Flyers for Info Picket at SMU (April 22, 2025)

We are holding information pickets on campus about the course cuts at SMU tomorrow: Tuesday 22 April from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM and from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM. 

The picket will involve handing out flyers around the more common spaces on campus that see higher student traffic during the exam period: Atrium, Loyola, and Homburg.

Please consider joining this action! We are stronger collectively.

Meeting place: outside Loyola 170.

Email Neil to let us know you are attending.

CUPE 3912 Letters of Support for Striking Alberta CUPE Locals

CUPE 3912 stands with CUPE Locals 2559, 5040, 2545, 40, 520, 3484, 3550, 4625, and 5543, currently striking in Alberta. 

As precariously employed in the academic system ourselves, your colleagues and peers at CUPE local 3912 emphatically support your strike action. It is unacceptable that the government you are negotiating with is refusing to invest in its future by systematically and chronically underfunding its schools. We recognize the important work that your members do ensuring the safe and quality tutelage of our nation’s youth, and we support your struggle to ensure that your working conditions are as idyllic as the environments you seek to deliver. 

Please know that you are not alone, and that across the academic sector and at all levels, your brothers and sisters in the labour movement are striving to improve our collective situation and shore up eroding rights for workers. Your victories are all our victories, and we are honoured to participate and support your goals and ambitions. Continue to fight back against unfair wages, improper working conditions, and systemic disenfranchisement. 

Protect Nova Scotia’s Universities – Stop Bill 12

ANSUT (The Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers) is inviting CUPE 3912 members to join their efforts to stop Bill 12, which has passed the 2nd. With a majority government, as well as recent changes to the Law Amendments Committee that may prevent any debate in the Legislature, it could achieve Royal Assent by next week at the latest.

As an overview, Bill 12 would give the Minister of Advanced Education unilateral power to:

  1. Appoint up to 50% of members to university Boards
  2. Dictate that university research align only with government priorities
  3. Force universities into a revitalization process. Operating funds could be withheld if the university failed to comply. (Currently, universities can decide if and when they should embark on a revitalization plan.)

You can read more about the dangers of Bill 12 here.

Please consider signing this letter prepared by ANSUT to have your voice heard on this critical Bill that could restrict the autonomy of post-secondary education in Nova Scotia.

CUPE 3912 Executive Endorsement of Christine Saulnier for CUPE Nova Scotia President

The CUPE 3912 Executive Committee is proud to endorse CUPE 3912 member, Christine Saulnier, for CUPE Nova Scotia President.

Christine has been working at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia for 17 years, running everything from research publishing to budgets and fundraising. Her work has helped build this policy institute into the go-to progressive voice in Nova Scotia. 

Christine teaches part-time at Saint Mary’s University and is an active CUPE 3912 member. In 2022-2023 she was a member of the CUPE 3912 SMU mobilization and strike avert committees. She has been extremely helpful in using her platform to raise awareness of CUPE 3912 efforts and broader issues of precarious academic labour in Nova Scotia. 

More generally, she is active in the labour movement, having served on the NS Federation of Labour’s women’s committee.

Christine’s work and activism — through research and publishing, through the press, at rallies, and at legislative committees — have made her a trusted voice in Nova Scotia politics, and an advocate for policies that help workers and families. She has tirelessly worked towards a poverty-free province. Her leadership on living wage reports has shaped debates about affordability and has driven the conversation of how to make work better for everyone in Nova Scotia. 

It is because of these efforts, experiences, and this dedication to workers and to worker-led movements, that we are happy to endorse her nomination for CUPE Nova Scotia president.