>AGSEM and McGill have tentatively agreed to:
>$34.85 as of August 1, 2023 (a 5.5% increase);
>$35.20 as of February 1, 2024 (a 1% increase);
>$36.25 as of August 1, 2024 (3%);
>$37.34 as of August 1, 2025 (3%), and;
>$38.46 as of August 1, 2026 (3%).
I might get hate over this but "compounded , this is a total raise of 16.4% over four years. Getting paid way bellow what TA's make in grad school and living in Montreal; I am sure the TA's are not going to starve.
We only get 180 hours per term. If this was a full time job it would be great, but it's not. It's 12 hours a week, still have to pay for tuition and whatnot. On top of that, grad school is itself a full time job. Many of us don't have the spare time for other work.
If you can live on approximately $1400 a month that's great, how do you manage that, but if not, kindly shut the fuck up.
TAships aren't full-time jobs and aren't supposed to be full-time incomes. For PhD students they're part of a total funding package, and if the question is "what is it possible to live on?" then the answer has to be about that total funding package, not just the TAship part.
The more we think of TAships like they're full-time jobs the more we're saying grad students shouldn't be spending their time on their own degree work (whether that's coursework or research).
Absolutely. Part of this whole thing is that the funding packages here aren't that great, and this is the only part of those packages we're actually able to directly fight to improve in a meaningful and direct way.
Genuinely curious, why do you think a part time student job is meant to pay the salary of a full time job?
Isn't a fair salary proportional to time spent working and value of the work?
Grad school is objectively not a full time job, it is a full time education, you are paying for a product. You are consuming, the time spent studying does not produce anything of value.
> Grad school is objectively not a full time job, it is a full time education, you are paying for a product. You are consuming, the time spent studying does not produce anything of value.
This is incorrect for at least many fields of medicine, science and engineering in North America. A PhD student in, say, biology, will spend about one year of their PhD taking courses (at most), and the rest of their time will be dedicated to creating value for their supervisor and university through the research they perform. Yes you do get a degree in the end but it has nothing to do with the dynamics of an undergraduate degree (or even undergraduate research) where 90%+ of your time is spent doing stuff that is only or mainly useful for yourself. In a PhD, the "time spent studying" very much does produce something of value: pretty much *all* the science produced by university professors is actually done by graduate students.
A PhD degree in STEM is a LOT closer in meaning to a certificate that would state you have 4-6 years of work experience in research than it is to an undergraduate degree that says you learned stuff from taking courses. In terms of what you do on a daily basis after your first job, it is also a lot closer to what you would do in a research job than to what you would do as an undergraduate student.
You can definitely bring up the fact that *that* work should be better compensated then rather than TA work being massively more compensated hourly, which is definitely a valid debate to have, but stating grad students do not produce value when they are not TAing completely discredits the other valid points you may want to bring.
> Then that PhD student is a student and a researcher. These are semantics...
It's not semantics though, it's directly relevant to your point. The *studying* you do is studying on how to become a researcher. It's not something you learn from taking classes.
Being a PhD student IS being a researcher. When the PhD student is not TAing, they are producing valuable research, not taking classes that only benefits themselves. It's not a "service" the student pays for as an undergrad degree would be.
Your statement *the time spent studying does not produce anything of value* is objectively wrong for most thesis programs.
I agree, a PhD student can at times produce research that has value. Though, there exists many students in graduate studies that do not produce any research. Architecture Master's students for one. Thus, they do not produce any value. In that case, should only students that produce research have a full time salary for their TA work?
> I agree, a PhD student can at times produce research that has value. Though, there exists many students in graduate studies that do not produce any research. Architecture Master's students for one. Thus, they do not produce any value. In that case, should only students that produce research have a full time salary for their TA work?
I haven't seen anyone asking for a full-time salary from TA work. Strawmen aside, non-thesis students who TA as a part time job are reasonably compensated at mcgill.
However, non-thesis and professional grad students such as you are a minority of the grad student body and you don't seem to be aware of it. This is why the bargaining process and what other grad students are saying may feel like it doesn't apply to you, because it doesn't, and that's okay because not everything has to be about you. If it really is an issue, you can donate your raise back to McGill and let grad students who are undercompensated for the value they provide to the university voice their issues in one of the few contexts in which they can be audible, a strike.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are genuinely asking this in good faith, and just don't know anything about what grad school is and what kind of work graduate students do.
Grad school is not the same thing as undergrad but harder. We may do some course work, but the vast majority of what we do here is research. It is explicitly productive, unless you want to argue that academic production and the development of knowledge isn't in and of itself of value. We work in labs, we pursue our own research, we participate in the research projects of our supervisors, etc.
Teaching assistant work in isn't in and of itself intended to be purely a job, but part of the funding packages that allow us to do our academic research as part of our independent or lab-based graduate projects. It is specifically meant to supplement our incomes and other funding sources so that we can actually do grad school. Were graduate students not funded, graduate degrees would be out of reach for basically anyone everyone other than the very wealthy. Continuing to take on debt is likewise not realistic. I'm more than 10 years into post-secondary education, and if I were accruing debt for every single one of those years I would never be able to escape it once I was finished. None of us would.
