As you probably have heard by now, McMaster University announced its return-to-campus measures in a January 5th letter from President David Farrar and Provost Susan Tighe. We believe these measures are nowhere near enough to address our members’ concerns and we are organizing our response. Some of us have already met to discuss our strategy and we will meet again this coming week. If you’d like to join us to voice your concerns and strengthen our demands, please send an email to vicepresident@cupe3906.org and we’ll loop you in.
An important note about accommodations at the current stage: If you have a medical reason (e.g., disability, immunocompromised, etc.) for why you shouldn’t have to return to work in person, you can request a workplace accommodation through the following form:
Workplace-Accommodation-Procedures-June-2021.pdf (mcmaster.ca). If you do believe you should qualify for an accommodation, please let us know and we can help you with the process. If you apply for an accommodation and are denied, please let us know. The Employer only has to provide accommodations for bonafide medical or human rights reasons according to the law, and even then they only have to provide a reasonable accommodation up to the point of undue hardship. An accommodation might not entail what members think they should entail, but if you are seeking an accommodation you should be clear with what you need and why you require it. The Employer can also request certain medical documentation (for example) to support an accommodation request. We are happy to do our best to assist and work with you if you think you might require a workplace accommodation for medical or other human rights code reasons.
We believe that the barriers shouldn’t be set so high and that everyone should be entitled to more accommodations than what management is willing to grant us, but, at the moment, this is the process imposed by management we will only get what we deserve if we fight for it.
