You have likely heard that CUPE 4163 is currently in bargaining. But what does that mean in practice?
CUPE 4163 has two active collective agreements at any time, one for Component 3 (Sessional Instructors and Music Performance Instructors) and one for Components 1 and 2 (Teaching Assistants, ResLife, ELC/FLP teachers, and a few other employee groups). A collective agreement represents our contract with the university, covering our rights and responsibilities as workers at the University of Victoria. When a collective agreement (CA) is established, so is its length, and when it expires, we renegotiate it. For CUPE 4163, this happens every 3-4 years. Bargaining, or collective bargaining, is the process used to put together our next collective agreement.
Component 3’s old CA expired on April 30th, 2025 and their new one was ratified by our membership on June 11th, 2026. A primary focus here was workload. See the “2025-2029 Collective Agreement–Summary of New Language” post for the full details on the new Component 3 CA. Component 1 and 2’s expired on August 31, 2025 and we started the process of bargaining a replacement on August 24th, 2026. The old agreement stays in force until a new one has been bargained to replace it.
Before bargaining begins, the union’s membership elects a bargaining team at component meetings. These elected members will meet with the employer’s team and represent the interests of our members throughout the process. Component 1 and Component 2 share a master framework in the collective agreement, but also have separate teams to bargain the details for their respective members. Melissa Pritchard (Member Advocate) and Neve Sugars-Keen (Acting President and Component 1 Vice-President) serve on both components. Our component 1 team is made up of Cam Thiessen, Hayle Dambrowsky, and Ted Grosson. The component 2 team is made up of Angie Reamer and Susan Abrill-Russek from the ELC, Hailey Vanderhaeghe from ResLife, and Naomi Tran from the Cultural Assistants.
Our bargaining team meets with the employer’s to present proposals that aim to address member concerns. Bargaining priorities are formed based on surveys of the membership and are ratified by each component at meetings before the bargaining process starts. From there, specific proposals are developed with the consultation of the bargaining teams. A new collective agreement is not built from scratch. These proposals would change the old agreement in some way—deleting or changing old language and/or proposing new language. The top priorities reflected in our proposal package this year differ by component but share common focuses around wages, training, and workload concerns. In B.C., the amount of money that can be spent on proposals is constrained by the PSEC mandate. This sets the limits on an available pool of money for each round of public sector provincial collective bargaining.
The university also brings a package of proposals to the table. The two bargaining teams can make counterproposals, going back and forth until all proposals presented by both sides are either agreed on or withdrawn. If no agreement can be reached, the parties are at impasse and the union may take a strike vote.
Once the two bargaining teams reach an agreement, this is brought to our members to vote on. If our members vote to ratify it, the Board of Governers must ratify it on the employer side. At that point, the new collective agreement comes into effect and replaces the old one.
Any questions? Reach out to us at office4163@gmail.com and attend our October Semi-Annual General Meeting for updates!