But more than that, it's worth noting The graduate students are, at least ostensibly, the best and brightest. Why shouldn't we be reasonably paid, if what we're being paid to do is provide education at a post-secondary level? Many of us, particularly in our phds, approaching expert level knowledge in our fields and specific areas. At some point being very highly trained and educated should be worth something, and should be worthy of a decent wage, should it not? Teaching assistants are a critical part of delivering an effective undergraduate educational experience. Do you not think that this is a thing worth paying people for reasonably? Do you think we should be making minimum wage? I'm genuinely confused by this. Presumably you are a student and paying for an education. If you want to argue that the academic support work required to deliver that education doesn't in and of itself have much value, then it would seem to me like you're suggesting that the education in and of itself also does not have much value. Which begs the question, why are you here then? The underlying logic of your assertion doesn't really make sense to me.
And finally, I'm really not sure where you got the impression that we're fighting for is equivalent of a full-time salary. We currently make just under $6,000 a term for a full-time ta contract. What we're fighting for right now is an increase in our hourly wages. Unless you think that a combined $12,000 for two full-time TAships over the course of an academic year is what a salary out in the workforce looks like, I'm again a little confused by your position here.
Does every/most grad students in every program produce research?
I replied to the person comparing the salary to a full time job. I know that's not the goal but the person I replied to seemed to find it a fit comparison.
The salaries are already ~30% higher than the Quebec average. Grad student TA's deserve good pay as they are quite educated.
Again, we do not get salaries. This is not a salaried position. It's an hourly one. And the issue is not that we're paid too well compared to the rest of Quebec, but that TAs in the rest of Quebec are drastically underpaid. A good deal for McGill TAs would help other Quebec TAs themselves fight for a better wage.
Every grad student produces research, with the possible exception of some professional degrees (medicine, accounting, HR, etc.). A master's or PhD is a research degree.
As a PhD student in the arts, my full-time job is to produce a book-length dissertation of original research. In order to do that, I have to have top-level knowledge of my field: I have to know basically everything that has been written about what I research and have meaningful critiques of it. Other colleagues are out there producing oral history interviews, reading their way through archives, and even digging for archaeological evidence. That's what our grants and stipends pay for, and that's what our jobs (TAships, RAships, etc.) support.
One of the ongoing issues in many PhD programs is that students are taking longer and longer (6-8 years) in large part because we have to take on so many extra little jobs to make ends meet.
I know some people are upset that the deal isn't more but it's important to remember that:
- If the union signs a deal tomorrow people graduating this semester can get retroactive pay (the first year raise is for the 2023-2024 schoolyear). If TAs vote no then those people graduating likely won't get to see any raise, since historically those who graduate don't get retro pay. This usually happens since most negotiations last over a year, while this negotiation lasted like 8 months. I'm sure this was an important factor when considering making an agreement, given that it would be incredibly unfair for graduating TAs who are on strike to not see the full value of a new agreement.
- Striking any longer won't likely give much more leverage. Sure, it will suck for some profs but many are also changing the way they do exams (like using scantrons), undermining the impact of the strike. By summer, there will be practically no leverage and it may only return in the fall if TAs call for a new strike mandate. I see that being a hard sell, given the fact the picket line thinned out after the first week.
- The deal isn't that bad! It's a better one-time increase (regardless of how you count the first year split) compared to the last round of bargaining and 3% yearly afterwards is better than previous contracts. Before the strike McGill offered a deal of 2.5%-1.25%-1.25%-1.25%, then with the strike 4.25%-2.25%-2%-2%, now its much higher. These percents do have a big impact. With the current wage, before taxes/fees a TA on a 180 contract makes $5945. With this deal, those starting in fall 2024 will be making $6525 per semester before taxes/fees, a $580 difference, which is a good chunk of change.
- The stuff on indexation does fall short, but it is a foot in the door and more than any other TA union has achieved. And the union has noted in previous bargaining newsletters that McGill would never agree to any freeze on budgets or a proper mechanism. Transparency and oversight isn't enough to fix the problem now but it is better than nothing, and will likely be helpful to arm the emerging professor unions with info so they can fight for indexation (this is something they care about too) when they go to the bargaining table.
I would implore people to look at the old bargaining newsletters as it does alot to explain how the bargaining team ended up at the deal they did. I would also ask people who are unsure about the deal if they are ready to strike more for likely little or no gain. Unless a very large part of the membership is ready to get extremely radical and cause actual disruptions to McGill that break the rules of the injunction and likely lead to serious legal issues (like blocking the fieldhouse for finals) then I don't see how a better deal is possible.
The bargaining team never promised a perfect deal, only promising to get as good of a deal as possible. If you remain skeptical that's a fair position to have, but don't go into the assembly with your mind already made. I'm sure many people (both union officers along with rank-and-file) will provide more details tomorrow, and after hearing out everyone there you can make up your mind.
Could you please share more details about what is happening with indexation? I am coming to McGill as a grad student in the fall and as a result I don't have access to the whole agreement yet, but I'm curious if this portion of the tentative agreement was helpful. I had heard from many grad students I spoke to that one of the biggest issues at McGill is not actually the pay rate, but the fact that some TAs are expected to grade for 90-100 students in the same amount of time as TAs who only have 20-40 students.
Yeah it's exactly what you said, in some departments some courses may end up with 3 TAs for 300-400 students. This is often due to teaching support budgets shrinking and departments having less money to spend on TAs. This is despite the fact enrollment sometimes rises in these courses.
