Dear Members,

We would like to thank you for coming out to our strike mandate vote meeting on Tuesday evening and for dropping by one of polling stations over the last few days to provide your union’s elected bargaining team with a clear strike vote mandate. Thanks as well to the volunteers who staffed polling stations and acted as scrutineers.

We feel both heartened and empowered by the support that a 78% ‘YES’ result represents. The support that the Union’s membership has shown to it’s elected bargaining team demonstrates a high level of engagement and a real commitment of your desire to secure strengthened job security, an improved workload, improved benefits, and fair wages that are in line with what Sessionals at other top universities in Ontario earn. Having heard the collective voice of our membership, we are even more confident in our ability to bargain a fair Collective Agreement for a #BetterMac.

Be reminded as well that a successful strike vote mandate does not mean that we are on strike, nor does it mean that a strike is imminent! Rather, you have empowered the bargaining team to call a strike should no further progress be made at the table. There are, in addition, a number of steps in the legal process around strikes/lockouts in the province of Ontario that would need to be followed before such a decision could be contemplated.

The next step is conciliation, a process that we have already initiated through the Ontario Ministry of Labour. As always, we will continue to keep you updated on the progress of negotiations.

In solidarity,

Graham Baker, President