More than 6,100 administrative and technical employees at the University of Toronto are heading into the fall term with unusually high stakes at the bargaining table. Members of United Steelworkers Local 1998’s Staff-Appointed Unit backed a strike mandate by 96%, putting the union in a legal strike position on Tuesday, September 8 — the first day of fall classes across U of T’s three campuses.
The dispute reaches well beyond wages. Job security, heavy workloads, hybrid work and protections surrounding artificial intelligence have become central issues as the university pursues staffing savings while simultaneously investing in AI and administrative modernization. Bargaining is continuing, and the union has stressed that reaching the strike deadline does not automatically mean thousands of employees will walk off the job.
The 96% Vote Gives Negotiators a Powerful Mandate
The headline number is striking, but the turnout behind it is equally important. The union says 4,614 employees cast ballots during an online strike vote held from August 27 through August 31, representing 75.1% of eligible members. Of those votes, 4,430 supported a strike mandate and 184 opposed it, producing the 96% result. Local 1998 described the turnout as a record for the bargaining unit and stronger than the mandate received during its previous contract negotiations in 2023.
A strike mandate is leverage rather than an automatic work stoppage. It authorizes the bargaining committee to escalate job action if negotiations fail, while demonstrating that a large portion of the workforce is prepared to support that strategy. That matters in a unit whose members are spread across the St. George, Scarborough and Mississauga campuses. The group encompasses thousands of permanent administrative and technical employees whose work often takes place away from lecture halls but is closely tied to the university’s day-to-day operations.
A $20-Million Staffing-Savings Plan Is Driving the Job-Security Fight
Job security has emerged as the union’s top non-monetary concern partly because of U of T’s own financial plans. The university’s approved 2026–27 budget calls for roughly $3.66 billion in expenditures while confronting relatively weak revenue growth. U of T says it intends to achieve approximately $20 million in savings through staff reductions, primarily by managing vacancies, eliminating unfilled positions and allowing attrition to reduce staffing levels rather than replacing every departing employee.
That approach may avoid the disruption of mass layoffs, but union leaders argue that it can still leave fewer people handling the same volume of work. Local 1998 president John Ankenman has warned that failing to replace departing employees could worsen existing workload pressure. Concerns about staffing capacity have also appeared within U of T’s own governance discussions. At a March Business Board meeting, administrators acknowledged employee anxiety over complement reductions, while explaining that vacancy management and administrative streamlining were part of the university’s strategy for controlling costs. The bargaining dispute therefore sits directly inside a broader debate over whether efficiency measures can be implemented without overloading remaining staff.
Artificial Intelligence Has Become a Collective-Bargaining Issue
AI is one of the most consequential additions to this bargaining round because U of T is simultaneously positioning itself as a leader in large-scale artificial-intelligence adoption. The university’s 2026–27 budget dedicates $15 million to digital strategies that include responsible AI adoption. U of T has also launched its AI Kitchen initiative and announced a multi-year partnership with Canadian AI company Cohere, with the stated goal of integrating secure and human-centred AI tools across teaching, research and administration.
For workers whose duties include administrative processing, technology support and other highly digitized tasks, that transformation raises practical questions about how jobs and responsibilities could change. Local 1998 has consequently made contractual AI protections one of its priority demands. International research helps explain why the issue is arriving at bargaining tables. A 2025 International Labour Organization assessment found that about one-quarter of global employment has some exposure to generative AI, with clerical occupations facing particularly high exposure. The ILO emphasized that transformation of jobs is more likely than wholesale replacement, making workplace rules, consultation and worker involvement particularly important as organizations adopt the technology.
Hybrid Work, Wages and Benefits Broaden the Dispute
The negotiations are not centred on a single demand. Local 1998 says the parties remain divided over hybrid and remote-work arrangements, wages, health-care benefits, workload recognition, workplace accommodations and the handling of employer investigations. The union is seeking across-the-board wage increases that it says should keep pace with living costs, alongside improvements to benefits. It has also pushed for stronger Alternative Work Arrangement provisions, which govern arrangements such as hybrid schedules.
Remote work has been a particularly sensitive issue at U of T. The existing collective agreement contains language requiring management to assess alternative-work requests using operational and service considerations and to provide written responses. The union has argued against any broad erosion of hybrid work and says more than 2,000 members signed an open letter supporting its preservation earlier in the bargaining process. Ahead of the strike deadline, Local 1998 also called for a work-to-contract action beginning September 4, telling members to take their scheduled breaks, avoid unpaid overtime and refrain from routinely performing duties beyond what their jobs require. The tactic was designed to make normally invisible extra work more visible without immediately launching a full strike.
The Timing Could Put Student-Facing Services Under Pressure
September 8 carries extra significance because it is the official opening day for fall classes across U of T’s St. George, Mississauga and Scarborough campuses. The affected bargaining unit does not primarily consist of professors or teaching assistants. Instead, its members include information-technology employees, undergraduate and graduate program coordinators, academic advisers, laboratory assistants and a variety of other administrative and technical specialists. Local 1998 has even pointed to a piano technician in the Faculty of Music as an example of the range of jobs represented.
That breadth makes the potential effect of labour action harder to predict than simply counting cancelled lectures. Students routinely depend on administrative staff for program requirements, academic advising, technology troubleshooting, laboratory support and countless behind-the-scenes processes that keep a large university functioning. The University of Toronto told The Canadian Press that it values Staff-Appointed Unit employees and noted that it has successfully negotiated numerous renewal agreements with the Steelworkers over more than two decades. At the time of that report, however, the university had not detailed what specific student services might be affected if a strike were ultimately called.
September 8 Is a Deadline, Not an Automatic Strike
The distinction between being legally able to strike and actually going on strike is crucial. Local 1998 has set its deadline for 12:01 a.m. on September 8 but explicitly told members to report to work normally unless instructed otherwise. The union says its negotiating committee can continue bargaining beyond the deadline if discussions remain productive. Other possibilities include continuing work-to-contract measures, strategic slowdowns, rotating strikes or eventually calling a full strike.
Ontario labour law requires several steps before unionized employees can legally walk off the job, including the expiry of the collective agreement, statutory conciliation procedures and a successful strike vote. U of T’s previous Staff-Appointed Unit agreement covered July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2026, meaning negotiations underway this summer concern its renewal. The university says it wants constructive discussions to continue, while the union reported some progress but significant differences as the Labour Day weekend began. For thousands of employees and students returning to campus, the immediate question is therefore not whether a strike mandate exists — it clearly does — but whether that unusually strong mandate is enough to produce a settlement before job action becomes necessary.
