Dear Colleagues,
On Friday, TUFA contacted the local Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Rosana Salvaterra, to let her know that our members have called for a required vaccination policy at Trent. We also thanked her for her leadership and for the work she has done with Trent to provide vaccine clinics, wastewater testing, and management of Covid-19 cases on campus since the outset of the pandemic. She responded with appreciation for TUFA’s call — was glad to hear it!
We also sent a press release to 180+ union and media contacts on Friday. The Global news article published Friday afternoon at 4:30 was based on this release. The article also references the University’s initial response to our call.
Prior to issuing our press release, we wrote President Groarke and Trent’s Board Chair, Debra Cooper Burger, to let them know that TUFA would be contacting Dr. Salvaterra and the media regarding our call for a required vaccine policy. We also thanked them for working with Peterborough Public Health to manage Covid-19 measures on campus to this point.
We had already communicated with our sister unions (Cupe 3908 and Opseu 365) to advise them of the directions we were taking and we met with the presidents of the TGSA and TDSA. In all cases we were told that the other organizations were pleased to learn of TUFA members’ decision and appreciated our advocacy for a safer return to campus in fall. Indeed, the TDSA had already made a similar call. We did also communicate with the TCSA president, but were not able to arrange a meeting last week and so will provide a full update to TCSA’s leadership as soon as possible.
Finally, we appreciate that the 15 or so members whose appointments only started yesterday may be feeling at a bit of loss with all this activity and later today we will send out a more descriptive introduction to all those whose membership in TUFA began after June 30th.
In Solidarity,
Moira and Marcus
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Moira Howes,
President
Marcus Harvey,
Executive Director