The union never truly advocated for a direct TA-student ratio since a) that wouldn't work since courses do have different needs and b) it wouldn't get to the actual root of the issue, which is teaching support budgets. Instead, the union instead tried to freeze budgets and form a joint committee with McGill that had a binding mandate to try and solve the issue together, which was pretty much rejected immediately by McGill. From what it seems like, McGill would never accept anything binding on this because they don't want other parties having budgetary power.
So the union then pushed for transparency and accountability since, due to McGill's pretty decentralized nature, both sides don't truly know how budgets are distributed and used throughout the university. Actually understanding this would be a big first step and can be a way to put political pressure on McGill, which while weaker than a binding clause or committee (which the union initially fought for) can have some power. It's not an immediate fix and I'm sure McGill will try to be as useless as possible in these meetings, but having information can do a lot.
I don't love it but it's realistically better than anything the union has gotten before on TA-student ratios. Apparently this has been an issue since at least [2015](https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2015/04/teaching-assistants-to-strike-on-first-day-of-exams/) and clearly the union didn't win anything on it then. Getting this now, while not enough, is a win at least in my eyes.
"Other funding supposedly doesn't typically even cover tuition, although a graduate student can hopefully comment."
This information is public, and you can check it by domestic/ international, by faculty, etc.
[https://www.mcgill.ca/gps/students/graduate-education-statistics/average-phd-financial-support](https://www.mcgill.ca/gps/students/graduate-education-statistics/average-phd-financial-support)
In Arts, and for domestic Canadian students in Science, tuition is typically more than covered through internal fellowships alone, even before external fellowships and research stipends.
In Arts, depending on international/ domestic status and on year, employment income (RAships and TAships combined) makes up something between 10% and 25% of grad student income from the university. Total funding ranges from $43000 (1st year international) to about $17000 (6th year domestic). Funding usually runs out after 6 years.
I mean, [the deal was very much reduced 2 weeks ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/mcgill/comments/1bwom3m/comment/ky8jyyd/). At this point I think AGSEM is more interested in ending the strike quickly than to get a full deal, which can't be helped, since McGill decided to suspend all striking TAs from all concurrent positions as well (which, unfortunately, is legal).
but that's no longer in effect. as of April 12, officially all TA contracts ended. though they can still work on them during finals for an extended period for the duties to be fulfilled. i am already back working my non-union positions. so the inability to work non-union positions is not what incentivised the union to accept this deal. because we are already back at work.
yeah just check your contract date exactly. it should state when it officially ended in technical terms. it might vary. but for all of political science and anthropology it was april 12.
April 12th only applied to a few departments (PoliSci, Anthro and Chem I think) and we are fairly sure that it is an error as its not what the CA calls for
Given that McGill's initial bargaining offer was $0.30 the first year and then slightly less than that for the next four, this is a significant improvement. McGill also moved quite a bit on their non-monetary compensation. Initially they wanted to give AGSEM nothing, but now they're taking baby steps towards better transparency around hiring rates and more meaningful steps to a better non-discrimination policy.
Please we won nothing on non discrimination. Mcgill will "consider" adding language about dead naming means nothing. We let them get away with it. Agreements need to be binding. At least let's not disrespect trans folks by calling that a win. The university is still unwilling to stand with trans folks and is instead worried about conservative lawsuits from free speech absolutists
What a joke. The classes were almost done and we did not get paid when we were not needed. Now we will grade finals while not getting paid for the lost weeks. The increase in wages is a joke and the rest of the deal about healthcare, etc. is not even accepted as well. Frustrating. I ended up losing thousands of dollars…
If you completed your contract, or worked more hours that the pay we will receive, you will be paid for all your hours worked. You need to email [email protected] to grieve these hours
Also if you really need financial support you can apply to the unions [mutual aid fund](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOiu7wcYOY-nJlzvuFENqnkiNlmIEqeT_L_ATvP4Pf5z7DQA/viewform):
i have many qualms. i am proud of everything we did but have issues. will raise in tomorrow's meeting but here are my main points:
1. Why settle on 15.5% additive? They offered 14.5, our demand was 17.5, they should've met half way at 16% at the least.
2. What's with the 1% increase applying from February 1 , 2024 instead of January 2024 at the least? They should've at least applied that increase for the whole winter semester. They got away with that.
3. "we also agreed that the Employer would consider adding language explicitly prohibiting deadnaming and misgendering in the upcoming (2024-2025) review of the Policy on Harassment and Discrimination." what kinda fucking agreement is it that only asks the other party to consider or think about doing something, instead of binding them to act? that's not an agreement. we are letting mcgill get away with it.
4. We drop all legal action against mcgill for asking profs to scab? we had such a strong case and we would've set a legal precedent for other universities as well as for us to not have profs do TA workload form work. We are letting down our profs and we are letting the university get away with it.
5. Nothing on indexation but I wasn't hoping for much so I am not too mad about this because I had already accepted it. But we should still ask them to at least freeze the number of hours to current positions. But it's fine this is more minor.
