CUPE National is publishing a series of fact sheets on sexual violence and harassment in post-secondary institutions, and the steps your union can take to address it. The first of 5 fact sheets can be accessed here: https://cupe.ca/responding-sexual-violence-and-harassment-campus-and-duty-represent .

This fact sheet presents the multiple options for reporting or pursuing a complaint on experiences of sexual violence and harassment on campus.

In case you missed the news, McMaster is starting a voluntary testing program and will be distributing a limited number of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) to TAs and Sessional Faculty who are providing in-person teaching / instruction over the next few weeks. These members will receive the tests through their Faculty, however an exact date hasn’t been given to us yet. If you don’t hear or receive anything in the coming weeks, please contact your departmental administrator.

Individuals who can participate in this voluntary rapid testing program will be contacted directly by McMaster’s Rapid Test Distribution team. The announcement also says that “the effectiveness of this strategy will be closely monitored over the next two weeks with hopes to expand the distribution of test kits as access to inventory allows”.

Management has published its plans for improving ventilation on the Back to Mac website.  Among other measures, they confirmed that any room that has a reading of less than 6 equivalent air changes per hour (eACH) will not be used for classes.

We are asking our members to please verify the list of rooms available on the website. If you see any issues with a room that you will use, please get in touch with us and with your department chair. If your classroom or TA office is not listed, contact your administrator and/or the Union and we will push for a reading. As we hear more and more people concerned with the return to campus, it bears mentioning that the more we contact our departments and management to voice our concerns and dissatisfaction, the more they will need to pay attention to the problems we are facing.

We will hold a free online Mobilizing for Bargaining training on February 16, 10:00 – 13:00. This training is open to all our members and will prove to be very useful this year.

Our Unit 2 (Sessional Faculty) is currently bargaining a new Collective Agreement, however in August the Collective Agreements for Unit 1 (TAs and RAs in lieu) and Unit 3 (Postdocs) will expire and it’ll be their turn to bargain. We must be prepared when the time comes to ensure we will not lose our rights and be able to expand them and increase our pay.

If you’re interested in participating, please click here to register. The number of seats available is limited, so don’t wait till the last minute!

If you have any questions, you can reach out to organizingchair@cupe3906.org and vicepresident@cupe3906.org and we’ll be happy to answer them. We look forward to meeting you at the training!

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.

We have received a few questions about payment for the winter semester and feel that an update to all members would be useful. There is not a pay date on January 21, 2022 nor was there on January 14th. The final pay for the (Fall term) was December 31st, and the first payment for the Winter Term is January 28, 2022. There is a reason for this.

This year the winter semester started on January 10, the latest calendar date that the semester can begin. The first biweekly pay period (for most permanent employees) fell on January 14, the latest calendar day in which a first pay period of the year could run. This occurs infrequently, but is possible depending how the semester and calendar lineup.

Wages paid to you are one week in arrears. This means that the January 14 pay covered the last week in December and the first week in January – a time when Sessionals were not employed (and thus were eligible to collect Employment Insurance). For those of you working this winter, your contract started on the first day of the semester (January 10), instead of starting the contract on January 1. This more accurately reflects the period you work, and allows those of EI to collect for a longer period.

You should be/should have been able to collect EI from January 1st to January 9th if you have enough insurable hours. For information on EI, click here. If you did not apply for EI over the holidays but met the criteria, it is not too late to apply. More information can be found at the link above.

If you have already served a withholding period in the past 52 weeks, you would have been able to collect EI as of January 1st. If you have not served a withholding period, you could have served one week over the holidays and should be able to collect EI for a day or two. However, you will have served the one-week waiting period, which means you won’t need to do so again in the spring.

If you are not working this winter semester, we would encourage you to apply to EI. Service Canada will determine your eligibility. In certain instances, it is possible to both work and collect EI (with some clawbacks) if the amount of work have in the winter has dropped substantially from the work you had during the fall term. More information is available here.

If you were collecting EI over the holidays and are teaching this semester, you should be reporting to Service Canada that you are back working. If McMaster is your sole employer, you should report your first day worked/first day for which paid as January 10, 2022.

The employer has already uploaded your ROE automatically to Service Canada for the past semester.

The final pay date for this semester is April 22, which covers the period from April 3rd to April 16th. April 16th is the date that you can report to EI as your last day of work/last day for which paid if you are applying to EI over the spring. The full pay schedule can be found here: https://cupe3906.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/501/2021/09/Pay-Dates-for-CUPE-TA-and-Sessional-Faculty_2021_22.pdf

If you have any questions, please contact brad@cupe3906.org or Carolyn (chiefsteward_sessionals@cupe39306.org)

Dear PSAC 901 members,

On behalf of the CUPE 3906 executive – which represents approximately 3,500 Teaching Assistants, Sessional Faculty, Hourly-Rated Sessional Music Faculty, and Post-Doctoral Fellows at McMaster University – we wish to express our support and solidarity with Queen’s Graduate Teaching Assistants, Research Assistants, and Teaching Fellows in your current round of bargaining. Your demands, including an additional year of guaranteed employment, mental health supports and rebates, mandatory and paid anti-racist training and sexual violence prevention training, and a revised accommodations process, are essential for the wellness of your workers and for a proper job performance, even more so during the troubled times of a harsh global pandemic. As post-secondary workers ourselves, we are all too familiar with the approach employers are taking at the bargaining table and it is disappointing to see the Employer’s lack of interest in continuing to meet with your team, going so far as to claim your demands were “unreasonable”.  We stand in solidarity with you and urge you to stay strong as you continue to fight for better working and learning conditions at Queen’s University.

In solidarity and on behalf of the CUPE 3906 Executive,

Leah McGrath Reynolds

Vice President External, CUPE 3906

a PDF version of this letter can be found here

At this week’s well attended GMM, there were elections for four positions. Former Treasurer Chris Fairweather was elected as President, and former Recording Secretary Eric Macpherson was elected as Treasurer.

The membership elected William Foley as Chief Steward, Unit 1, while Sarah Szymanksi was elected as Recording Secretary. Welcome to the executive!

Congratulations to those of you elected, and thanks to those of you who put your name forward for the elections.

In light of the ongoing restrictions and covid-19 pandemic, the Benefits Committee has voted to temporarily amend the maximum amount Unit 1 members (TAs and RAs in lieu) can claim in Childcare.

Members may soon claim a maximum of $450 dollars for any and all eligible expenses incurred between September 1st 2021 and January 31st 2022. This means that if you have already claimed your yearly maximum of $300, you will soon be eligible to claim an additional $150 dollars.