

Continuing Education Students’ Association of Ryerson

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3904

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1281

Ryerson Faculty Association

On Sunday, September 13, 2020 CUPE 1281 released a petition
calling on the Ryerson Students’ Union Executive Committee to restore their services and reinstate their employees now!

During the tenure of the new RSU Executive Committee 5
full-time unionized employees have received layoff notice. This includes; the Campus Groups Coordinator, CopyRITE Printing Service Manager, Events Coordinator, Graphic Design
Coordinator and Good Food Centre Coordinator.

CUPE 1281 is fighting back against these layoffs and has organized an online petition that you can sign here. Please sign and share the petition widely to let the RSU know that you stand in solidarity with workers and that you are against these layoffs.

#RestoreRSU #ServicesNotCuts

Tuesday July 7, 2020

Since the turnover of the Ryerson Students’ Union Executive Committee on May 1st, 2020, five full time employees who are members of CUPE 1281 have received layoff notices. The complement of full time unionized employees at this students’ union should be ten, but with two vacancies yet to be filled they are now reduced to only three. This is gutting the bargaining unit at this workplace. Two of the recently laid off members were offered to continue doing their jobs, but part-time and outside of the bargaining unit. This is union busting.

Laid off positions: