Aiden Farrant

May 25th to 28th, 2025

1) Convention Objectives and Outcomes

1.1) Stated Objectives

• 1.1.1) Passing Resolutions

The Local had intended for the convention floor to move two of its proposed resolutions which would serve to improve and reinforce support for the post-secondary academic sector, and to increase participation in the labour justice and pro-labour political activism landscape. The (paraphrased) resolutions were:

1. For CUPE NS to provide material support (financial and personnel) to the post-secondary aca- demic sector, and
2. For CUPE NS to join, platform, and mobilize for the Justice for Workers movement and cam- paigns.

We were successful in getting these resolutions adopted, with several delegates speaking to either in a compelling, convincing, and heartfelt way. The Local’s delegates, including myself, also spoke in support of other resolutions proposed namely by CUPE 5047 (education workers in Halifax public schools) and CUPE NS committees to share our unique perspective as precarious academics in need of improved advocacy and unified action.

Several delegates, including myself, also spoke out against a constitutional amendment that would have seen the age range for ”young workers” designations increase from 30 to 35. While initially in support, tableside chatter with the other young worker delegates from our Local, and recalling the difficult schism in perspective between the 2022 Dalhousie Strike Committee and those young worker members who picketed, I and others ultimately expressed discontent for this change. The amendment did not succeed, and it did not appear necessary as the attendance at the young workers caucus had grown exponentially, from 2 attendees in 2023, to 4 in 2024, and 25 in at this convention (with a strong showing from Local 3912).

In all, I believe the delegates were successful in achieving this part of the mandate it was delivered by the members.

• 1.1.2) Installing CUPE NS President

The other and perhaps more important objective of the strong showing at the 2025 Convention was to (hopefully) install our own member Christine Saulnier as President of CUPE NS. Every delegate slid headfirst into their roles as Christine’s ”ground team” and continually agitated and mobilized on her behalf. The skills learned through this experience are priceless, and will be expanded on in Section 2.1. We really gave it our all, and it was incredibly satisfying to see a majority of the delegates sporting beautiful ”Christine for CUPE NS” buttons on their lanyards.

Despite this, the floor was not in majority support for a change in direction. The perceived institutional candidate and former CUPE NS VP won the post, and based on his executive report, will advocate for a ”staying of the course” direction for CUPE NS. The many conversations I had with the voting bloc opposed to Christine highlighted the desire for this direction, where the beliefs that CUPE NS as an organization primarily representing the health care sector should be represented by someone from that sector, and that coalition outside of CUPE and across sectors is less important, were rampant and vociferous. More about this and how I find CUPE NS to operate will come in Section 2.2. I am sympathetic, but I admit understanding and true compassion for those adopting this position escapes me.

I can wholeheartedly say that the the delegates made their best efforts to make this objective a reality, and that their mandate from the membership is fulfilled. No amount of campaigning and electioneering can truly overcome the will of the people in a real democracy, and I believe that our attempt was righteous and valiant. In Christine’s own words, ”While we didn’t win the vote, what we built together was absolutely a win. We brought energy, ideas, and hope into this race. We showed what leadership rooted in listening, organizing, and action can look like. We sparked important conversations across CUPE Nova Scotia about where we’re headed and how we can grow stronger together.” I certainly will sleep soundly knowing all the delegates, myself included, did our best to honour the membership’s trust.

1.2) Alternate Objectives

• 1.2.1) Being Present

The number of staffpeople who approached me to say ”CUPE 3912 doesn’t normally come to these, I’m so glad you’re here” is both heartwarming and alarming. It was clear from the outset that the Local and the sector more broadly need improved representation at the NS Convention and under CUPE NS’s gaze. I think this slate of delegates made significant strides in improving this presence, not just through campaigning for Christine (and therefore having a candidate run for CUPE NS president), but also in speaking to resolutions and mobilizing to build coalition across sectors and different locals. We as a Local stand to gain a lot of sympathy from sharing our stories and conveying understanding about the precariousness of our positions. Many of the speakers, CUPE NS, and National executives stressed how important it was that certain sectors had gained access to employer-funded pension and health benefits plans in recent collective action wins. These same speakers and the Locals and sectors they come from were shocked when they learned how low our wages are, especially in comparison to similar work done elsewhere and by members of other unions, how we lack benefits and pensions, and how incredibly low our job security is. It is clear that the idea of a CUPE 3912 member in the eyes of other CUPE NS members differs extremely from the precarious reality of our situation. This convention facilitated conversations which served to slowly erode this fac¸ade of success and privilege, and build coalition between workers who all feel downtrodden and taken advantage of.

CUPE 3912 was also able to have its delegates elected to posts within committees and as alternate officers. I will refrain from repeating the exhaustive list to be included in the membership update. This will afford us the opportunity to influence the decision-making structures at CUPE NS and ensure that the local number, 3912, is continually repeated. We are also fortunate to have connected with the Central Area VP who also comes from our sister-sector, education, as well as having installed our President, Lauren McKenzie, as alternate regional VP. I think this is a fortuitous

position, as Lauren is unlikely to be called up for the NS VP role, and if she is it will (hopefully) be during intensive mobilization and strike avert, so the Local’s affairs will be continuing with momentum and access to CUPE NS supports will be improved.

• 1.2.2.) Coalition Building

The conference did an impeccable job platforming and facilitating discussions between members. There were so many opportunities to share our working conditions and workplace duties with other members, and I feel we did excellent in getting the other delegates outside of Local 3912 to understand what being a ”precarious academic” means. Although CUPE NS seems mainly to represent members in health care sectors, I was able to find common ground on many issues facing our different work environments. Government overreach and intervention, accompanied by deregulation, affects all of us. The Tim Houston government’s omnibus bills have deep ramifications and it seems he has united each public sector worker as their common enemy. I spoke at length with delegates whose workplaces are local to me (i.e. in the HRM) and the idea of cost-sharing local campaigns was brought up independently on several occasions, particularly with education workers. This is something for the Local to consider.

I was also excited to see the regional political action coordinator, Govind Rao, present a clear plan for what CUPE members and locals could do to build coalition and be a political force. I support his ideas of provincial riding-based CUPE political action committees, as organizing 10-20 members from a handful of locals, especially in the HRM where locals are populous, is enough to make a large impact. In discussions with Govind before and after convention, it seems there is space for me to expand my contributions in a paid staff or consulting position. I will inform the Local if and when more details come to light.

Finally, at the young workers caucus, several of our delegates were able to enhance our networks and discuss issues that affect our unique positions within our locals and workplaces. The re-elected VP for young workers has mobilized to start a mailing list and web forum for the 25 or so of us who were at this convention, and to bring in more young workers engaged in their union locals. This seems like a promising start to what could be a great resource for leveraging support across regions and sectors, particularly in the digital space where a critical mass of engagement does a lot to promote a particular post or message on algorithm-driven platforms. I hope we will see this initiative and similar grow between now and next convention.

2) Remarks & Takeaways

2.1) Practical Experience

CUPE 3912 built up several necessary skills and capacities by sending a full slate of delegates to convention, especially considering they had the specific objective of campaigning (see Section 1.1.2). With the experience and compassion of Christine and Alec, the remaining 10 delegates quickly slotted in nicely to the ”ground team” and stepped up to do the work. By the end, we were skilled at com- municating the takeaways of Christine’s platform, convincing and empathetic to individual delegates issues/background/motivations, and seasoned at playing the political game. This experience will be advantageous for the next strike vote(s) and for mobilizing members (especially those with anti-union predispositions).

