VANCOUVER– CUPE National President Paul Moist and CUPE BC President Barry O’Neill plan to join striking support workers from SFU and Vancouver Community College for a rally in downtown Vancouver tomorrow.
Moist and O’Neill will join a rally at VCC with some of the 1,000 members of CUPE Local 3338 who are shutting down Simon Fraser University’s three campuses from midnight tonight until midnight tomorrow. The members of CUPE Local 4627 will be picketing the college’s two Vancouver campuses.
Paul Moist will also be visiting CUPE members on the picket line at SFU’s main Burnaby Mountain campus tomorrow morning.
The post-secondary support workers have been without a contract since 2010.
At SFU the employer has repeatedly refused to negotiate in good faith for a new agreement. Every other BC university has recently reached new collective agreements with their CUPE employees including UBC, UNBC, UVic, Thompson Rivers and Royal Roads (Local 2278 at UBC is in mediation today). CUPE 3338 says it has no alternative but to continue ramping up job action to try to get the employer to the table for a deal.
The striking SFU workers along with striking TSSU teaching assistants and SFU Faculty Association supporters will march three blocks to the Victory Square entrance of Vancouver Community College to join their striking CUPE 4627 colleagues there.
The 420 members of CUPE Local 4627 have also been without a contract for more than two years. Provincial government red tape has so far blocked any new collective agreements for the more than 3,000 CUPE workers at BC’s colleges.
March: 12:30-1pm leaving from SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings
Rally: 1-1:30pm Vancouver Community College, 250 West Pender
