Executive, Staff and Stewards
Executive Board
President: Noreen Cauley
President@cupe4600.ca
Treasurer: Gareth Park
Treasurer@cupe4600.ca
VP Internal: Sarah Fiander
Vp.internal@cupe4600.ca
Chief Steward Unit 2: Vacant
ci.chief.steward@cupe4600.ca
Chief Steward Unit 1: Georgette Morris
Ta.chief.steward@cupe4600.ca
VP External: Davide Ventrone
Vp.external@cupe4600.ca
Recording Secretary: Ryan Conrad
recording.secretary@cupe4600.ca
VP, Unit 1: Zoe Abernethy
vp.unit1@cupe4600.ca
VP, Unit 2: Cheryl Cundell & Morgan Rooney
vp.unit2@cupe4600.ca
Staff Business Agent & Organizer: Codie Fortin-Lalonde Bao@cupe4600.ca Mobilization Coordinator and Grievance officer: Pierre-Julien Blais Mobcor@cupe4600.ca Strike Coordinator: James Murray Strike@cupe4600.ca
Who we are
What is CUPE 4600?
Local 4600 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE 4600), represents all Teaching Assistants, internally-funded Research Assistants, and Contract Instructors at Carleton University. It is the largest union on campus, with nearly 3000 members.
Our History
In 1979 Teaching Assistants founded CUPE 2323, in response to widespread workplace inequality across campus. Teaching Assistants received different rates of pay for the same work, had no guarantee of reappointment in successive terms, had no job security, could be fired with little to no warning, and no access to benefits of any kind. Since that time, your union has negotiated over 15 Collective Agreements with Carleton University, and steadily improved the wages, job security, and benefits for all TAs and Contract Instructors.
The contract instructors, then called Sessional Lecturers, formed their own local, CUPE 3805 in 1996, after a five-month organizing drive supported by the TA local, CUPE 2323. They negotiated a first collective agreement that lasted from 1995-1998. They organized around issues of job security and pay, as well as for a grievance process that would help them address workplace complaints.
In 1997 both units voted to merge into what is now CUPE 4600. Both units thought that by bargaining and mobilizing together, they could get better pay and working conditions for each other.
The new local was founded in 1998 and negotiated their first set of collective agreements together that year.
Today, CUPE 4600 represents over 2,100 Teaching Assistants, as well as 1000 Contract Instructors. The Executive Board, Union Stewards, and Caucus Chairs are elected each year from among the membership.
CUPE 4600 is a member-driven union! We are only as strong as our active members.
Equality statement and Land Acknowledgement
Equality Statement
Union solidarity is based on the principle that union members are equal and deserve mutual respect at all levels. Any behaviour that creates conflict prevents us from working together to strengthen our union.
As unionists, mutual respect, cooperation and understanding are our goals. We should neither condone nor tolerate behaviour that undermines the dignity or self-esteem of any individual or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.
Discriminatory speech or conduct which is racist, sexist, transphobic or homophobic hurts and thereby divides us. So too, does discrimination on the basis of ability, age, class, religion, language and ethnic origin.
Sometimes discrimination takes the form of harassment. Harassment means using real or perceived power to abuse, devalue or humiliate. Harassment should not be treated as a joke. The uneasiness and resentment that it creates are not feelings that help us grow as a union.
Discrimination and harassment focus on characteristics that make us different; and they reduce our capacity to work together on shared concerns such as decent wages, safe working conditions, and justice in the workplace, society and in our union.
CUPE’s policies and practices must reflect our commitment to equality. Members, staff and elected officers must be mindful that all persons deserve dignity, equality and respect.
Land Acknowledgement
CUPE 4600 acknowledges that we are on unceded Algonquin territory. The intent of our acknowledgment is to recognize the myriad ways that our larger colonial communities are implicated in the ongoing impacts on First Nations people. Through this acknowledgment we hereby commit to continually recognize and challenge the influences of settler society on our working and living conditions, and the impacts of genocide, oppression and exclusion on the wider communities around us.