About Your Union
What is a Union?
A union is a coalition of workers who come together to resist their employer and collectively bargain for improved working conditions.
Unions are social movement institutions created by the labour movement. They are distinct from both non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as other forms of social movement organization (SMO), such as voluntary activist groups.
Unions are membership-based organizations. However, unions in Canada are unlike other membership-based SMOs two ways:
Union membership is not always voluntary. Most workers in Canada are in a union because the job they were hired into was already unionized.
Union membership involves a legal relationship between union members and employers that is regulated by legislation.
In Canada, unions are regulated by provincial and federal labour codes. These codes create legal rights and responsibilities that other social movement organizations do not possess, such as:
Unionized workers can legally withdraw their labour (strike) without being fired or arrested.
Unions are obliged to support all members equally, and to negotiate on their behalf, even if those members act against the union.
What is CUPE?
Your union, CUPE 2278, is a local union of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
CUPE is the largest union in Canada. Founded in 1963, CUPE now boasts over 700,000 members across the country. CUPE represents workers in every province, and in every field of public employment, from emergency services to education. CUPE BC alone represents over 100,000 workers in over 100 local unions!
More information on CUPE National can be found at cupe.ca
We coordinate our activities with other CUPE locals in BC through cupe.bc.ca
CUPE 2278
Your union is made up of the following groups of workers:
Teaching Assistants, Graduate Academic Assistants, Tutors, and Markers at UBC
Exam Invigilators at UBC’s Centre for Accessibility
Instructors in the English Language Institute (ELI) at UBC
Graduate Teaching Assistants at UNBC
These three groups are organized into “Components,” each of which elects their own leadership committee as well as a representative to the Local Executive Committee.
How does a union operate?
Unions operate in a few different ways:
As vehicles for advancing working people’s interests, enabling workers to exercise collective bargaining power against the employer,
As channels for political action, through lobbying and creating and/or interacting with political parties,
As socially integrative institutions, by connecting members to broader social movements.
As a union, CUPE has traditionally prioritized protecting the workplace rights of its members through workplace advocacy and securing agreements with employers that establish wages, working conditions, workplace safety (including being safe from harassment and bullying), job security, and benefits.
However, CUPE members also organize themselves to address racism, sexism, and ableism in their workplace AND in their union. Union members also support other social movement organizations, often by participating in their events collectively, such as Pride parades or climate change protests.
Through the democratic process of your union, you and your coworkers can build collective power around social, economic, or environmental issues.
Bargaining
Your working conditions are regulated through a collective agreement, which is negotiated between yourselves as a union and the UBC Board of Governors. These conditions include wages, job security, and benefits of members such as sick leave and access to various hardship funds.
A collective agreement is a fixed-term agreement, and negotiations for a new collective agreement begin shortly before the previous one expires. Because UBC and UNBC are public universities, the provincial government is the unseen actor in our negotiations. Through the Public Sector Employers’ Council (PSEC), the provincial government attempts to limit overall compensation and human resources policies in quasi-public sector employers, such as universities, community health and social service agencies, and public school boards. The length of our collective agreements and the overall compensation employers such as universities are supposed to agree to are suggested by PSEC.
Your negotiating committees are made up of elected members of your component. They are supported by union staff. If you are interested in negotiations, read more at the Bargaining Hub!
Workplace Advocacy
A contract is meaningless if it is not enforced. This starts with you as a union member, supported by your union Stewards, who are members who have been elected and trained to facilitate the enforcement of the collective agreement.
Your union elects Grievance Committees to assist in making sure administrators and faculty abide by the collective agreement, UBC policy, and relevant legislation such as the BC Human Rights Code and the BC Workers Compensation Act.
When your Collective Agreement rights have not been respected and your efforts to address the issue informally have not succeeded, the formal grievance process is one avenue to escalate. A grievance is a formal complaint, filed by your union on your behalf. If the union and the employer are unable to resolve a grievance, the union has the right to take the matter to an independent, third-party arbitrator.
If you have a problem at work, please contact your steward. Consultations with the union representatives are confidential.
Political Action
You can leverage your union as a mechanism to take collective action with your coworkers on social, economic, and environmental issues that are of vital concern to you.
Collective organizing and political action can also occur in the context of the broader regional and national labour movements through your union’s affiliations and relationships with organizations such as the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC), CUPE BC, CUPE National, the BC Federation of Labour (BCFed), and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). As a union member, you can become a delegate to many of these bodies as well.
How is your union governed?
your union is democratic
this means that rank-and-file members like you have direct say in how your union makes decisions, uses our shared resources, and fights for collective rights. General Membership Meetings are the forum where your union’s democracy happens.
CUPE local unions are largely autonomous. As members of a union, you elect your leaders, make your own financial decisions, and vote on your own Collective Agreements. However, all local unions are obligated to follow the CUPE National Constitution as well as their local bylaws.
CUPE 2278 is ultimately governed by meetings of its members. In between membership meetings, the “business” of the union is managed by the Executive Committee and the Component Leadership Committees. Only a meeting of the membership can approve the annual budget and elect the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee can approve expenditures within the set budget.
CUPE 2278 Bylaws
The CUPE 2278 bylaws provide the guidelines for the day-to-day functioning of CUPE 2278. These bylaws were most recently updated and ratified in 2024.
Meetings, Rules of Order, and Minutes
Meeting agendas for membership meetings are distributed with Notice of Meeting via email one week in advance. To place an item on the agenda, contact president@cupe2278.ca more than one week in advance of the meeting. Agendas can also be amended at the beginning of a meeting. For detail on items that require notice of motion, please consult the Bylaws.
Membership meetings follow Bourinot’s Rules of Order.
Executive and General Membership meeting minutes may be viewed by members upon request, and Executive Committee meetings may also be attended by members upon request. Please contact president@cupe2278.ca to arrange.