CUPE 3338 set up pickets lines this morning, effectively shutting down Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) downtown Vancouver campus. Stepping up job action, this union of SFU support workers has for months been immensely frustrated with the University’s refusal to negotiate. The union “reports virtually no progress in more than two years of talks.” “With inflation, our members are actually falling behind in real terms,” says 3338 business agent John Bannister, “unlike top SFU administers who have been enjoying substantial annual increases while refusing to negotiate with us.” “SFU has arbitrarily decided it will not sit down and bargain in good faith with us,” says CUPE 3338 president Lynne Fowler. “It has chosen instead to focus on its broken pension plan and deny its CUPE employees the right to negotiate a new collective agreement,” she adds.
Earlier this month, CUPE 3799 support workers picketed the University of Northern British Columbia’s (UNBC) campus while CUPE 116 escalated job action at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Following failed mediation, CUPE 2278 teaching assistants will take a strike vote next week to likely escalate CUPE job action at UBC. Undergraduate students at UBC are calling for solidarity with the unions.
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