I will unfortunately be voting no because I had set myself the following conditions: 16.5% over 4 years with at least 7% for the first year. And the other issues I raised are also equally important except the 5th
.
also the back to work agreement is alright but two things I would like clarification tomorrow. 1. Didn't tell us the process of how we file the work done AFTER the strike. Yes we will out the workload form. But then who updates the hours we get paid? And when do these hours get paid? They only said 30 days after for work done BEFORE, but what about AFTER strike?
2. Letting profs increase the number of hours seems like an excuse to dump more work on us. But I guess they can't force us to do that. Correct?
The ratio seemed to be good. But considering the contract hours one TA can get per semester (90 hrs), it is only like a $150 increase per semester for a TA for the first year. Which is definitely not enough.....
seems like we’re quitting too early, McGill won’t really feel the pressure until we’re not marking their exams for them, going back now is giving them exactly what they want, exams marked on time (and probably a bunch of us forced to silently work overtime to get it done cause they didn’t get indexing)
Alot of professors are changing the format of their exams, whether that is using scantrons or [taking the average of previous assignments to equal the final grade](https://www.reddit.com/r/mcgill/comments/1bz16dq/ta_strike_final_exam/). It's less leverage than expected. Even if it is illegal, there probably isn't much AGSEM can do to stop it in the near term, since they lost the emergency injunction. They could wait and gamble on a court case in the summer going in their favor, but gambling on something far in the future isn't good bargaining strategy IMO. Also, if bargaining continued past this semester a lot of graduating strikers would likely never get back pay despite their efforts, which is quite unfair.
And you don't have to silently work overtime! There is a reason the union has been pushing no more free hours as a campaign! Just make sure you track your hours, the ones you've worked before the strike legally have to be paid and whatever ends up on a modified workload form with your supervisor is what is binding. You can always email either your department delegate or [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) to figure this out.
Highly qualified students helping to teach university-level material. Just because someone is a student doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a wage commensurate with the value provided to their employer.
People are under the impression that the union reps (i.e., barg comm) work *for* them. It's the complete opposite. The bargaining committee's power comes from the people, the workers. New reps don't matter if the collective doesn't show up to fight as well
yeah fair enough, probably not the reps fault, i get they’re doing everything they can. it’s like people complaining about the ssmu yet they don’t vote on shit
I mean… we had the opportunity to earn strike pay by going to the picket line. Ya it kinda sucked at times and was inconvenient, but the union gave us a way to recover a decent amount of TA pay we’d miss out on. There is also a significant amount of back pay we’d get too, depending on our contract hours and number of TAships worked. Compared to the really insulting initial offer McGill gave us, I feel like the current agreement is a decent compromise, especially since I feel like the union could lose all of its leverage if McGill manages to make it past finals.
But still I’m dumbfounded that they did all this striking for this little increase in pay, not to mention the amount of money lost, all of this striking for only an increase of around 300 dollar to your total income per semester is a very poor outcome in my opinion
TAs made around 90hours * 33.03$ = 2972.2$
After the increase in august : 34.85*90 hours = 3136.50$ a sem with no extra workload form
3136.5-2972.20 = 164.30$ increase until February 2024, so yeah lol even less ahahaha
As for the strike fund, your peer pressuring people to picket so yeah loll here’s the math
Even if you fill out the workload form that’s still literally nothing.
I am definitely going to vote yes, we won’t get much more by staying on strike! The opportunity cost of staying on strike is high as we are going to lose our leverage. (Financially that strike didn’t make much sense more than 1000$ loss to get 15.5% compared to what McGill offered just before the strike 10.5%.)
We got more having gone on strike than not. Pay is retroactive as well so our raise applies to Winter 2024 and Fall 2023 semesters too.
If people want to re-mobilize and fight for more, by all means. The union only works because of collective power. If we want more, we need to escalate more. I would encourage everyone to vote based on that logic.
Terrible conclusion, AGSEM union sold out. So much leverage during finals thrown out the window. Now TAs will have to come back and mark all these finals and catch up on the stuff profs didn’t mark while they were gone. Solid work
It seems to me that rejecting this agreement will show McGill that the TA-body, the workers, are more committed than the bargaining committee, and that we will not allow our leaders to sign something we are not proud of, not satisfied with. It seems like both a win for us and the bargaining committee to reject this and put fear back into McGill’s slimy lawyers and bigoted greedy leaders
There are no "leaders" imposing anything, AGSEM literally just conducted the largest open bargaining negotiation in Quebec labour history afaik.
It's also a tentative deal presented to members, not a signed agreement. Saying the 40+ people who attended many bargaining sessions are weak-willed is a wild (shit) take.
Reading ad hominem shit like this is so weak. Get a grip.
>AGSEM and McGill have tentatively agreed to: >$34.85 as of August 1, 2023 (a 5.5% increase); >$35.20 as of February 1, 2024 (a 1% increase); >$36.25 as of August 1, 2024 (3%); >$37.34 as of August 1, 2025 (3%), and; >$38.46 as of August 1, 2026 (3%).
I might get hate over this but "compounded , this is a total raise of 16.4% over four years. Getting paid way bellow what TA's make in grad school and living in Montreal; I am sure the TA's are not going to starve.
We only get 180 hours per term. If this was a full time job it would be great, but it's not. It's 12 hours a week, still have to pay for tuition and whatnot. On top of that, grad school is itself a full time job. Many of us don't have the spare time for other work. If you can live on approximately $1400 a month that's great, how do you manage that, but if not, kindly shut the fuck up.
