CUPE Local 3338 represents workers at all three SFU campuses
A union representing nearly 1,200 workers at SFU plans to hold a strike vote at the end of September. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3338, represents workers include campus facilities cleaners, as well as various clerical positions across SFU’s Burnaby, Surrey, and Vancouver campuses.
The decision to hold a vote on a strike mandate is the result of two years of negotiations with their university employer. The union has pushed for more substantial collective bargaining opportunities since the expiry of their previous labor contract, and they believe that a strike vote is the most viable next step in pushing for more productive negotiations.
According to the union, the lack of serious negotiation on issues such as job security, pension plans, and wages, is at the heart of the decision to hold a strike vote. “Essentially, we haven’t had a lift to our wages for a long time, and the cost of living has gone up; that’s the basic thing that people are concerned about,” said CUPE Local 3338 president Lynne Fowler in an interview with The Peak. “We’ve been bargaining since 2010, so it’s been a long and involved process.”
The effects of this strike on students and the campus would be dependent on factors such as the actual number of workers in support of going on strike and the types of positions that would need to be filled by SFU management in the absence of support staff. While a campus-wide strike is possible, it is not a step the union wishes to take immediately in the event of a passing vote. On this notion, the union president said that, “the goal is not to hurt students, the goal is to try and get the attention of management and get them to sit down and talk to you productively.”
In regards to the possibility of a strike, president Fowler said, “I’m hoping that a positive strike vote will get us some more movement in talking to management, but I don’t have any expectations about going on strike. Nobody wants to go on strike, nobody’s happy about the idea of doing that; it’s basically about having the ability to do it if you absolutely have to.”
The announcement of this strike vote follows other sentiments of labour unrest on campus as the Teaching Support Staff Union held a similar vote earlier this year from June 26 – 28. The TSSU voted 90 per cent in favour of a strike. This vote comes roughly a year after CUPE members were locked out by the Simon Fraser Student Society last fall.
