Mysterious website, changed email messages and no negotiations: Oxfam Canada strike continues into second week

Striking Oxfam Canada staff say there have been no negotiations since they walked off the job last week, even as the organization acknowledged changing workers’ out-of-office messages and a pro-union website surfaced with no clear owner.

The strike, which began on Jun. 11 after more than a year of negotiations, is the first in Oxfam’s history of being a unionized workplace. 

In the past week, Oxfam Canada released a statement saying that it “provides a 6.5% [wage] increase for all [its] employees,” on top of an “approximate 3% annual economic step increase for staff who have not reached the top of their salary band […].” Oxfam Canada says that this means most staff have had a “combined annual increase totaling approximately 15.5% over three years.”

CUPE Local 2722, which represents Oxfam Canada staff, sent its final offer on Jun. 8, whereas Oxfam Canada sent its last offer on May 26, said Carla Caxaj, who sits on the union’s bargaining committee. As part of their final offer, unionized staff reduced the general wage increase they initially proposed, Caxaj said. 

According to the union, the 6.5 per cent increase outlined by Oxfam Canada already includes a cost-of-living adjustment as per the current collective agreement. “From the union’s perspective, the proposal amounts to a 0.5% new wage increase.”

Email signatures changed from ‘on strike’ to ‘off work’

Since the strike began, striking staff members have also seen their email signatures changed. Future of Good received out-of-office messages from staff on Jun. 11, the first day of the strike, and Jun. 18. 

The former outlined that staff members were on strike and why, while the latter stated that staff members are “currently off work”. 

Caxaj said that union members were not consulted about this change, but that “it is understandable that [Oxfam Canada] would want to put something [in email signatures] that allows them to continue operations. But it was very unfortunate to see that it was completely changed for everybody without any consultations, without any discussions.”

In an email response, Oxfam Canada confirmed that it “put in place a standard Out of Office message to ensure business continuity, in particular to avoid disruption in our support to partners and programs.” 

A new website has also appeared in support of striking staff members, but Caxaj said nobody knows where it came from and that it is not affiliated with the union. 

“We’ve actually steered members to not go into the website because we don’t want to draw traffic to it,” she said. “It wasn’t led by the union so we don’t know about the information that’s up there.”

It is not representative of the union, nor a reference point, she added. 

In a follow-up statement, Caxaj said that up-to-date information is available on the union’s social media pages on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

The website states that it has been “powered by Action Network, CUPE Local Ontario, CUPE National, Solidarity Action Center.” 

A Whois search of the website says it is registered to a privacy company called Super Privacy Service LTD, part of Dynadot, a registry service. Two emails sent to the company were not immediately returned.

Future of Good has also reached out via email to Action Network for more information.

A search for “Solidarity Action Center” did not yield an organization by that name, but it did yield an organization named Solidarity Center. Future of Good has reached out via email to them. 

Fighting for ‘dignity, equity and respect’: Union

Caxaj reiterated that striking staff members want to return to both the bargaining table and their work. 

At a news conference Thursday, Lisa Gunn, president of CUPE 2722 and a public engagement officer at Oxfam Canada, said that staff want to come to an agreement that reflects “dignity, equity and respect in their own workplace.”

Along with fair wage increases, unionized staff have also asked for dedicated leave that supports domestic violence survivors and those seeking gender-affirming care. While Oxfam Canada’s statement says that employees have access to 72 days of paid leave annually, Caxaj said this only covers vacation days, office closures, statutory holidays and sick leave. 

“Nobody should be having to access those [paid leave] days if they’re going through that condition or situation,” she said. 

Another key point of negotiation was to increase the definition of family beyond the biological to chosen family. 

“We do work on LGBTQ+ rights. We do work with refugees and immigrants’ rights. We work on and advocate on care work around the world, so we thought this would be a perfect fit,” Caxaj said. 

Directing funds to the Global South 

Both at the onset of the strike and in a subsequent public statement, Oxfam Canada has spoken of its commitment to directing resources to the Global South. 

“As a non-profit organization with charitable status, we also have a responsibility to balance fair and competitive compensation and benefits in Canada with our commitment to advancing our core mission of fighting global poverty,” Oxfam Canada said in a statement shared with Future of Good.

The organization emphasized the challenges currently facing the international development sector. 

“Close to a third of global aid has evaporated in the past two years, with the steepest losses concentrated in humanitarian response and support to the Least Developed Countries, where needs continue to grow.”

Caxaj said she strongly disagrees with the framing that the needs of the Global South and the union’s demands are competing priorities. 

In the union’s response to Oxfam Canada’s statement, they wrote that their bargaining was taking place “in a context where Oxfam Canada has publicly acknowledged strong financial results and repeatedly told staff that the organization has been ending on solid financial footages” from fundraising revenue and Global Affairs Canada funding. 

“I strongly believe that advancing workers’ rights actually helps in terms of benefiting the work that we do in the Global South with our partners and colleagues around the world,” Caxaj said, adding that according to the union’s own analysis, none of their asks would harm or take away resources from the Global South. 

“It’s a false choice to put out there that they are competing priorities. They go hand-in-hand.”