Originally Posted by huzaifa47

There-In lies the divide and beef between Commerce and Pure Economics Students! Anddd the crux of alot of things wrong with the Capitalist system today! I'm actually happy you said that for some wierd reason But yeah you obviously are entitled to your opinion; even if it throws out of the window every principle and law I stand for as an economic major :(

While I agree that different programs attract different types of people, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good example of that. I'm relatively sure that Cheri didn't mean that she doesn't care about market averages in general, just in this specific case. And I'm pretty sure a lot of students fall into the same boat.

Simply on the basis of qualification. If one store gives it employees $20 dollars an hour, while most other stores pay $10 dollars an hour to workers, and the employees are equally qualified, the employees at the $10 dollar store are going to be upset. They have the same qualification, but are getting different wages.

I think that is how a lot of students see TAs. They make well above minimum wage, doing a job that will look great on a resume, that they perceive as being relatively easy. And they see that these people are not more qualified than themselves (with half an undergrad degree). If those people start asking for more, than understandably the people who are already getting minimum wage won't take it seriously.

Now of course, I realize that the flaw is that not everyone is equally qualified, and that TAs (or at least UG TAs) have to be quite good at the subject matter. But what type of marks the TAs got is something that the students never see, so they don't realize that fact. Especially when some TAs seem to have only a small grasp on the subject matter.

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Personally, I've lucked out when it comes to TAs, I've always had TAs who were at least decent, and I've had some amazing ones as well. And I think them asking to be compensated for the hours that they actually work is definitely a fair request, even if they are a bit overpayed on the per hour scale (and I think most TAs will admit to this).

The only problem I have is the way the union is trying to accomplish they're goals, and the fact that every TA I have talked to is against a strike. I want to find out how a strike vote passed in the first place: dsahota, do you happen to have any of the data I asked about?

Are there any figures about the breakdown of:
-Who was eligible to vote in a strike vote?
-What percentage of these people voted?
-What percentage of members are graduate and which percentage are undergraduate?

I also like how the union rep hasn't responded to my call for them to refuse to strike. If the union was truly working to improve education as a whole, rather than just fighting for their own best interests, they would agree that striking is something they should never do in this situation.

But....

No, the union is "all in" for themselves:

F the students and

F the public

Originally Posted by dsahota

Here's the criteria used for the Sil diagram:

When we compare to other universities its important we explain our criteria for the comparison. McMaster, with 20,000+ undergraduate and 3000+ graduate students is considered a research intensive mid-sized university. In making our comparison graph there were three main criteria for inclusion into the graph:

0) In Ontario (provinces fund universities so it only makes sense to compare within a province)
1) At least mid-sized universities (15,000+ undergradutes)
2) Research Intensive (>1000 graduate students)
3) Unionized workforce (CUPE Locals)

The 8 universities in the graph are the only 8 fitting those criteria (to the best of my knowledge).

The problem with this propagan.... I mean, diagram is that it puts income/wages on a scale that is relative only to other income/wages.

It doesn't take cost of living into account at all. A TA in Toronto might make more than a TA here, but cost of living for a student in Toronto is much higher than in Hamilton. A TA in Toronto might have a higher income, but still have less disposable income after rent, bills and food are accounted for.

This is a big oversight that the union doesn't seem to care about. Cost of living for a student in Hamilton is quite low compared to most places in Ontario, especially Ottawa and Toronto.

Originally Posted by Taunton

It doesn't take cost of living into account at all. A TA in Toronto might make more than a TA here, but cost of living for a student in Toronto is much higher than in Hamilton. A TA in Toronto might have a higher income, but still have less disposable income after rent, bills and food are accounted for.

I did an explicit computation regarding this very thing for you above, I'd like to know your thoughts. *directs your attention upward* lol

Originally Posted by Mowicz

I did an explicit computation regarding this very thing for you above, I'd like to know your thoughts. *directs your attention upward* lol

I already dealt with it. Toronto rent can be more than double what it is in Hamilton.

Keyword: can be.

There's no reason you can't be thrifty, whether you live in Toronto or Hamilton. (Kinda sucks that this discussion is relevant to both threads, haha)

I'll move the discussion here, for simplicity's sake, and because I'm expecting the union guy to respond here.

For anyone who wants background, it can be found here: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...2429 3&page=2

I'm not quite sure where you're getting 600 as the upper limit for Hamilton...I've turned down places which were about 800, and have seen some as high as 1200, depending on the area. Sure, these probably aren't places which are reasonable on a student income which is why I turned them down, but half the battle for a student is finding an affordable place to live.

If you live in close proximity to any major landmark (like U of T or otherwise) in Toronto you're paying more than the typical rent. If you find an affordable place to live, it'll be as low as 6, 700 bucks, but you'll have to take the subway every day. If you demand that it's right next to U of T, then your income is going to that because you made that a priority worth spending on. Saying Toronto rent is double (at least to Taunton, Greg wasn't saying this) because the 'upper limit' of Toronto's limit is twice the 'lower limit' of Hamilton's isn't quite right...you'd have to look at typical rent.

(Not to mention, I know a guy who did his Co-op at Cadbury and so got a place in Toronto near U of T for 350-ish a month...so there are definitely those 'outliers' on either side)

I got my upper limit for Hamilton based on my personal experience as a student looking for student accomodations. We can both agree that there will be places in both Hamilton and Toronto that will have high rent, but is not considered "student accomodation". At the same time, there will be places in both Toronto and Hamilton that have rents that are exceptionally low. Those would be case-by-case situations and the potential leasee would likely have to take certain things into extra consideration (such as living conditions, distance from school, etc).