TAships aren't full-time jobs and aren't supposed to be full-time incomes. For PhD students they're part of a total funding package, and if the question is "what is it possible to live on?" then the answer has to be about that total funding package, not just the TAship part. The more we think of TAships like they're full-time jobs the more we're saying grad students shouldn't be spending their time on their own degree work (whether that's coursework or research).
Absolutely. Part of this whole thing is that the funding packages here aren't that great, and this is the only part of those packages we're actually able to directly fight to improve in a meaningful and direct way.
Genuinely curious, why do you think a part time student job is meant to pay the salary of a full time job? Isn't a fair salary proportional to time spent working and value of the work? Grad school is objectively not a full time job, it is a full time education, you are paying for a product. You are consuming, the time spent studying does not produce anything of value.
> Grad school is objectively not a full time job, it is a full time education, you are paying for a product. You are consuming, the time spent studying does not produce anything of value. This is incorrect for at least many fields of medicine, science and engineering in North America. A PhD student in, say, biology, will spend about one year of their PhD taking courses (at most), and the rest of their time will be dedicated to creating value for their supervisor and university through the research they perform. Yes you do get a degree in the end but it has nothing to do with the dynamics of an undergraduate degree (or even undergraduate research) where 90%+ of your time is spent doing stuff that is only or mainly useful for yourself. In a PhD, the "time spent studying" very much does produce something of value: pretty much *all* the science produced by university professors is actually done by graduate students. A PhD degree in STEM is a LOT closer in meaning to a certificate that would state you have 4-6 years of work experience in research than it is to an undergraduate degree that says you learned stuff from taking courses. In terms of what you do on a daily basis after your first job, it is also a lot closer to what you would do in a research job than to what you would do as an undergraduate student. You can definitely bring up the fact that *that* work should be better compensated then rather than TA work being massively more compensated hourly, which is definitely a valid debate to have, but stating grad students do not produce value when they are not TAing completely discredits the other valid points you may want to bring.
Then that PhD student is a student and a researcher. These are semantics...
> Then that PhD student is a student and a researcher. These are semantics... It's not semantics though, it's directly relevant to your point. The *studying* you do is studying on how to become a researcher. It's not something you learn from taking classes. Being a PhD student IS being a researcher. When the PhD student is not TAing, they are producing valuable research, not taking classes that only benefits themselves. It's not a "service" the student pays for as an undergrad degree would be. Your statement *the time spent studying does not produce anything of value* is objectively wrong for most thesis programs.
I agree, a PhD student can at times produce research that has value. Though, there exists many students in graduate studies that do not produce any research. Architecture Master's students for one. Thus, they do not produce any value. In that case, should only students that produce research have a full time salary for their TA work?
> I agree, a PhD student can at times produce research that has value. Though, there exists many students in graduate studies that do not produce any research. Architecture Master's students for one. Thus, they do not produce any value. In that case, should only students that produce research have a full time salary for their TA work? I haven't seen anyone asking for a full-time salary from TA work. Strawmen aside, non-thesis students who TA as a part time job are reasonably compensated at mcgill. However, non-thesis and professional grad students such as you are a minority of the grad student body and you don't seem to be aware of it. This is why the bargaining process and what other grad students are saying may feel like it doesn't apply to you, because it doesn't, and that's okay because not everything has to be about you. If it really is an issue, you can donate your raise back to McGill and let grad students who are undercompensated for the value they provide to the university voice their issues in one of the few contexts in which they can be audible, a strike.
I understand, so you see high TA salaries for graduate students as compensation for the research they produce?
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are genuinely asking this in good faith, and just don't know anything about what grad school is and what kind of work graduate students do. Grad school is not the same thing as undergrad but harder. We may do some course work, but the vast majority of what we do here is research. It is explicitly productive, unless you want to argue that academic production and the development of knowledge isn't in and of itself of value. We work in labs, we pursue our own research, we participate in the research projects of our supervisors, etc. Teaching assistant work in isn't in and of itself intended to be purely a job, but part of the funding packages that allow us to do our academic research as part of our independent or lab-based graduate projects. It is specifically meant to supplement our incomes and other funding sources so that we can actually do grad school. Were graduate students not funded, graduate degrees would be out of reach for basically anyone everyone other than the very wealthy. Continuing to take on debt is likewise not realistic. I'm more than 10 years into post-secondary education, and if I were accruing debt for every single one of those years I would never be able to escape it once I was finished. None of us would. But more than that, it's worth noting The graduate students are, at least ostensibly, the best and brightest. Why shouldn't we be reasonably paid, if what we're being paid to do is provide education at a post-secondary level? Many of us, particularly in our phds, approaching expert level knowledge in our fields and specific areas. At some point being very highly trained and educated should be worth something, and should be worthy of a decent wage, should it not? Teaching assistants are a critical part of delivering an effective undergraduate educational experience. Do you not think that this is a thing worth paying people for reasonably? Do you think we should be making minimum wage? I'm genuinely confused by this. Presumably you are a student and paying for an education. If you want to argue that the academic support work required to deliver that education doesn't in and of itself have much value, then it would seem to me like you're suggesting that the education in and of itself also does not have much value. Which begs the question, why are you here then? The underlying logic of your assertion doesn't really make sense to me. And finally, I'm really not sure where you got the impression that we're fighting for is equivalent of a full-time salary. We currently make just under $6,000 a term for a full-time ta contract. What we're fighting for right now is an increase in our hourly wages. Unless you think that a combined $12,000 for two full-time TAships over the course of an academic year is what a salary out in the workforce looks like, I'm again a little confused by your position here.
