The main theme of this issue is: Where’s The Funding ?
This issue features:
– Gearing Up for Bargaining
– Provincial Funding and the Problem of Differentiation
– Higher-Education: Privilege or Right?
The Hamilton and District Labour Council is looking for Labour enthusiasts and activists to volunteer a couple of hours, once a month, to help foster relations between Labour and the Hamilton community, coalition groups, and the public at large.
You don’t have to be a delegate to Labour Council to help. We’re looking for people, with enthusiasm, to help at events, festivals, fairs, and other community gatherings. If you enjoy meeting and talking with people, and are not the type for meetings or committees, perhaps this is a way for you to be a Labour activist in Hamilton.
Become part of the Outreach Team!
Wednesday, February 25th at 7pm
Hamilton District Labour Council Office
1130 Barton Street East, 2nd floor
You can RSVP on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1413362165625010
We would like to extend an invitation to CUPE Ontario’s Where’s the Funding (WTF) campaign launch which is happening on Monday February 9th at McMaster. We are looking to engage a broad group of labour, student, and social justice activists on campus about the lack of funding facing the university.
Specifically there will be a rally and some speakers in the atrium of MUSC at 10:00am, and presentation and discussion of the University’s Budget happening at 3:00pm in MUSC 220.
Please see this link for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/333550090162182/
Rebecca Collins-Nelsen
President, CUPE Local 3906
Invitation : WTF poster
Sessional Faculty who hold seniority in CUPE 3906, Unit 2, have access to training through the McMaster Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (MIIETL).
Their website with a list of offerings is available at: http://miietl.mcmaster.ca/site/. In addition, online resources, such as the newly revised Guide to Teaching and Learning are available at:
http://miietl.mcmaster.ca/site/educational-development/
Other resources, such as the Sessional Faculty Notes can be accessed at: http://www.workingatmcmaster.ca/elr/collective-agreements/cupe-unit2/
Click here to read the letter delivered via Email to Department Chairs and Directors.
Title: General Membership Meeting
Location: MDCL 1009
Description: CUPE Local 3906 will be holding General Membership Meeting (GMM) on Thursday, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:00 pm in MDCL 1009. Free pizza and drinks will be served at 5:00, and the meeting will start at 5:30 pm. The GMM is the highest decision making body of the union, and is an important way to be involved in your union.
Election for the position of
1) Chief Steward (TAs/RAs in lieu)
2) Unit 3 Chief Steward
3) Vice President External
4) International Officer
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2015-01-22
End Time: 19:30
Meeting Agenda:
CUPE Local 3906 will be holding General Membership Meeting (GMM) on Thursday, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:00 pm in MDCL 1009. Free pizza and drinks will be served at 5:00, and the meeting will start at 5:30 pm. The GMM is the highest decision making body of the union, and is an important way to be involved in your union.
Election for the position of
1) Chief Steward (TAs/RAs in lieu)
2) Unit 3 Chief Steward
3) Vice President External
4) International Officer
Location : MDCL 1009
Time : 5:00 PM
Free pizza and drinks will be served at 5:00 pm and Meeting starts at 5:30 pm.
Postdoctoral Fellow Postings–McMaster Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning
McMaster has hosted a MOSAIC Q and A in MUMC 1A6 on Nov 3, 2014 (5 to 6 pm). We have attended it. The presentation slides can be viewed here.
Agenda
Title: Save Medicare Rally
Location: Ontario Legislature, Queen’s Park Toronto
Link out: Click here
Description: STOP private clinics
SAVE our local public hospitals
12 p.m. Friday November 21
Giant Rally @ Ontario Legislature, Queen’s Park Toronto
www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
A message from Ontario Health Coalition Executive Director Natalie Mehra
Ontario’s government is forging ahead with the most aggressive plan ever to strip local community hospitals of services and cut or privatize them. If we do not take action now, it is no exaggeration to warn that community hospitals as we know them will be totally dismantled.
Ontario’s hospitals have already been cut for 20 years. We have suffered the deepest cuts in Canada. We actually have the fewest hospital beds left per person of virtually every country in the OECD.
Despite the deepest hospital cuts of all peer jurisdictions in Canada and internationally, our government continues to plan to eviscerate hospital services. The Ontario government is already systematically closing down outpatient services: physiotherapy, labs, pain clinics, fertility clinics and so on. Their written plan is to close all outpatient services. They will go to private clinics.
They now plan to cut as many surgeries and diagnostic tests from local public hospitals as possible, and contract them out to private clinics.
Draconian cuts to chronic care (complex continuing care) beds are planned — in some areas, the government is planning to cut 50% of the remaining beds.
Patients are faced with driving further for care as it is taken out of local hospitals and centralized into one factory-like private clinic per region.
Local community hospitals are told to shrink the scope of the services they provide and specialize in only a few things. Patients will have to drive from site to site to get care.
User fees and co-payments are required for virtually every service moved out of our public hospitals. Private clinics are charging user fees in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars for extra add-ons, in violation of the Canada Health Act and the principles of Public Medicare in Canada.
Even most politicians do not realize the full extent of the plan to dismantle our community hospitals. As we have seen for decades, it will not save money — at least not for patients — but it will fragment care, worsen access, lead to wholesale privatization and two-tier health care.
Our response must be commensurate to the threat and the threat is at an all-time high.
Regular Ontarians from every walk of life — local businesses, seniors, care workers, health professionals, students; all of us who care about equal access to health care based on need not wealth — we all have a vital interest in saving our community hospitals.
We are calling for our biggest demonstration ever. We are asking everyone to take one day to lend your voice to protect vital services that everyone in our communities need. Come out November 21 at noon at Queen’s Park Toronto. Buses will be organized from communities across Southern and Mid-Ontario. Please contact us if you want to get on the bus at 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.ca.
Buses available from Hamilton: Ron Wells 905-547-1417 ext. 225
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1494042914196278/
Start Time: 12:00
Date: 2014-11-21