Jan 17 2009

Picket Lines Update, Call for Volunteers and Alternative Duties

Category: Strike Discussion (2008-09)Bob Hanke @ 9:43 am
There will be no picket lines on Monday and Tuesday. Instead, members are encouraged to earn picket pay by helping to coordinate the No Vote activities over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday. Here is how to help and who to contact:
(a) Phone-Arounds. Help call people to pull out the vote. Contact Greg Bird: gregdbird@gmail.com
(b) Door-to-Door Canvassing. House calls to pull out the vote. Contact Ryan Toews toewsr@gmail.com and Baolinh Dang baolinhd@gmail.com
(c) Organizing Sunday Rally (see 4.a above). Contact Jordy Cummings to help: jordylcummings@hotmail.com
(d) Organizing Monday Rally (see 4.b above). Contact Noaman Ali to help: noaman.ali@gmail.com
(e) If you are over 25, have a driver’s license, have independent insurance, and want to help with accessible transportation on Monday and Tuesday, contact Healy Thompson: healythompson@gmail.com
(f) On Monday and Tuesday, we will need people handing out information in the shuttles arranged by York. For more information on this, contact Niki and Alicia (csn.thorne@gmail.com, amgrimes@yorku.ca)
(g) On Monday and Tuesday, we will need people handing out information and helping mobilize around the hotel. For more information, contact Lana (bananachka@hotmail.com)
(h) For more tasks related specifically to the mobilization of the No Vote at the Hotel, please contact Christina Roussea: christina.rousseau@gmail.com
(i) To help organize a post-rat vote party, contact the Executive, who will give you parameters (noaman.ali@gmail.com).
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To focus on the forced ratification vote, here are some other duties you can do and get paid for:
Option #1 – Ride the Novotel Shuttle Bus
Sit at the front of the bus with a buddy and hand out info flyers to riders
– buses depart from the Keele and Glendon campuses, as well as Downsview Station
– two shift options: 8am-1pm or 2pm-7pm (5 hours)
– please email  <ratmob3903@gmail.com> telling us which day and shift you’d like to do, your preference for the departure point, and whether you have a buddy (+ name)
– we’ll get back to you asap to confirm and provide more details
Option #2 – Hang out at the North York Centre
Hand out flyers or talk to fellow CUPE members inside the mall
– two shift options: 9am-1pm or 3pm-7pm (4 hours)
– just show up and sign-in with the captain at Cafe Supreme, down the hall from the Novotel entrance inside the mall.  If entering mall from the subway or Yonge street, it’s the last cafe on the left-hand side, before the library. We will be sitting on the “patio” along the main walk-way. And of course, you can go vote during your shift.
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A Message from the CUPE 3903 Strike Accessibility Committee
Members requiring accessible transportation to and/or from the forced ratification vote have four options:

(1) Take the TTC to Finch or Sheppard stations and then take the accessible shuttle from those stations to the hotel for the vote.
(2) Arrange for WheelTrans service and CUPE 3903 will reimburse you for the cost (contact healythompson@gmail.com or 416-660-1352 for reimbursement)
(3) Call the number York university is asking people to contact for accessible transportation from York University–Nicole Arsenault at 416-736-5866 or by e-mail at
(4) (The Most Fun Option) Take the accessible van transportation CUPE 3903 is providing to and from the ratification vote for anyone needing accessible transportation within Toronto. To take advantage of this option, contact Healy Thompson at healythompson@gmail.com or 416-660-1352 ____________________________________________________________

Read the CUPE 3903 newspaper ad — We are CUPE 3903 —  in the January 16th Toronto Star (p. A18), Globe and Mail (p. A9), here, and circulate far and wide with pride.

TheStar.com, January 18,  Letter to the Editor

News Blast: York Faculty Association Vows to Support Strikers

Open Letter of the WeekFred Ho replies to Bernie Lightman

Red Alert: If you are reading this, and you are not on the CUPE u2 listserve or have not registered for this site, please register so we can better serve our members.


Jan 11 2009

York Vote a Dangerous Signal (Again)

Category: Strike Discussion (2008-09)Bob Hanke @ 1:15 am

Those of us who were at York during the 2000-01 strike may remember that we have seen collective bargaining rights curtailed by a forced ratification vote before.  For those who were not around or have forgotten this episode in York’s history, here is an excerpt of David McNally’s commentary written just before a forced ratification vote–seven years ago.

York Vote a Dangerous Signal
By David McNally (2000-01)

“In the present state of society, in fact, it is the possibility of the strike which enables workers to negotiate with their employers on terms of approximate equality. . . If the right to strike is suppressed, or seriously limited, the trade union movement becomes nothing more than one institution among many in the service of capitalism: a convenient organization for disciplining workers, occupying their leisure time, and ensuring their profitability for business.”

—  Pierre Trudeau, The Asbestos Strike

Much delight greeted the news last month that the York University Administration could force its striking teaching assistants, contract faculty and research assistants to vote on a management offer. After a two month disruption of classes, many hoped that those of us who work and study at York might soon get back to our classrooms. Behind this news, however, loomed another message, one that is ought to be deeply troubling to those who care about the democratic rights of trade unions in our society.

The contract vote that members of CUPE 3903 will conduct this Thursday and Friday is the result of a Tory-created section of the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA) that enables an employer to force a vote on a contract proposal rejected by a union’s elected negotiating committee and/or its executive. There is nothing innocent about this provision of the Act; it is merely one component in a series of legal changes designed to give employers more weapons against unions.  From its inception, the Harris government undertook a vigorous attack on trade union rights.

To read the complete commentary, click York Vote a Dangerous Signal.

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Jan 10 2009

A Subversive Idea!

Category: Strike Discussion (2008-09)Bob Hanke @ 1:21 pm

I have a subversive idea to discuss with the Unit 2 folks. What if we started posting our lectures online on a centralized website (Virtual York!), and asked the students (and anyone for that matter) to pay $20 per month to access the online courses? would it be considered a strike breaking?   We could also have online discussion and interaction with the students involving the Tas. The money can be used to pay both the CDs and the Tas based on the number of courses they cover. This would take off the pressures on us from both the students and their parents to end the strike and would support us financially to prolong the stike against the ratification vote.  It would also proof the redundancy of the
obsolete way Universities are managed today. I am sure there are many details that should be worked out but I wanted to know what do you think generally about the idea.

In Sol. Reza Rahbari (Sociology and Social Sciences)

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