The attempts by students on several campuses across the country to decertify their unions from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) returned to the spotlight last week, after a letter from the executive of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE 3902) became public.
CUPE 3902 represents 7,000 education workers at U of T, including teaching assistants, lab demonstrators, PhD course instructors, and invigilators. The letter, sent by the union’s executive committee to its members, was made public on Friday on studentunion.ca.
The letter states that the executive committee has “decided to join our provincial union in supporting the CFS and urging our members to oppose efforts at defederation.” CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn denounced the decertification attempts in a September letter, calling them “union-busting.”
U of T’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) is one of the groups for which a decertification petition was circulated. That petition was spearheaded by Ashleigh Ingle, a former GSU executive who also served as recording secretary on the bargaining committee for CUPE 3902, Unit 1, during contract negotiations with the university in 2012. Ingle, along with then-chief spokesperson James Nugent, resigned from the committee to speak out against the settlement that was ultimately reached between the university and the union. Many members of the GSU are also members of CUPE 3902.
The letter from CUPE’s executive notes that both the GSU and CFS “have supported our Local when we needed support; both are partners in our ongoing struggle for better learning, working, and living conditions.”
In November 2011, CUPE 3902 members voted 91 per cent in favour of a strike after unsatisfactory negotiations with the university following the expiration of the existing collective agreement in April of that year. The ratification of an eventual agreement in February 2012 prevented a strike from taking place. The CFS did not take a position on the possibility of a strike at the time.
The letter from the executive committee acknowledges that “among the many members of CUPE 3902, there will be a variety of opinions regarding the defederation campaign,” and assures members that “those members who decide to support defederation will not face any resistance within the union and are entitled to have their voices heard and respected.”
On Thursday, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) published an open letter calling on the CFS to acknowledge a decertification petition that the CSU claims was submitted by some of its members. The letter states that the federation has denied receiving the petition, but that the CSU is “in receipt of a certified true copy of the petition, as well as a registered mail certificate authenticating its receipt at the CFS national office.”
The letter also calls for the CFS National Executive “to review the submitted petition in good faith, and to set dates for a referendum on continued membership in the CFS.”
