York University is seeking a forced ratification vote, or supervised vote, on their latest offer to the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903, which was tabled on March 20, according to a press release by the union.
According to the university’s website, a supervised vote is a process managed by the Ontario Ministry of Labour which provides every member of CUPE 3903 the opportunity to vote on the offer via secret ballot.
The union, which represents contract instructors and graduate and teaching assistants, is entering its fourth week on strike are it began strike action on March 5 following six months of negotiations.
The union is seeking a pay increase, improved benefits, and sexual or gender- based violence leave among other demands, according to the latest proposal document.
The union is calling the decision to hold the vote “shameful.”
“Our members have been on strike for nearly a month,” said CUPE 3903 chairperson Devin Lefebvre in the release. “Our bargaining team has repeatedly called on York University to come back to the table, to little or no avail. For York to now demand a forced ratification vote is a shameful abdication of their responsibility to sit down and negotiate.”
Janice Walls, deputy spokesperson of the university, said in an email that a supervised vote would allow all 3,000 members of the union to have a say on whether or not to accept the school’s offers.
She said it would not prevent the union from presenting a counter-offer or prevent arbitration.
However, Walls said that mutual negotiations are yet to be made.
“The university and CUPE 3903 remain far apart on wages and on important non-monetary issues,” she said.
The university said that their offer is one of the best in Ontario in terms of compensation as well as job security, according to the university press release.
Meanwhile, Lefebvre said CUPE 3903’s leadership and bargaining team will encourage members to reject the offer on the table.
“The offer members will vote on is not substantially changed from the offer members rejected nearly a month ago, and fails to address the key issues all three units have raised. We would ourselves be abdicating our responsibilities if we were to recommend ratification of a bad deal,” he said in the release.
Lefebvre said that in spite of the university’s decision to force a ratification vote, the union’s bargaining team “remains available to bargain on short notice.”
Walls said that students concerned about graduating in time do not have anything to worry about as the university is “actively pursuing all avenues to end the strike.”
“We are working hard to ensure that our 50,000 undergraduate students are able to finish their school year as soon as possible,” she said.
The university remains open so far and some classes, labs, and tutorials have been affected because of the strike, while 55 per cent of the courses are still running actively, according to Walls.
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