News at cupe.ca

CUPE Ontario school board workers recognized the importance of giving back to the community at their annual conference by raising money to help a local charity, the Richmond Hill Community Food Bank.

Ontario’s largest union is urging all Ontarians to support the passage of Bill 13 – the Accepting Schools Act and to stand behind students in their quest to eradicate bullying with student-run organizations like Gay-Straight Alliances.

Mark Ferguson, President of Toronto Civic Employees' Union, CUPE Local 416, announced early this morning that the Local and the City negotiators have developed a working framework for a new collective agreement.

CUPE’s B.C. regional bargaining strategies conference continued on Thursday with delegates separating into provincial and locally-funded sectors—and then into individual sectors—to discuss bargaining priorities for 2012.

Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario, has committed the full support and resources of the union to CUPE Local 416 in its effort to continue providing services to Torontonians while staying at the bargaining table, despite blatant attempts by the Mayor’s team to provoke a work stoppage.

The Ontario government’s so-called “action plan” for health care, released this week, lacks the long-promised minimum standard of care for the province’s 85,000 residents of long-term care (LTC), advocates will say at a Kingston media conference Monday, February 6.

Outside workers in Toronto represented by CUPE local 416 are in contract negotiations with the city to try and reach a deal before the end of the weekend. The City continues to ask for concessions and last night tabled a final offer to the union that guts our collective agreement, to the detriment of both workers and the services they provide

The union that represents Halifax Regional Municipality’s outside workers believes it’s time for HRM to go back to the drawing board on its snow and ice removal policies.

With an unemployment rate in northern B.C. sitting at 11.5% and layoffs looming at northern colleges, the B.C. government’s vaunted BC Jobs Plan is failing northern communities, unions representing post secondary workers said today.

For Day One of CUPE BC’s bargaining strategies conference, delegates attended four of a possible nine workshops on various issues CUPE locals are facing at the bargaining table this year:

Representatives of CUPE, the Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), and Cuso International delivered over 800 postcards to the Embassy of Myanmar today, as well as a letter from CUPE National President Paul Moist.

CUPE 250, representing City of Oshawa ‘outside’ workers, recently helped keep Oshawa garbage pick-up public, effectively opposing a plan by City management to upload garbage collection to the Region of Durham – where garbage collection is contracted out to a private company.

On February 2, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Remstar’s request for an appeal and established that Remstar was in fact the employer of the union members when the TQS-Québec newsrooms were closed in violation of collective agreements. Remstar is therefore responsible for the consequences of their failure to respect the rights of the members of the Syndicat des employés de TQS-Québec (CUPE 3946).

85,000 residents in the province’s long-term care homes have waited for more than eight years for Ontario’s Liberal government to make good on a long-promised minimum standard of care, and the time for them to act is now, advocates for better long-term care said at a Sudbury media conference today.

In the Toronto Star, Paul Moist discusses what he wants in a leader for his party, and for his country.

In an op-ed in The Tyee, Paul Moist and Maude Barlow outline the threats to Canada's water systems posed by the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), based on recently leaked documents.

CUPE’s B.C. regional strategic bargaining conference got down to business Tuesday night with a lively panel discussion on approaches to public sector bargaining that featured four labour activists representing a range of public sector union experience.

Thanks to the growing income gap between the richest and poorest citizens, and relentless labour-bashing by the federal Conservative and BC Liberal governments, CUPE members have more cause than ever to unite across sectors and work with other unions to restore free collective bargaining, CUPE National president Paul Moist told delegates in his keynote address on Tuesday night.

CUPE has come a long way in its embrace of strategic, coordinated bargaining across sectors and unions, CUPE BC president Barry O’Neill told delegates, in his welcoming remarks on Tuesday night.

Members of CUPE 3902, the union representing all 4,200 teaching assistants, graduate-student instructors, lab demonstrators, invigilators and writing instructors at the three U of T campuses, have rejected the tentative agreement reached by the Union and the University during conciliation.