Q&A – Join CUPE

What is CUPE?

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is Canada’s largest and fastest-growing union, with more than 700,000 members from coast to coast, working in municipalities, health care, social services, universities, school boards, transportation, communications, and more. In the last two years alone, our membership has grown by more than 50,000.

We are a grassroots, democratic union. Our membership is more than 60 percent women, and includes workers in more than 4000 bargaining units across the country.

More than 22,000 library workers are CUPE members, including those in more than 60 municipal library systems across the province, as well as at Southern Ontario Library Services.

In southwestern Ontario, our members work in every library job classification, and you can find more detailed information about our library membership and campaigns on our national library sector profile page.

What libraries are in CUPE?

CUPE has members in 75 public library bargaining units across Ontario. These include workers in:

As well as in Southern Ontario Library Services (SOLS) and Ontario Library Services North (OLSN)

What libraries are in CUPE?

CUPE has members in 75 public library bargaining units across Ontario. These include workers in:

As well as in Southern Ontario Library Services (SOLS) and Ontario Library Services North (OLSN)

How are decisons made?

CUPE is a democratic, grassroots union.

You and your co-workers will form a bargaining unit. Decisions affecting your collective agreement, your bargaining priorities and even your dues rate are made by you and your co-workers. Likewise, decisions about when, where and how union meetings will be held are made by you, though those rules (your local bylaws) must be in line with the CUPE Constitution.

You elect your local leadership, and you elect your bargaining committee. You contribute to setting bargaining priorities, you vote on what is presented at the bargaining table, and you decide whether to accept any agreement made at the table.

As a local (a local can have more than one bargaining unit), you decide who to send to the national and provincial conventions and library workers conferences. Your chosen representatives will then vote on provincial and national leadership and policies.

In CUPE, we recognize that not every member is able to be actively involved, but we strongly encourage all members to participate in union functions and decisions.

What is a union card?

A union card is your statement that you wish to form a union in your workplace.

It is confidential, and your employer will never know you signed a card.

In Ontario, the legal process of forming a local union is governed by the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA). That law dictates that a minimum of 40% of the workers in a proposed bargaining unit (i.e. non-management workers at the library) must sign union cards for there to even be a vote.

So, in addition to being your application for membership in CUPE, the card is evidence required by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB). Once enough cards have been signed, we can apply to the OLRB to hold a vote. If a majority of workers vote yes, then you have your union and begin electing your leaders and negotiating your first collective agreement.

How much are dues?

In CUPE, dues are typically around 1.5% of base wages. They vary because the local portion of dues are set by local members based on their priorities.

There are two parts to your dues: National and Local.

National dues are set by the Constitution at 0.85% and have not changes in our 55-year history. These dues provide your National Staff Representative, and a host of specialist services, including communications, research, equality, pay equity, legal, health and safety, WSIB, and more.

Local dues are set by the members of the local, but are typically around 0.65%. These dues provide time for your locally elected executive, stewards and bargaining committee to work on your behalf. They cover the cost of meeting space if it must be rented, and they cover the cost of sending people to training and conferences.

All union dues are fully tax deductible.

What can CUPE guarantee?

We can guarantee excellent representation. We can guarantee your local access to our incredible education programs, which include about 100 courses and workshops on all aspects of stewarding, financial management, how to hold meetings, collective bargaining, bargaining equity and equality, and more.

We can guarantee you a fair and safe system for settling disputes between you or your union and your employer. The law requires a grievance policy that can have a neutral third party make the final decision if the parties cannot agree. Your employer cannot refuse to include a grievance policy in the collective agreement.

We can guarantee just cause termination. Right now, your employer doesn’t need a reason to let you go. After a successful vote, they can only terminate your employment with a valid cause, and we have the ability to challenge an unjust termination.

We can guarantee they will not arbitrarily change your terms or conditions of work. The law prohibits them from doing so while we are all working together to negotiate a first collective agreement.

We can be confident that your wages and working conditions will only improve. We start our negotiations based on where you are now, and as a group that negotiates about 4000 collective agreements, we can say with confidence that we only move forward.

How does bargaining work?

Most of your rights in the workplace, wage enhancements, and benefits are contained in a collective agreement that is negotiated between the union and the employer.

You will gain some new rights just by joining a union, and some are guaranteed to be included in your collective agreement (see “What can CUPE guarantee?”). But most are negotiated, starting with what you have now as a base line.

In brief, here is the bargaining process:

You and your co-workers elect your bargaining committee. These people work with your National Staff Representative through every step in the process.
Your bargaining committee receives training from CUPE.
The bargaining committee surveys members to identify priorities.
The bargaining committee prepares the package to be presented at the bargaining table.
You review and vote on that package.
The committee sits down with the employer’s representatives and works to get you the best agreement possible.
When the committee has the best deal they can negotiate, they bring it back to you for a vote. If it is a good agreement and you vote yes, you have new rights and your first collective agreement. If it is not good enough and you vote no, then we decide together what our next steps will be.

While the committee can’t tell you in detail what is happening at the table, you will get updates on how things are proceeding. And as you can see, you have input and decision making power at several points in the process.

I'm retiring in the next few years, should I sign a card?

Definitely. You will be helping to ensure your younger colleagues can benefit from being members of CUPE. If you don’t sign a card, you are in fact preventing that from happening because a minimum of 40 percent of current employees must sign cards before there can be a vote. Signing a card will simply allow the vote to take place. If you don’t want to vote to influence the results, you still should sign a card to allow your co-workers the opportunity to vote.

Also remember that bargaining can extend to retirees’ benefits as well. Maybe you’d like to fight for post-retirement benefits? Or better wages/working conditions while you’re still working? Maybe the possibility of continuing to work in a casual and/or temporary capacity after retirement? The possibilities are endless for you and your colleagues.

Will the employer know I signed a card?

Your Employer will never see the cards. CUPE organizers protect confidentiality and never disclose to the employer who signed a card and who didn’t. The employer is only ever advised that CUPE had the required number of cards in order to file an Application for Certification by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB). Any other information collected remains between you, the CUPE organizer and the OLRB.

How will the vote be conducted?

Once we have enough cards to meet the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) requirements, we file an Application for Certification. As a card signer and CUPE supporter, you will be kept informed at every step of the process.

The vote itself will be called and run by the OLRB. Because of COVID-19, the votes are being done by electronic ballot. You will receive an email from the OLRB with voting instructions, and can vote online using a computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. There will also be a help line you can call.

It is a vote by secret ballot, so no one will ever know how you, personally, voted.

If at least 50% +1 of the votes cast are “Yes,” then you have your union and can begin the process of electing your leaders and bargaining committee. You’re on your way to your first collective agreement!