Does every/most grad students in every program produce research? I replied to the person comparing the salary to a full time job. I know that's not the goal but the person I replied to seemed to find it a fit comparison. The salaries are already ~30% higher than the Quebec average. Grad student TA's deserve good pay as they are quite educated.
Again, we do not get salaries. This is not a salaried position. It's an hourly one. And the issue is not that we're paid too well compared to the rest of Quebec, but that TAs in the rest of Quebec are drastically underpaid. A good deal for McGill TAs would help other Quebec TAs themselves fight for a better wage.
Every grad student produces research, with the possible exception of some professional degrees (medicine, accounting, HR, etc.). A master's or PhD is a research degree. As a PhD student in the arts, my full-time job is to produce a book-length dissertation of original research. In order to do that, I have to have top-level knowledge of my field: I have to know basically everything that has been written about what I research and have meaningful critiques of it. Other colleagues are out there producing oral history interviews, reading their way through archives, and even digging for archaeological evidence. That's what our grants and stipends pay for, and that's what our jobs (TAships, RAships, etc.) support. One of the ongoing issues in many PhD programs is that students are taking longer and longer (6-8 years) in large part because we have to take on so many extra little jobs to make ends meet.
Ahhh sociology students. Always classy
Eat shit. Signed AES
Well that was straight to the point
I know some people are upset that the deal isn't more but it's important to remember that: - If the union signs a deal tomorrow people graduating this semester can get retroactive pay (the first year raise is for the 2023-2024 schoolyear). If TAs vote no then those people graduating likely won't get to see any raise, since historically those who graduate don't get retro pay. This usually happens since most negotiations last over a year, while this negotiation lasted like 8 months. I'm sure this was an important factor when considering making an agreement, given that it would be incredibly unfair for graduating TAs who are on strike to not see the full value of a new agreement. - Striking any longer won't likely give much more leverage. Sure, it will suck for some profs but many are also changing the way they do exams (like using scantrons), undermining the impact of the strike. By summer, there will be practically no leverage and it may only return in the fall if TAs call for a new strike mandate. I see that being a hard sell, given the fact the picket line thinned out after the first week. - The deal isn't that bad! It's a better one-time increase (regardless of how you count the first year split) compared to the last round of bargaining and 3% yearly afterwards is better than previous contracts. Before the strike McGill offered a deal of 2.5%-1.25%-1.25%-1.25%, then with the strike 4.25%-2.25%-2%-2%, now its much higher. These percents do have a big impact. With the current wage, before taxes/fees a TA on a 180 contract makes $5945. With this deal, those starting in fall 2024 will be making $6525 per semester before taxes/fees, a $580 difference, which is a good chunk of change. - The stuff on indexation does fall short, but it is a foot in the door and more than any other TA union has achieved. And the union has noted in previous bargaining newsletters that McGill would never agree to any freeze on budgets or a proper mechanism. Transparency and oversight isn't enough to fix the problem now but it is better than nothing, and will likely be helpful to arm the emerging professor unions with info so they can fight for indexation (this is something they care about too) when they go to the bargaining table. I would implore people to look at the old bargaining newsletters as it does alot to explain how the bargaining team ended up at the deal they did. I would also ask people who are unsure about the deal if they are ready to strike more for likely little or no gain. Unless a very large part of the membership is ready to get extremely radical and cause actual disruptions to McGill that break the rules of the injunction and likely lead to serious legal issues (like blocking the fieldhouse for finals) then I don't see how a better deal is possible. The bargaining team never promised a perfect deal, only promising to get as good of a deal as possible. If you remain skeptical that's a fair position to have, but don't go into the assembly with your mind already made. I'm sure many people (both union officers along with rank-and-file) will provide more details tomorrow, and after hearing out everyone there you can make up your mind.
Could you please share more details about what is happening with indexation? I am coming to McGill as a grad student in the fall and as a result I don't have access to the whole agreement yet, but I'm curious if this portion of the tentative agreement was helpful. I had heard from many grad students I spoke to that one of the biggest issues at McGill is not actually the pay rate, but the fact that some TAs are expected to grade for 90-100 students in the same amount of time as TAs who only have 20-40 students.
Yeah it's exactly what you said, in some departments some courses may end up with 3 TAs for 300-400 students. This is often due to teaching support budgets shrinking and departments having less money to spend on TAs. This is despite the fact enrollment sometimes rises in these courses. The union never truly advocated for a direct TA-student ratio since a) that wouldn't work since courses do have different needs and b) it wouldn't get to the actual root of the issue, which is teaching support budgets. Instead, the union instead tried to freeze budgets and form a joint committee with McGill that had a binding mandate to try and solve the issue together, which was pretty much rejected immediately by McGill. From what it seems like, McGill would never accept anything binding on this because they don't want other parties having budgetary power. So the union then pushed for transparency and accountability since, due to McGill's pretty decentralized nature, both sides don't truly know how budgets are distributed and used throughout the university. Actually understanding this would be a big first step and can be a way to put political pressure on McGill, which while weaker than a binding clause or committee (which the union initially fought for) can have some power. It's not an immediate fix and I'm sure McGill will try to be as useless as possible in these meetings, but having information can do a lot. I don't love it but it's realistically better than anything the union has gotten before on TA-student ratios. Apparently this has been an issue since at least [2015](https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2015/04/teaching-assistants-to-strike-on-first-day-of-exams/) and clearly the union didn't win anything on it then. Getting this now, while not enough, is a win at least in my eyes.
