CUPE 3906

We are delighted to announce Kateryna Tretiakova & Zana Davel as the recipients of the International Student of the Year Award (2023-2024). Congratulations!

This is a reminder to please submit your Professional Development Application by April 10th. All sessionals can claim $200 per 3 unit course to a max of $1000 per academic year for the purpose of professional development. You can find the forms and information here: https://cupe3906.org/sessionals-unit-2/professional-development-fund-unit-2/. Please send all of your applications to Benefits@cupe3906.org.

• President; Vice President; Vice President External; Secretary-Treasurer; Recording Secretary; Chief Steward, Unit 1; Chief Steward, Unit 2; Chief Steward, Unit 3; Health & Safety Officer; Benefits & Advocacy Officer; Equity Officer; International Officer; Undergraduate Officer
  

In order to serve on the Executive Committee, you must be a member-in-good-standing of the union. You can nominate yourself or someone else during the meeting, or you can nominate yourself in advance by emailing brad@cupe3906.org to express your interest in any of these positions. Unsuccessful candidates for one position may contest an election for subsequent positions, so please indicate all the positions you are nominating yourself for if you are self-nominating in advance. More information about these positions can be found in our bylaws.

Join us for this year’s Annual General Meeting, taking place over Zoom on March 27 starting at 12pm. Each year at the AGM, a new Executive Committee is elected. The elections will take place in the following order:

President; Vice President; Vice President External; Secretary-Treasurer; Recording Secretary; Chief Steward, Unit 1; Chief Steward, Unit 2; Chief Steward, Unit 3; Health & Safety Officer; Benefits & Advocacy Officer; Equity Officer; International Officer; Undergraduate Officer

In order to serve on the Executive Committee, you must be a member-in-good-standing of the union. You can nominate yourself or someone else in person in the meeting, or you can nominate yourself in advance by emailing brad@cupe3906.org to express your interest in any of these positions. Unsuccessful candidates for one position may contest an election for subsequent positions, so please indicate all the positions you are nominating yourself for if you are self-nominating in advance. More information about these positions can be found in our bylaws.

Please register in advance for the meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItc-yhrjktHtP60Ec5DWYqbWCMRRWmpq6m

The CUPE 3906 Women’s and Gender Rights Committee is happy to extend an invitation to all of you for the International Women’s Day event “Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Adversity and Finding Community in Times of Crisis” organized by the Women’s and Gender Rights Committee at University on March 10. Although this event is exclusively for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, all executives and staff are welcome to attend and enjoy the amazing workshops, care sessions, care packages, and food. Your ongoing support and contributions throughout the year to our committee are deeply appreciated.

To ensure a seamless experience and adequate provision of resources such as art supplies, care packages, and food, registration for the event is mandatory for all attendees. Please kindly share the link on socials/via emails to students.

Registration link:

https://forms.office.com/r/Q7j0LgAHgi

Contact the co-chairs at womenscommittee@cupe3906.org with any questions or to join the committee.

Please join us for a discussion on the position of international students in the Canadian higher education system

Place: McMaster University, Chester New Hall 106
Date: March 22nd, 2024
Time: 6:00-8:00PM

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYuf-ypqzMsEtZSCQJ5gFPeVJJwmzylWqG_

Event description:

This 2-hour hybrid conversation with experts, activists, and experienced scholars will offer a vision of the issues and conditions that international students face as workers and intellectuals while participating in the Canadian higher education system. The purpose of this panel is to reflect on ways to connect the struggles of international students as individuals and communities to the struggles for fair wages for all workers, both inside and outside of the university. In this discussion, we encourage everyone to orient political organizing and actions towards ameliorating the negative consequences of the neglect which international students face, affecting their ability to study while also compromising their mental and physical health and their financial well-being.