The delegates also built up both their own personal networks and those of the Local. Now that there is CUPE 3912 representation on formal committees, the scope of who in the union power structure is aware of us and our issues has grown. Beyond that, the conversations our delegates had with others have led to better understanding of our situation and increased opportunities for multi- directional support. Even within our own delegate slate, we were able to share moments together to reinforce solidarity and to put human faces to the names we often only see on screen. As a member of the Local executive, I particularly appreciate getting to know my other committee members, and I hope our shared experiences will translate to increased cooperation and the ability to more effectively and efficiently communicate within the Local’s governance bodies.

Adding more to the previous paragraph and what was said in Section 1.2.2, the delegates exceeded all (my) expectations at building coalition. We were able to identify unifying issues across regions and sectors, like our 2022 Strike mantras of ”equal pay for equal work” and ”worked hours are paid hours”, which affect not just education, but healthcare and municipal services sectors as well. We also learned just how much workplace harassment CUPE NS members suffer from, and how this is a mirror image of what TAs working for their academic supervisors face, especially when it comes to toxic positivity. We also had the opportunity to directly influence coalition building, by contributing to the fund that CUPE NS uses to support small locals in attending Convention and participating or leading larger campaigns that are challenging due to their small resources (i.e. small membership base to draw dues from). We met so many wonderful delegates from small locals who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to contribute their voices and ideas.

Finally, the delegates witnessed presentations from Motion Meetings and Action Network. These are products offered by a company affiliated with CUPE National that serve to replace digital meeting tools and email list managers. I’m sure more will be said elsewhere, but I think we should explore these tools and see if they can work for us. They are both free for Locals to use and are always free (no paying beyond so many members like MailChimp or by number of ballots like SurveyMonkey/SimplyVoting) and have support staff from both the company and CUPE National. I think we could use these tools in place of our MailChimp lists (especially to manage unsubscribes, so that members can choose not to see routine updates but can still see a strike vote announcement, for example), voting and survey tools (seems like Motion Meetings is approved for secret ballot secure voting, strike vote?!), and if we’re bold, instead of Zoom. The executive should consider scheduling a meeting with the CUPE National staffperson promoting these platforms to see if they suit the Local’s needs.

 

2.2.) Institutional Understanding

CUPE NS needs members at the local level to bring it out of its dark age. Listening to the NS Executive reports, it was dismaying that all but the President and Young Worker VP gave a distillation of the constitutional requirements of that Officer’s position. For the leaders of CUPE’s political and activism level of organization, the end-of-year report cannot be ”I went to all the meetings and replied to all the emails”, the vision is simply too small. During the VP reports and the open forum for presidential candidates, it was clear that officers who remain in positions of power believe their hands are tied until a local approaches CUPE NS with a specific and pre-planned initiative. In one case, an officer even blamed locals for their lack of report items, citing the absence of proactiveness and grassroots mobilization as the reason they were unable to showcase more successes.

I think CUPE 3912 should pounce at this opportunity. We already have a reputation among the NS and Atlantic Region staff as a trouble-making local with big ambitions. We need to capitalize on our forward momentum and will to get initiatives accomplished. We should demand cost-sharing initiatives (and seek additional fund-matching from National) for sector-specific and broad campaigns. For example, we could team up with education locals in the city for an outreach campaign to publicize management-perpetrated abuse, violence, and toxic-positivity masked mandate creep, something every student TA and every public school educator has experienced. We can also leverage communications and political activism professionals to assist in messaging and distilling negotiating objectives down into ”verb the noun” style slogans `a la CPC campaign. Finally, we can harness the CUPE machine and its research staff to assist with developing statistics and metrics both for communicating bargaining objectives (showing just how underpaid and unprotected our members are compared to the same work elsewhere and by others) and to help ensure our initiatives are reaching target groups (cohorts of members, students, other university staff, etc.). There is a sandbox we can play in, and a system we should abide by to access assistance and support. We need to start playing their game.