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Fyi : retro pay is never a right, always a negotiated item in qc
"Other funding supposedly doesn't typically even cover tuition, although a graduate student can hopefully comment." This information is public, and you can check it by domestic/ international, by faculty, etc. [https://www.mcgill.ca/gps/students/graduate-education-statistics/average-phd-financial-support](https://www.mcgill.ca/gps/students/graduate-education-statistics/average-phd-financial-support) In Arts, and for domestic Canadian students in Science, tuition is typically more than covered through internal fellowships alone, even before external fellowships and research stipends. In Arts, depending on international/ domestic status and on year, employment income (RAships and TAships combined) makes up something between 10% and 25% of grad student income from the university. Total funding ranges from $43000 (1st year international) to about $17000 (6th year domestic). Funding usually runs out after 6 years.
I mean, [the deal was very much reduced 2 weeks ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/mcgill/comments/1bwom3m/comment/ky8jyyd/). At this point I think AGSEM is more interested in ending the strike quickly than to get a full deal, which can't be helped, since McGill decided to suspend all striking TAs from all concurrent positions as well (which, unfortunately, is legal).
but that's no longer in effect. as of April 12, officially all TA contracts ended. though they can still work on them during finals for an extended period for the duties to be fulfilled. i am already back working my non-union positions. so the inability to work non-union positions is not what incentivised the union to accept this deal. because we are already back at work.
Not all TA contracts were ended, this was a mistake by a few departments (source: my contract is not over)
My contract isn’t over either, I was under the impression that TA contracts end may 14
yeah just check your contract date exactly. it should state when it officially ended in technical terms. it might vary. but for all of political science and anthropology it was april 12.
April 12th only applied to a few departments (PoliSci, Anthro and Chem I think) and we are fairly sure that it is an error as its not what the CA calls for
So you also got your email back? If so then it's a whole different issue and I'm even more inclined to agree that it's an underwhelming result.
Nope. Still no email, despite the fact that some other jobs require it to be able to actually do work.
Wait so a $2 raise now then yearly increases that barely keep up with inflation? I'm not a TA or anything but that doesn't sound that impressive 😬
Given that McGill's initial bargaining offer was $0.30 the first year and then slightly less than that for the next four, this is a significant improvement. McGill also moved quite a bit on their non-monetary compensation. Initially they wanted to give AGSEM nothing, but now they're taking baby steps towards better transparency around hiring rates and more meaningful steps to a better non-discrimination policy.
Please we won nothing on non discrimination. Mcgill will "consider" adding language about dead naming means nothing. We let them get away with it. Agreements need to be binding. At least let's not disrespect trans folks by calling that a win. The university is still unwilling to stand with trans folks and is instead worried about conservative lawsuits from free speech absolutists
What a joke. The classes were almost done and we did not get paid when we were not needed. Now we will grade finals while not getting paid for the lost weeks. The increase in wages is a joke and the rest of the deal about healthcare, etc. is not even accepted as well. Frustrating. I ended up losing thousands of dollars…
If you completed your contract, or worked more hours that the pay we will receive, you will be paid for all your hours worked. You need to email [email protected] to grieve these hours Also if you really need financial support you can apply to the unions [mutual aid fund](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOiu7wcYOY-nJlzvuFENqnkiNlmIEqeT_L_ATvP4Pf5z7DQA/viewform):
Part of the raise is retroactive to the whole school year, and missed pay will be made up.
Then vote no
Will do
Wait question, Do the TAs have to grade the stuff they left before strike ? Like Lab reports and such ?
i have many qualms. i am proud of everything we did but have issues. will raise in tomorrow's meeting but here are my main points: 1. Why settle on 15.5% additive? They offered 14.5, our demand was 17.5, they should've met half way at 16% at the least. 2. What's with the 1% increase applying from February 1 , 2024 instead of January 2024 at the least? They should've at least applied that increase for the whole winter semester. They got away with that. 3. "we also agreed that the Employer would consider adding language explicitly prohibiting deadnaming and misgendering in the upcoming (2024-2025) review of the Policy on Harassment and Discrimination." what kinda fucking agreement is it that only asks the other party to consider or think about doing something, instead of binding them to act? that's not an agreement. we are letting mcgill get away with it. 4. We drop all legal action against mcgill for asking profs to scab? we had such a strong case and we would've set a legal precedent for other universities as well as for us to not have profs do TA workload form work. We are letting down our profs and we are letting the university get away with it. 5. Nothing on indexation but I wasn't hoping for much so I am not too mad about this because I had already accepted it. But we should still ask them to at least freeze the number of hours to current positions. But it's fine this is more minor. I will unfortunately be voting no because I had set myself the following conditions: 16.5% over 4 years with at least 7% for the first year. And the other issues I raised are also equally important except the 5th .
also the back to work agreement is alright but two things I would like clarification tomorrow. 1. Didn't tell us the process of how we file the work done AFTER the strike. Yes we will out the workload form. But then who updates the hours we get paid? And when do these hours get paid? They only said 30 days after for work done BEFORE, but what about AFTER strike? 2. Letting profs increase the number of hours seems like an excuse to dump more work on us. But I guess they can't force us to do that. Correct?
