CUPE 3902

In 1973, the University administration recommended a 6% salary increase for all academic staff except TAs. The Graduate Students' Union (GSU) tried to get the University Administration to bargain with them, but the Administration refused. And so, on June 6, 1973 a group of 7 TAs met to form what became CUPE 3902. Together with a band of volunteers and with the financial support of the GSU (which paid the salary of an organizer), they organized to form a trade union, the first for student academic workers in Canada.

Prior to certification, there were some 444 pay categories for TAs at the University of Toronto. Members could be fired without cause, and had no avenue for appeal. Hiring was, in many cases, an exercise in patronage.

The drive for a Union first met with success at Victoria College. The TAs at Victoria were granted a certificate as Local One, Graduate Assistants' Association (GAA). Since the Arts Departments were transferred from the Colleges to the University in 1974, the Victoria unit ceased to have any employees. As a result a Collective Agreement was never entered into and representation rights lapsed. At the same time, the centre of energy shifted to the main U of T campus. Local Two, GAA, was certified in 1975 after a long legal battle and a certification vote.

The first collective agreement (1975-1977) reduced the 444 pay categories to three. Hiring procedures were established and a grievance procedure was formulated to solve problems and to settle disputes and differences of opinion between TAs and course instructors and the Administration. The establishment of these norms respecting graduate student employment was a first in Canada.

At the same time, TAs and sessional lecturers were organizing at York University (now Local 3903 of CUPE) and Ryerson University (3904). The National Union grew rapidly, if chaotically, in those early years, organizing TAs at Lakehead University (3905), TAs and contract faculty at McMaster University (3906), and graduate assistants at OISE (3907). In 1980, the Union renamed itself the Canadian Union of Educational Workers (CUEW). CUEW eventually organized contract faculty at Trent University (3908), TAs and student instructors at the University of Manitoba (3909), contract faculty at the University of Ottawa (which disaffiliated in 1992), and contract faculty at Athabasca University (3911).

By the early 1990s, the National Union had grown to be the dominant union in its field—part-time academic employees in the post-secondary sector. New organizing drives were launched which yielded two more locals — Dalhousie University (3912) and the University of Guelph (3913). There were more demands from other TAs and sessional and part-time lecturers for organizing drives.

However, the National Union had entered a financial and leadership crisis which resulted in merger discussions with CUPE. The local joined CUPE 1 January 1995 following a membership referendum authorizing the merger.

Starting in 1997, the Union began to work with non-student instructional staff to join CUPE 3902. After two applications, and an extended process in front of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, sessionals finally certified in the summer of 2004 with nearly 90% in favour of joining. Just prior to the issuance of the sessionals' certificate, the Union worked with contract instructional staff at Victoria University, successfully certifying in the summer of 2004 with only 2 votes cast against the Union. Both of these units negotiated a first contract in 2004-2005. The sessionals' Agreement was ratified on 1 April 2005, and the Victoria Agreement was ratified on 4 May 2005. Contracts for both have been renegotiated once and are undergoing their next round of bargaining commencing the summer of 2009.