Dozens of course instructors and teaching assistants at the University of Toronto held a rally on Wednesday afternoon ahead of a Feb. 26 strike deadline.

Members of CUPE Local 3902 voted 89.4 per cent in favour of providing the union leadership with the mandate to take strike action during a meeting in December.

The union represents 9,500 workers, including course instructors and teaching assistants. The union says that its members deliver about 30 per cent of the undergraduate-level courses at the University of Toronto as well as all labs and tutorials.

Today’s rally outside Simcoe Hall on the University of Toronto’s St. George campus took place as members of the CUPE Local 3902 bargaining committee and representatives from the university participated in conciliatory talks at the Ministry of Labour.

The union has said that is pushing for more benefits for part-time workers as part of contract negotiations.

“The university runs on precarious labour. It’s a cost-cutting tool, and it’s rampant at post-secondary institutions in Ontario,” CUPE Local 3902 Chair Pamela Arancibia said in a press release. “The U of T is the most prestigious post-secondary institution in the country. We’re good enough to educate future leaders, but not good enough to earn living wages.”

In a statement provided to CP24, University of Toronto Vice-President of Human Resources and Equity Kelly Hannah-Moffat said that while the university remains focused on reaching an agreement with the union it does have “business and academic continuity plans in place to minimize the risk” posed by a potential strike.

Hannah-Moffat added that those plans are prepared as “a matter of course” during any bargaining process.

“Both the University and the union are working hard, with the help of a provincially appointed conciliator, to reach a tentative agreement,” the statement says. “As always, our goal is to have productive and constructive rounds of bargaining to reach an agreement.”

The contract between CUPE Local 3902 and the University of Toronto expired on Dec. 31.