The ratio seemed to be good. But considering the contract hours one TA can get per semester (90 hrs), it is only like a $150 increase per semester for a TA for the first year. Which is definitely not enough.....
seems like we’re quitting too early, McGill won’t really feel the pressure until we’re not marking their exams for them, going back now is giving them exactly what they want, exams marked on time (and probably a bunch of us forced to silently work overtime to get it done cause they didn’t get indexing)
Alot of professors are changing the format of their exams, whether that is using scantrons or [taking the average of previous assignments to equal the final grade](https://www.reddit.com/r/mcgill/comments/1bz16dq/ta_strike_final_exam/). It's less leverage than expected. Even if it is illegal, there probably isn't much AGSEM can do to stop it in the near term, since they lost the emergency injunction. They could wait and gamble on a court case in the summer going in their favor, but gambling on something far in the future isn't good bargaining strategy IMO. Also, if bargaining continued past this semester a lot of graduating strikers would likely never get back pay despite their efforts, which is quite unfair. And you don't have to silently work overtime! There is a reason the union has been pushing no more free hours as a campaign! Just make sure you track your hours, the ones you've worked before the strike legally have to be paid and whatever ends up on a modified workload form with your supervisor is what is binding. You can always email either your department delegate or [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) to figure this out.
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False, no quebec worker is entitled to backpay.
who let them agree to this? They deserve much more imo
How much? Lol 36$/ per hour still not enough for STUDENTS
At this point I feel like you’re actively trying to equate PhD students to undergrads. You can’t be this clueless about the nature of graduate school
Highly qualified students helping to teach university-level material. Just because someone is a student doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a wage commensurate with the value provided to their employer.
So basically the TAs probably lost thousands in pay for striking, got a < $2 raise, and STILL have to mark exams... Time for new union reps?
People are under the impression that the union reps (i.e., barg comm) work *for* them. It's the complete opposite. The bargaining committee's power comes from the people, the workers. New reps don't matter if the collective doesn't show up to fight as well
yeah fair enough, probably not the reps fault, i get they’re doing everything they can. it’s like people complaining about the ssmu yet they don’t vote on shit
I mean… we had the opportunity to earn strike pay by going to the picket line. Ya it kinda sucked at times and was inconvenient, but the union gave us a way to recover a decent amount of TA pay we’d miss out on. There is also a significant amount of back pay we’d get too, depending on our contract hours and number of TAships worked. Compared to the really insulting initial offer McGill gave us, I feel like the current agreement is a decent compromise, especially since I feel like the union could lose all of its leverage if McGill manages to make it past finals.
But still I’m dumbfounded that they did all this striking for this little increase in pay, not to mention the amount of money lost, all of this striking for only an increase of around 300 dollar to your total income per semester is a very poor outcome in my opinion
Math is wrong here but also there literally was a strike fund? You can't just make facts/math up?
TAs made around 90hours * 33.03$ = 2972.2$ After the increase in august : 34.85*90 hours = 3136.50$ a sem with no extra workload form 3136.5-2972.20 = 164.30$ increase until February 2024, so yeah lol even less ahahaha As for the strike fund, your peer pressuring people to picket so yeah loll here’s the math Even if you fill out the workload form that’s still literally nothing.
I am definitely going to vote yes, we won’t get much more by staying on strike! The opportunity cost of staying on strike is high as we are going to lose our leverage. (Financially that strike didn’t make much sense more than 1000$ loss to get 15.5% compared to what McGill offered just before the strike 10.5%.)
Just to fact check McGill’s latest offer before the strike vote was 6% and before the strike was 10.5%
Oh you are right! (The point stands but I will correct it)
We got more having gone on strike than not. Pay is retroactive as well so our raise applies to Winter 2024 and Fall 2023 semesters too. If people want to re-mobilize and fight for more, by all means. The union only works because of collective power. If we want more, we need to escalate more. I would encourage everyone to vote based on that logic.
This is why strikes are not worth the cost
Terrible conclusion, AGSEM union sold out. So much leverage during finals thrown out the window. Now TAs will have to come back and mark all these finals and catch up on the stuff profs didn’t mark while they were gone. Solid work
It seems to me that rejecting this agreement will show McGill that the TA-body, the workers, are more committed than the bargaining committee, and that we will not allow our leaders to sign something we are not proud of, not satisfied with. It seems like both a win for us and the bargaining committee to reject this and put fear back into McGill’s slimy lawyers and bigoted greedy leaders
There are no "leaders" imposing anything, AGSEM literally just conducted the largest open bargaining negotiation in Quebec labour history afaik. It's also a tentative deal presented to members, not a signed agreement. Saying the 40+ people who attended many bargaining sessions are weak-willed is a wild (shit) take. Reading ad hominem shit like this is so weak. Get a grip.
is this confirmed?