When constant change puts your pay, benefits, and protections at risk, CUPE workers protect what we have and fight to make it even better, so we can all move forward with stability and security. When you become a CUPE member, you get strength, support, stability, and a voice that’s truly yours.
Strength
The Canadian Union of Public Employees is Canada’s largest union, with over 800,000 members across the country.
As a strong and democratic union, CUPE is committed to improving the quality of life for workers in Canada. Workers – our neighbours, friends, parents – forming unions in their workplaces built CUPE. They did so to have a stronger voice – a collective voice – in their workplace and in society as a whole.
Workers are at the heart of what we do at CUPE. That means fighting to win a fair deal for members and ensuring they have a strong voice at the bargaining table. Our job is to deliver better wages, safer working conditions, and the respect our members deserve—in every region and sector.
Support
CUPE’s national strength allows workers to pool their resources and provide servicing representatives on the ground in your community. In Nova Scotia, in addition to our Regional Office in Dartmouth, CUPE has three area offices in Yarmouth, New Glasgow, and Sydney, all of which have a complement of full-time dedicated staff who are devoted to providing support and assistance to CUPE members and locals.
Stability
Contracting out is the most common form of privatization that CUPE members face. It is a threat in every sector, and NSPHA workers are seeing it more and more.
CUPE members take a multi-faceted approach to preventing and reversing privatization and contracting out that includes:
- Using the bargaining process to place restrictions on the employer’s ability to contract out.
- Getting ahead of contracting out with notice, disclosure, and consultation requirements.
- Negotiating standards for contractors that deter privatization and contracting out.
- Establishing a process to reverse privatization by contracting work back into the bargaining unit.
Local Autonomy
The wrong union means losing your local voice.
If decisions about your work are being made by people who don’t understand what you do, it can feel like your voice doesn’t matter.
What it looks like when you lose your local voice:
- Decisions made far away: Priorities set by people who don’t know public housing.
- Higher Dues: Paying more, without a say in how your money is spent.
- No local control: Your elected reps have less influence over negotiations and spending
- Risk of concessions: Your protections and pay can be bargained down.
- Weakened solidarity: Smaller numbers and less strength at the table
When you’re a CUPE member, leadership stays local, with you and your coworkers. When more support is needed, you’re backed by CUPE National’s full negotiating strength, legal expertise, and resources, giving you real power at the bargaining table without sacrificing local control.
What this means for you:
- Strong, Independent Local: Decisions made by you and your co-workers, not by a distant head office.
- National Strength: Backed by CUPE’s network of 800,000 members across Canada.
- No Concessions: CUPE National Reps are not permitted to accept concessions in bargaining.
- Lower Dues: Keep more of your hard-earned money.