CUPE 3906

On October 18th, 2023, CUPE 3906 membership voted to adopt the follow statement around academic freedom and critical scholarship during our General Membership Meeting (GMM) in response to the call from the Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, Racism, Colonialism & Censorship in Canada (ARC):

“CUPE 3906 unequivocally supports the academic freedom of its members. This freedom includes the right to pursue research and open inquiry in an honest search for knowledge that is free from institutional censorship, including that of the government. CUPE 3906 acknowledges that the freedom from political and institutional censure is especially critical at times of war and conflict where scholarly voices are an important corrective to widespread disinformation campaigns.

CUPE 3906 supports the anti-racist and decolonial initiatives in Canadian educational institutions and opposes anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia along with all forms of racism and hatred. We will strive to ensure our members are free from experiencing bigotry and hate in our classrooms and campuses. The Local is committed to upholding the security and safety of all scholars who are targeted because of their scholarship and political work. We call upon institutions, like McMaster University, to implement measures to safeguard our members.

CUPE 3906 acknowledges that targeted attacks against scholars who support the Palestinian struggle have a chilling effect on the academic freedom of our members in the classroom, in their research, and in campus politics more broadly. These repressive tactics must be challenged, and scholars must be free from all forms of recrimination and harassment that may occur due to the nature of their research.“

Join us for our third general membership meeting of the term, in-person or virtually on Zoom this coming Wednesday, November 15th from 2 pm. If you have not already, we ask that you fill out the Member-in-Good-Standing form. As always, pre-registration will be required to attend this meeting. These meetings usually run 2+ hours; we ask that you attend if you can, or drop by in-part otherwise.

Please remember: You must register with your McMaster email address no later than 10 AM on the day of the GMM. Using your Mac address is needed for us to confirm your union membership prior to the meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.  Any members wishing to present pre-written motions should provide theirs via email to president@cupe3906.org by Monday, November 13. Please reach out to the Local President if you have questions about how to do so, or what can be brought to the forum of a general membership meeting.

Register in advance for our GMM. You will receive a Zoom link after registration, and the room number if you indicate in-person attendance: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYufuCqpjkrHNPoyU08jXlf5ECu9xQ-DvDR 

This statement was developed with profound care by the Executive Committee in response to backlash over a tweet posted on ‘X’ in solidarity with Palestinians early Saturday afternoon. As we mourn the attacks on the sanctity of human life and indiscriminate killing of civilians, we have taken the time as an Executive to have conversations unpacking our responsibilities as settler and Indigenous workers dedicated to living decolonized realities. We have the responsibility to continue these conversations with our membership and the broader labour movement. We likewise believe in open and principled communication. To this end, we encourage any member with concerns or questions to reach out to president@cupe3906.org.

As the Executive Committee of CUPE 3906, we refute the conflation between support for Palestine and an end to the occupation as condoning violence against civilians. We refuse the distortion of our message for any other contexts and the disingenuous fabrication of what the CUPE 3906 Executive stands “for” or “against.”

As a Local, we have consistently maintained a position that opposes the arms trade and Canadian state funding for imperial war while imagining a world beyond war. Decades of oppression, occupation, and apartheid have given rise to the struggle we are seeing now, escalating a cycle that results in even more death and suffering. We recognize that, as Jewish Voice for Peace voiced in their statement, “oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom.”  Just as we invoke in our Land Acknowledgement every meeting, “from 1492 Landback Lane to the fisheries at Sipekne’katik and far beyond, we stand in solidarity with Indigenous people who continue to assert their territorial sovereignty despite mounting risks of settler colonial violence.” 

On October 7, 2023 at 12:37 PM, the President of CUPE 3906 reposted a video on X (i.e. Twitter) shared by Nadi Abusaada, a Palestinian architect, historian, and Aga Khan Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT. The video, originally posted by Al Jazeera producer Rania Zabaneh, shows a bulldozer destroying part of a militarized barbed wire fence built by the Israeli state, separating the Gaza Strip from the rest of occupied Palestine. Abusaada described this as the “breaking down of colonial barriers.” The re-post by CUPE 3906 added the following message, “Palestine is rising, long live the resistance” with a quote by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani: “Everything in this world can be robbed and stolen, except one thing; this one thing is the love that emanates from a human being towards a solid commitment to a conviction or cause.” This was cross-posted to Instagram.

Later that day, these posts were removed following violent messages received by Executive members and staff over email. McMaster issued a statement expressing that the University “is shocked and disappointed at the comments made by CUPE Local 3906 regarding this violence,” following that while CUPE 3906 “is an independent group with the right to express its views, the university is in disagreement with any statement condoning violence.” We reject any characterization of our message, replying to images of apartheid infrastructure coming down, as celebrating civilian death.

Our years of support for Palestine is rooted in historical context that Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is “unlawful under international law,” as per the October 2022 report to the United Nations General Assembly. It likewise rooted in the context that unequivocal resistance to colonial subjugation is a right enshrined under UN resolution 37/43. The context CUPE 3906 draw upon stands with “well respected human rights organizations like Amnesty International and HRW,” echoing the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Amnesty International’s 280-page report released in February 2022 painstakingly details Israeli apartheid, particularly striking in the 75th year of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic): the displacement from their homes which began alongside the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. Since 2007, Israel has imposed an air, land, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, popularly characterized as the world’s largest “open air prison.”  The message we released early Saturday afternoon was enshrined in these contexts – not with intention to celebrate death of civilians or loss of life.

The voices of Palestinian students, faculty, politicians, and their allies are targeted everywhere by the highly organized Zionist lobby in Canada, its targets inclusive now of CUPE 3906 and the President of CUPE Ontario. The rhetoric being levvied at Local 3906 is not new: characterizing our messaging as support for “terrorism,” with the aim of silencing support. We also recognize that Palestinian community members face this backlash time and time again: being principled means being clear and conscionable in our response, and recognizing that decolonization is “about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools” (Tuck & Yang).

CUPE 3906 will be hosting it’s first General Membership Meeting, or GMM, of the new academic year on Wednesday, September 20th at 2 p.m. Due to scheduling and room availability on campus (which is especially busy this time of year) the meeting will be in an on-line only format. We expect to be back with hybrid meetings for our October 18th meeting.

You can find the registration link for the September GMM here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tceygrTwiHdO8tI_-UE-F5wlN1-Efo5dI

At this meeting, we will be holding elections for Vice President and Chief Steward, Unit 3. The latter position is restricted to current postdoctoral fellows. We will also be presenting and voting upon an operating budget for the 2023-24 fiscal/academic year.

This workshop reviews what it means to be a CUPE Local 3906 Unit 1 member and covers different aspects of professionalism to set TAs up for success at McMaster.

Register via Eventbrite

Note: this is an in-person offering of one of two required workshops for mandatory TA training. New CUPE Local 3906, Unit 1 employee are required to complete 5-hours of mandatory training. The training includes a module on Anti-Oppression (2-hours) and TA Rights & Responsibilities (1-hour). The additional 2-hours of training are selected from a menu of centrally offered elective workshops. Online asynchronous versions of all workshops are available on Avenue to Learn. Register for the remaining workshops through the regulatory training tile in Mosaic to complete the 5 hours. Once registered, the training will be available in Avenue to Learn approximately 15 minutes after registration.

Please bring an electronic device with you and enroll in your Faculty-based course prior to attending the in-person workshop as you’ll be completing a short online quiz at the end of the workshop. This quiz must be completed to receive payment for the training.