President’s and Vice President’s Reports

President’s Report – Greg Melnechuk

Local 4163

 

• 4163 is in transition – exciting times!
  • new executive structure, starting to have semi-regular component exec meetings
  • continually improving bylaws and governance
• In July we signed an agreement with the University around Member book off for UVic committee meetings – it provides hourly pay for meetings and meeting prep (plug: we need a University Safety Committee Rep!)
• working on the issue of our union certifications excluding employees represented by the Professional Employees Association
• since the AGM, have attended the CUPE BC Convention and the CUEP National Sector Conference
• have also been on a panel for a CUPE internal trial

 

Bargaining 2025

• Comp 3 expires in 6 months; Comp 1&2 expires in 10 months
• Hopefully we’ll know by April what the government imposed bargaining mandate will be
• In the new year we’ll start our usual prep – member surveys, looking at grievances from the past few years for issues that need solving at the bargaining table
• We’ll need to start an internal campaign for success

 

Stewards

• Sharan will have more to say about this, but we are off to an amazing start this year with our component 1 stewards
• Taking a slightly different approach – moving away from ‘just’ departmental contacts

 

RA Organizing

• is ongoing
• Supposed to have a decision from the Labour Board this week about the RA organizing drive at UBC

 

University Committee

• Met in September
• Education campaign around Workload/Overwork Campaign to contract in and hire more staff members
  • Looking into liaising with the Anti-Privatization Committee
  • Want to tell worker’s stories
• BC PSE Bargaining survey coming out in the new year
• Huge issue: Bureaucratization of universities – management and executive bloat
• Want to get training for University locals in how to read and understand University budgets; perhaps try to set up a Canada wide online training seminar.

National Post-Secondary Task Force

• Met October 21-22
• going to start a campaign around post-secondary infrastructure maintenance deficits, tie in to bureaucratic bloat;
• Aiming to hold a couple of National post-secondary online town halls
• also lobbying CUPE National for support for translation of the basics of unions in Canada for immigrant University workers.

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Component 1 Vice-President’s Report – Sharan Gopalan

Slack channel for TA Stewards
– Piloting a communication channel for TA stewards on Slack
– Good support for the idea in the TA stewards council meeting
– Goal is to have transparent and better communication and sharing of issues / ideas across
departments and faculties
– Plan to extend platform to all TAs in the future
Comp 1 hardship fund
– All funds allocated
– Post review of applications, 100 TAs received $150 in their ONECards
– Program will not be running again
TA orientations
– Majority of TA orientations complete
– TA steward training to begin in November
TA hours reduction in English department
– Faculty of Humanities changing the distribution of funds across departments due to
significantly higher proportion of funds allocated to English department
– CUPE4163 in conversation with the faculty regarding this matter
– Larger discussion to follow with other departments and faculties regarding full-term TA
appointments
TA Academic Income Supplement (AIS)
– AIS (2.44/hr for masters and $7.68/hr for PhD) will be rolled into the senior TA wage rate
starting January 2025
– Move to ensure more equitable salaries
Research Assistant organizing
– No changes to report currently; pending discussion with GSS
– Membership card signing drive ongoing
– List of 120 RAs from orientations

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Component 2 Vice-President’s Report – Hailey Vanderhaeghe

Residence Life

 

Continuing Studies

• The English Language Centre (ELC) has not yet fully recovered from its pandemic losses, losses that have been compounded by the federal government’s new restrictions on intentional students
• however, doing well, relatively speaking: the sector as a whole across Canada is hurting, with SFU’s ESL department shut down, as has the department at St Mary’s University in Halifax, and UBC’s seems to be on  life support.
• The ELC has just announced that they are cancelling a pilot project in which the ESL teachers were able to work full time 1.0 FTE contracts for the past 2 years. This means some teachers will be taking upwards of 6% pay cuts as of January.

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Component 3 Vice-President’s Report – Brock MacLeod

Highlights of the past 6 months:

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Equity Vice-President’s Report – Angie Reamer

The Equity Action Committee has been involved in the following action items:

•  Building campus and community networks
•  Involved in EDIA and leadership educational learning opportunities
•  Leadership involvement from CUPE National Diversity VP for Black and Racialized Workers, Aubrey Gonsalves
•  Providing English conversation classes for immigrants
•  Established EDIA sub-committees for 2SLGBTQIA+ and Persons with Disabilities
• The lead of the 2SLGBTQIA+ sub-committee developed a Mentee Resource Guide for members on campus. At review stage with the Executive Committee before release
• The lead of the Persons with Disabilities sub-committee provided a report of the CUPE 4163 website, specifically focusing on the issue of accessibility. At review stage with Executive Committee before recommendations applied
• Committee currently working on Component 1, 2 and 3 collective agreements through an EDIA lens. Will provide report to President in December for recommendations on inclusive language for collective agreements prior to bargaining
• Planning a coffee social next term to meet members