Newer, better CUPE 3906 face masks have arrived! These ones have adjustable ear loops and a metal nose insert to help keep your glasses from fogging up. Supplies are somewhat limited, so if you’d like to receive one from the union, please fill out the request form here.

We have the results for our Spring Photo Contest! We’d like to congratulate the five winners for the top prize of a $50 dollar gift card:

• Yi Feng
• Karim Soliman
• Diego Valencia Garcia
• Sophie Wilkinson
• Dongdong Wang

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.

A message from our friends at the Ontario Federation of Labour:

The Ford government’s Bill 124 is continuing to take its toll on our frontline workers by freezing wages and stopping any chance at good-faith negotiations.

Twenty-four nurses in Sarnia have been forced to take strike action this week after contract negotiations with VON Canada broke down. Two years after their previous contract expired and over one year into this pandemic, nurses are still fighting to get the wage increases and overtime pay they deserve.

The right to fairly and freely negotiate with their employer is a Charter right of every worker in Ontario – but because of the Ford Conservatives and Bill 124, frontline healthcare workers who sacrifice so much to save lives have had their right to collective bargaining stripped away from them.

This isn’t right. Frontline workers deserve fair compensation. Bill 124 needs to be reversed immediately so that workers can negotiate for fair wages. Help us get the word out by liking and sharing our post on social media demanding better.

Frontline workers across the province and across the country have already given so much just so they can get a fair contract at work. They’re already defending us from this deadly virus – they shouldn’t have to fight another battle on top of that.

The public understands the vital role that public sector workers play in our society. Our leaders should be paying them fairly for their service, not introducing draconian measures that trample on their rights.

Frontline workers deserve better. Join us and spread the word on social media. With enough pressure, we can force the Ford Conservatives to do the right thing and scrap Bill 124 for good.

www.facebook.com/OFLabour/posts/10158886733165660

In solidarity,

The Ontario Federation of Labour

In solidarity with Professor Azarova and in support of CAUT’s imposing censure on the University of Toronto, any requests for funds or reimbursements for speaking engagements, activities, or conference participation for any events at or affiliated with the University of Toronto are no longer eligible expenses for reimbursement under CUPE Local 3906’s Professional Development Funds for both Sessional Faculty and Post Doctoral Fellows. This policy will remain in place until CAUT’s call for censure has been resolved to their satisfaction.

Further, we strongly encourage members of all three of our bargaining units to respect the call for censure and refrain from attending or participating in events being held at the U of T.

CUPE 3906 Benefits Committee

A PDF of the letter can be found here: CUPE 3906 UofT censure letter 2021

Our postdoctoral fellows recently held a spring photo contest- and they didn’t disappoint. Despite being in the midst of the third-wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, they found beauty around town.

Employment Insurance

Please note that the final pay for this past term was April 23rd. This represents what Service Canada refers to as an ‘interruption of earnings’  and should be the date you list on your EI application as the last pay date (not the date for which you were last paid). The ‘day for which you were last paid’  and your ‘last day worked’  should be listed as April 16th.  We would encourage all Sessionals who may utilize Employment Insurance at any point in 2021 to apply immediately, even if you are employed during the coming Spring term.

The first pay in the Spring term, for those of you who are employed, will be on May 21st and the first day of work will be May 2nd. This means you should be able to collect EI for a brief period of time prior to May 2nd, if you have enough insurable hours. If you are not working this Spring, you should be able to collect starting now and throughout most of the summer.

For information on EI, click here. If you have already served a withholding period in the past 52 weeks, you will be able to collect EI sooner. If you have not served a withholding period, you can serve one week over the holidays and should be able to collect EI sooner in late April. If you have yet to serve the one-week withholding period in the past 52 weeks and plan on accessing EI over the spring/summer, we would strongly encourage you to apply for EI over the holidays to serve the withholding period.

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.
The employer will upload your ROE automatically to Service Canada. You can apply for EI at any point after you see it uploaded to your Service Canada site.

Post-Contract Work

Remember, any post-contract work (that is, work requested by your supervisor and done after your final grades have been submitted) is separate from your contract and payable at a rate of $66.70/hour. This would include reviewing grades that are being challenged, marking exams that have been deferred, and dealing with cases of plagiarism. This is not an exhaustive list, and more information, including the appropriate form you’ll need to fill out and submit to get paid, is available here.

Large Class Supplemental Fee

If you have yet to be paid the Large Class Supplemental Fee, please let us know. For those of you earning the base rate and teaching a class with more than 75 students, you are eligible for this added supplement.  For a typical 3-unit course, this would amount to $6.00 per student for each student above 75. If you taught a class with more than 75 students, you may wish to remind your department (we’ve had HR do this as well), and please confirm that this additional supplement will be paid prior to the end of contract (and contact us if you haven’t received it!).

On April 28 at 11 a.m., the Hamilton and District Labor Council will be replicating its traditional Day of Mourning ceremony from City Hall on Zoom. The HDLC will also continue its practice of having roses available for those individuals who wish to lay one at the monument in memory of a loved one.

On April 28, we will remember those comrades we’ve lost due to workplace injuries and illnesses, not just this past year, but also throughout our personal workplace histories.

We will continue to share music as a tool of contemplation and reflection.

We will hear from some labour leaders about the impact the pandemic has had on their sector and how we can safely transition back to “normal” working conditions.

And we will hear from coalition partners around the city who work with injured workers on a daily basis, even under trying times.

You can register for the event by clicking here. Even though the event will be live at 11 a.m., the YouTube stream will be available after the event is done on our HDLC YouTube Channel.

Mourn for the Dead, Fight like Hell for the Living!

Each year on April 28, the labour movement commemorates a Day of Mourning, in memory of all of those workers who have been killed or injured on the job. This year, the Day of Mourning is particularly somber, as we remember thousands of workers across the country who have died of Covid-19, many of whom contracted the deadly virus in their workplaces. When people don’t have access to paid sick leave, they are far more likely to have to go to work, either because they can’t afford the lost time, or because they can’t risk being disciplined or terminated for missing work. In 2018, workers won a small number of paid sick days for all, but one of the Ford Government’s first acts in power was to take those away. Ontario currently only guarantees workers three days of job-protected leave for personal illness, none of which are paid.

This Wednesday at 10:00am, we are encouraging all of our members to take a ten minute break from their work to take action for paid sick leave for all, including the following:

• Observe a moment of silence;
• Wear black;
• Use this form on the CUPE Ontario website to send a message to Doug Ford and your local MPP;
• Use the Decent Work and Health Network’s form to send a message as well;
• Download the poster and send a picture of yourself with it to 1-866-821-7273. Share it on social media with the hashtags #PaidSickDays and #10for10, and make sure to tag us as well;
• Find more graphics and infographics from #10for10 and the Decent Work and Health Network here, and share them on social media;
• Sign up here to participate in future actions with your co-workers in support of paid sick days for all.