Beyond CUPE NS, the CUPE ”machine” as described by outgoing CUPE NS President Nan McFadgen needs to reconsider its role. The National President Mark Hancock, although a charismatic and enthusiastic speaker, pushes a political agenda that I feel is not aligned with the true sentiments of the membership. CUPE members and other unionized workes voted en masse for the CPC in the last federal election, and gave the NS PC’s a blank cheque mandate. Clearly there is political will to support right-wing and anti-worker (sometimes even anti-social) legislation. The solution cannot be simply to tell a room full of people, many of whom must wear red or blue political colours, to vote and support NDP. Mark Hancock and CUPE needs to be telling the NDP what its members are demanding if they (read we, because they want the locals to be the agitators) can convince their membership to vote as a pro-labour bloc. In the same vein of not listening to members, National Secretary Treasurer Candace Rennick needs to listen to the needs of local leadership and members. To my dismay, the stance she took at the National Strike Fund Regulations Town Hall (which I attended virtually, see my other report) that traditional picketing, regular scheduling, and hard-copy accounting persists as the way our union must conduct business. Thankfully CUPE NS and CUPE National are now allowed to pay out funds using electronic fund transfers, but they still encourage mailing them paper cheques. The National Strike Fund will still require end-of-day forms signed in person by picket captains with wet-ink signatures, needlessly complicating and burdening any local of more than one picket line with draconian paperwork procedures. I’m glad I had the courage to speak with her, but the fact that she seemed surprised that so many local leaders had been asking for similar digitization and streamlining gives me pause. I hope the next Local 3912 Strike Finance Sub-Committee (or whatever organization structure coalesces from those with initiative) can bear the burden of endless paper forms. They should claim hazard pay for the potential repetitive strain injuries of thousands of signatures.

3) Summary & Acknowledgments

In the style of a Google Maps or Yelp review, I submit the following recap:

The CUPE NS convention is an excellent opportunity for coalition building, activism, net- working, and developing social talents. Although the presentations can feel mundane, and the provided food is borderline unpalatable, having so many unionists and cause-sharing individuals under the same roof breeds novel connections, innovative ideas, and breeds new local and grassroots leaders. It is a must-do for any union local looking to distinguish itself and garner support, and for any union member wanting to develop soft skills and augment their degree of mobilization. I didn’t need to hear the underlying messaging in the presen- tations, but if you need your belief in the tenets of solidarity, coalition-building, activism, and advocacy for better working conditions need reinforcing, then this is the event for you!

4/5 stars. Worth the price, bring your own lunches, think critically about the propaganda, learn how to be a more mobilized member, build solidarity!

In all seriousness, the delegates achieved most of their stated and known objectives, and surely accom- plished many that hadn’t even been thought of. CUPE 3912 needs to continue to be present at these events (which should be easy since it’s happening in HRM next year) and to ”play the game” as I previously mentioned. It’s an opportunity for both members fortunate enough to be sent as delegates, and for the local to bring home skills to leverage in the fight for better working environments.

In that vein, I’d like to thank the membership for their faith that I would be a good delegate and for supporting me in my endeavor to attend. I’d like to thank Christine Sauliner for the honour of campaigning on her behalf and the opportunity to learn so much about the political landscape inside the union and in the labour movement more broadly. Please check out her initiatives and consider promoting within the Local and contributing if you’re able. Thanks to Alec Stratford for essentially delivering a ”campaigning 101” course and for herding the more inexperienced delegates (including myself). Thanks to Erica Fischer and Karen McDonald for the fun conversations and silly big fiddle photos. Thanks to Wenz Amezuca and Lachlan Sheldrick for surviving my highway driving and making me have to stifle laughter in convention hall. Thanks to all the delegates for our camaraderie and coordination. Thanks to my partner Sophie Boardman for making the trip with me, letting us use her car, and teaching me how to take high-quality group photos. Finally, thanks to Lauren McKenzie for the initiative and for insisting I attend. This was a truly valuable experience I hope to share with the Local.