Join the Contract Action Team in MUSC 224 on Thursday, March 19th between 10AM and 2PM for free coffee, tea, and snacks!
Bring your union questions or just come to get a treat and say ‘hello’!
We hope to see you there!
General Membership Meeting – March 16th at 1 p.m.
Our March General Membership Meeting (GMM) will be held on Monday, March 16th at 1:00 p.m. via Zoom. You can register at the link below. Please register at least 24 hours before the meeting in order to be approved and sent the meeting link as we are not always able to confirm last minute registrations. The agenda for the meeting and other relevant materials will be posted to www.cupe3906.org/gmm-materials
An email should have arrived to your McMaster email address.
Increase to Member Eligibility: Unit 2 Reproductive Health and Gender Affirmation Fund
The Benefits Committee has voted to increase Unit 2 members’ yearly maximum entitlement to the Unit 2 Reproductive Health and Gender Affirmation Fund to $1,000 per member per academic year.
The change applies retroactive to September 1, 2025.
To see what is covered by the fund and how to submit an application, please visit https://cupe3906.org/sessionals-unit-2/u2garhf/.
We warmly encourage Unit 2 members to apply to the fund!
Unit 4 Collective Agreement Ratified
We are pleased to share that our Tentative Agreement ratification vote has concluded with 94% of Unit 4 members voting in favour of ratification!
Please note that we are still waiting for McMaster to complete their own ratification process at the March 5th Board of Governors Meeting. Once ratified by McMaster, our Collective Agreement will then take effect.
We’ll have more information to share about the implementation process once the agreement is ratified by McMaster.
Thank you to everyone who voted and who was involved in this historic first round of bargaining for Residence Life workers!
CUPE 3906 Annual General Membership Meeting (AGM) 2026 Notice
Attention all CUPE 3906 Members!
Our Annual General Membership Meeting (AGM) will occur on Monday, March 30th, 2026, at 2:00 P.M. via “Zoom”.
Agenda items for the AGM include:
- yearly executive officer and committee reports;
- yearly executive officer elections; and
- trustee election (position expires Fall 2028).
The registration link will be sent to members’ McMaster email address soon. Please check your “other”/”junk”/”notification”/”spam” inboxes for the invitation to register.
Please find the Local’s Bylaws at this link: https://cupe3906.org/about-us/by-laws/
For a description of the Executive Officer Positions, please see Article 5 (starting on page 14) of the Local’s Bylaws. For a description of Trustee Position, please see Article 3(a) of the Local’s Bylaws (starting on page 6).
Article 4 of the Local’s Bylaws (starting on page 8) outlines the guidelines for the nomination, campaign, and election processes.
The Nomination Form for Executive Officer Positions is available at this link: https://cupe3906.org/cupe-3906-executive-position-nomination-form/. Please follow the instructions on the nomination form carefully. Nominations open on Monday, March 2nd, 2026, and close at the meeting. (If you intend to nominate yourself or someone else from the floor during the AGM, you are not required to submit a nomination form.)
If you have any questions, please contact president@cupe3906.org, brad@cupe3906.org, or mary@cupe3906.org.
STATEMENT ON OSAP CHANGES AND TUITION FREEZE ENDING
The CUPE 3906 Executive Committee stands firmly opposed to the Ontario government’s decision to end the post-secondary tuition freeze and shift OSAP funding toward a majority-loan model.
The previous post-secondary tuition freeze was achieved through years of student organizing to make post-secondary education more accessible. Rolling it back, while simultaneously reducing funding supports for students, will only deepen inequality and push post-secondary education further out of reach for working-class and marginalized Ontarians.
As a union representing student workers and academics, we know that when we are forced to take on more debt and work longer hours to afford tuition, our entire campus community suffers.
We call on the Ford government to maintain the tuition freeze and restore OSAP funding primarily through grants.
We call on McMaster University to publicly oppose these changes and commit to protecting students from harmful tuition increases.
Our members and students deserve better.
Unit 4 tentative agreement reached!
We are excited to share that after a year and a half of bargaining, your Unit 4 bargaining team has secured an historic first tentative collective agreement with McMaster.
Your bargaining team will be recommending this tentative agreement for ratification at an online Special General Membership Meeting (SGMM) on Thursday, February 19th at 1:00 PM. During the meeting, Unit 4 members will have the opportunity to review the entire collective agreement and ask questions of the bargaining team.
Following the meeting on Thursday, a link will be sent to all Unit 4 members with a ballot to vote on ratifying the agreement. Voting will remain open following the meeting until Monday, February 23rd at 9:00 AM.
This tentative agreement would not have been possible without the immense support that members have shown since we first voted to unionize with CUPE, almost two years ago!
We hope to see you at the ratification meeting, where we’ll be able to share more details on the tentative agreement.
In solidarity,
Your Unit 4 Bargaining Team
(Caleb, Elissa, Simran, Anna, Muskaan, and Vanessa)
Unit 2 Dental Deductions – Winter 2026
Unit 2 Members who are working in the Winter 2026 term and have not already paid the 2025-2026 Dental Coverage Premium or did not opt-out of CUPE Dental Coverage for the 2025-2026 academic year will see a “CUPE Dental” deduction on their McMaster pay statements on February 20, 2026.
The $115 deduction will appear as separate line in the “current” deductions section of your pay statement on February 20th, and a record of the deduction will stay on the “YTD” (year-to-date) section of your pay statement until the end of the 2026 calendar year. (Please note that deductions listed in the “YTD” section of your pay statement do not necessarily indicate active deductions, but are a record of deductions for the calendar year.)
Dental coverage is retroactive to September 1, 2025, and remains active until the end of August 31, 2026, regardless of which term you work in the 2025-2026 academic year. This means that you can submit dental claims from the Fall 2025 term even if you were not working as a CUPE 3906 member in the Fall term.
If you work as a CUPE 3906 Unit 1 or 2 member in the 2026-2027 academic year (and do not successfully opt-out of coverage in the next academic year), your eligibility for coverage will continue after August 31, 2026.
If you have questions about CUPE 3906 dental coverage, please visit https://cupe3906.org/sessionals-unit-2/unit-2-dental-coverage/, or contact administrator@cupe3906.org.
February GMM – February 17th at 2 p.m.
Our next General Membership Meeting (GMM) is scheduled for Tuesday, February 17th at 2 p.m.
The meeting will be held via Zoom and the link will be sent out shortly. You’ll need to register at least 24 hours in advance. The agenda will be posted in advance at www.cupe3906.org/gmm-materials
The Skin We’re In – Speaking Event with Desmond Cole
Join our Equity Committee and best-selling author Desmond Cole on February 23rd at 3 p.m. in MUSC 311/13 for a discussion of his book The Skin We’re In. An event poster is attached here.