The panel will explore these questions:

• What are international students gaining from their education and degrees at so-called prestigious Canadian institutions, like McMaster University?
• How can we understand Canadian higher education’s interest and use of international students that simultaneously neglects to support their educational and working conditions?
• In a context where people are atomized into ephemeral and fragmented lives – like immigrants, students, and intellectual workers – how can we understand our rights, strengths, and vulnerabilities better and build solidarities with each other?
• How can we create collective organizing efforts amongst domestic and international students and workers that are not mediated by Canadian universities’ institutional frameworks but rather centered on solidarity frameworks conducive to organization, mutual aid, and care?
• What, precisely, can unions and community groups in Canada do to support international students?

Speakers:

Andrew Koltun, Immigration Lawyer, Koltun Law, Hamilton-Niagara region

Kaho Nishibu, International Student Steward at CUPE 4207, CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee elected member

Sarom Rho, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Migrant Students United, and Gig Workers United

Vedanth Govi, Department of Anthropology, York University, York Center for Asian Research, Center for Black, Brown and Queer Studies in Baltimore

Moderator: Alejandro Franco Briones, international student and worker, McMaster University, Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts

— Participants bios:

Andrew Koltun (Principal Lawyer at Koltun Law) is a practising immigration and refugee lawyer based in the Hamilton-Niagara region. Andrew is a strong believer in open borders for all. Andrew’s immigration practice focuses on files at the intersection of immigration, mental health and IRCC’s use of artificial intelligence to render decisions. He is currently co-counsel on a constitutional challenge to the PGWP eligibility requirements for discrimination against international students with health disabilities that preclude full-time studies. Andrew has appeared in immigration stories in the Canadian media. He has also testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Andrew can be reached at andrew@koltunlaw.ca

Kaho Nishibu (she/her) is the International Student Steward at CUPE 4207 and an elected member on the CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee. Originally from Japan, she has completed her undergraduate and Master’s degrees at Brock University, and now works as a Teaching Assistant at Brock, in addition to working in a non-profit immigration service sector. She is also involved in social and environmental justice organizing locally, as well as the animal justice movement in Asia.

Sarom Rho is an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), a workers’ organization with a membership of migrants in farm work, care work and all low-waged work, which includes international students, refugees, and undocumented people. MWAC is a membership-based, migrant-led organization that supports migrants across Canada to access basic rights and services. We support the formation of self-organized migrants at workplaces, communities and schools, in-person and online. At MWAC, Sarom coordinates and organizes with Migrant Students United, a group of current and former international students who are coming together across the country to fight for justice and permanent resident status for all.

Vedanth Govi is a P.h.D. Candidate at the Department of Anthropology, York University. They are a Graduate Research Associate at the York Center for Asian Research (YCAR) and hold a fellowship from the Center for Black, Brown and Queer Studies in Baltimore, USA. They are interested in tracing how international South Asians students exist within the larger infrastructures of internationalisation and Canadian higher education. They recently got published in TOPIA, the Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.

Alejandro (he/him) is an international student from Mexico currently pursuing a PhD in Communications, Cultural Studies, and New Media at McMaster University. He is a steward for CUPE 3906 and a sound artist and musician from Mexico City. He teaches digital audio and communications, and his research involves networked music interfaces mediated by feminist, anti-fascist, Marxist, and anti-colonial frameworks.

This event will be hybrid, offered in-person as well as streamed online. Please register for the event on Zoom, to let us know if you’ll be attending:

Designed by Cyril Chen (they/them) @cyberspacevoid

For more info, contact: leadsteward_tas@cupe3906.org

This is an important update that is relevant to Sessionals who did not teach in Fall 2023 and are teaching for the first time this academic year in Winter 2024.

For those of you who began teaching in January and did not opt out of the Unit 2 Dental Plan by widely publicized the February 5th deadline, the $150 single premium will be deducted from next week’s pay cheque (February 23rd). The plan offers $1000 per calendar year in dental services. You can find out additional information about coverage and how to make claims here: https://cupe3906.org/sessionals-unit-2/unit-2-dental-coverage/

For Sessionals who taught in the fall and did not opt out of the dental plan, your dental entitlement reset to $1000 for 2024 on January 1st