We’ve been getting many questions about vaccination access for CUPE 3906 members in their role as education workers. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any update for vaccinations that the sector is aware of for university workers specifically. CUPE Ontario has been pushing relentlessly for all sectors with the Province and OUWCC bring up vaccination access with the Ministry on a regular basis. The Ontario University Workers’ Coordinating Committee (OUWCC) sent the province/ministry a letter to give priority for university workers who are working on campus, but it doesn’t sound like they got a response. As for clarification of educator, the Province has clearly defined the eligible educators as being those in K-12 education and those that work with children with special needs. They have chosen not to expand that to include post-secondary educators.
If the campus was located in a high priority area (or hot zone) of Hamilton, the rules have been changing to potentially include individuals who work in a high priority community. Members can check the websites, both provincial (https://covid-19.ontario.ca/ontarios-covid-19-vaccination-plan#hot-spot-communities) and region (https://www.hamilton.ca/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines), to see if they are eligible.
Members can also check to see if they are added to updates on eligible employment groups:
In addition, members can check the phase 2 plan to see if there are updates there: