York CUPE 3903 contract up for re-negotiation

News Department
The contract between CUPE Local 3903 and York is due to expire August 31, and both parties — through neither has commented about the current state of negotiations — are expressing optimism about forthcoming meetings.
“We hope to meet with the employer about negotiations very soon,” says CUPE 3903 communications officer Claire Major, noting that negotiations were still in preparation.
York president Mamdouh Shoukri is also confident that talks will be carried out in good faith.
“I’m not aware of the details of the negotiation at this stage, but I’m hopeful that things will go well,” says Shoukri. “One of the most important initiatives that we have undertaken — and this has nothing to do with CUPE, per se — is what we called the ‘Better Workshop Initiative’. I want to understand better the underlying issues that have caused labour relation issues in the past.”
New rounds of negotiations and consultations will be taking place throughout the coming weeks.
A failure to come to an agreement regarding bargaining and negotiations in November 2008 resulted in classes being cancelled and campus shutting down for the duration. Only after Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty’s government passed back-to-work legislation did the 85-day strike come to an end.
With files from Lingsha Hu