What we need here are good solid average student rent for these places.

This would be getting a little too detailed for what I'm willing to invest in this discussion, but the best way I know how to get a solution would be to get student rent data from both places and map it spatially using a GIS (as an aside, GIS is what I'm planning on doing in real life). The statistics could be crunched easily and we would have both a reference map and an answer to our question of: are student rents in Toronto significantly different from student rents in Hamilton, and if so, by how much?

Yay geostats!

As for the actual fact, I just did a very general student accomodation search for toronto, and tried to get results in the "middle of the pack" so to speak. Most numbers were from $750-$850.

Here's the link (not sure if it will work): http://www.homes4students.ca /ontario.html

Originally Posted by deadpool

I am in 5th year and have FAR too many friends with lackluster grades who got into Grad School simply because Mac wanted more money from students who KIND OF proved themselves with their 7 averages.

This is incredibly frustrating. I had a higher average than that, with a shit-ton of extra-curriculars and got rejected from all of the schools I applied to. Did they all apply to Mac?

PM me? Please?

Something tells me he was exaggerating for dramatic effect.

Seems like there's a lot of that going on here.

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

While I agree that different programs attract different types of people, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good example of that. I'm relatively sure that Cheri didn't mean that she doesn't care about market averages in general, just in this specific case. And I'm pretty sure a lot of students fall into the same boat.

Simply on the basis of qualification. If one store gives it employees $20 dollars an hour, while most other stores pay $10 dollars an hour to workers, and the employees are equally qualified, the employees at the $10 dollar store are going to be upset. They have the same qualification, but are getting different wages.

I think that is how a lot of students see TAs. They make well above minimum wage, doing a job that will look great on a resume, that they perceive as being relatively easy. And they see that these people are not more qualified than themselves (with half an undergrad degree). If those people start asking for more, than understandably the people who are already getting minimum wage won't take it seriously.

Now of course, I realize that the flaw is that not everyone is equally qualified, and that TAs (or at least UG TAs) have to be quite good at the subject matter. But what type of marks the TAs got is something that the students never see, so they don't realize that fact. Especially when some TAs seem to have only a small grasp on the subject matter.

---------------------

Personally, I've lucked out when it comes to TAs, I've always had TAs who were at least decent, and I've had some amazing ones as well. And I think them asking to be compensated for the hours that they actually work is definitely a fair request, even if they are a bit overpayed on the per hour scale (and I think most TAs will admit to this).

The only problem I have is the way the union is trying to accomplish they're goals, and the fact that every TA I have talked to is against a strike. I want to find out how a strike vote passed in the first place: dsahota, do you happen to have any of the data I asked about?

Are there any figures about the breakdown of:
-Who was eligible to vote in a strike vote?
-What percentage of these people voted?
-What percentage of members are graduate and which percentage are undergraduate?

See, Andrew's just a lot better at wording things than I am.

That's exactly what I meant.

Originally Posted by Mowicz

But the union does directly represent the TAs, not the students. Why should the union fail to do a good job for the TAs, because another completely unrelated population may suffer? Like it or not students, CUPE is doing what's best for the people it stands for. I don't completely agree with its methods (ie. using students as leverage) but I do agree with its motives.

I'm only picking on this to make a point... it's not directly at Mowicz

The reason why the union should care about how this "completely unrelated population" (ps how are the students completely unrelated? We're the paying customers) may suffer is because of the effect that the union could have. With great power comes great responsibility (to be super clichéd), and the union has a responsibility to use the power it has to disrupt 20,000 student's lives very carefully. Unfortunately for the union, I have a feeling that most students are not willing to make the sacrifices that it would be asking us to make.

It's unfortunate that unions never give a sh*t about anyone other than themselves. They couldn't care less if the school was closed indefinitely, and they haven't shown me any reason to believe otherwise, with their biased blog and propaganda and all.

My dad went to post-secondary for three years and worked at the same company for 25 years in order to get paid $38 an hour. He doesn't sit at a desk marking papers. He does physical labour for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Every 6 months, he has to switch to the night shift.

He has never complained about his job for a single day in my entire life.

That pretty much sums up the whole damn thing for me.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

My dad went to post-secondary for three years and worked at the same company for 25 years in order to get paid $38 an hour. He doesn't sit at a desk marking papers. He does physical labour for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Every 6 months, he has to switch to the night shift.

He has never complained about his job for a single day in my entire life.

That pretty much sums up the whole damn thing for me.

Pretty much sums it up for me too, except my dad's been working at the same company for 33 years and gets paid 28 dollars an hour.

My dad's shift is from 3am-1pm.

He doesn't complain either. And he wasn't going to picket when they almost when on strike this summer. >_<

Apologies this response took some time, I was working on it and then got pulled into a couple of other discussions.

Originally Posted by Taunton

If you actually care about students, then refuse to go on strike. Refuse to disrupt the lives of the 20,000 students on campus right now.

You can negotiate without striking. It might take lots of time, but there are ways around getting a deal done without striking. Striking is an unnecessary and extreme means to get your side heard.

Certainly our goal in having a deadline is to negotiate a deal and avert a strike. We've been in bargaining since the Spring and the University Administration has showed no willingness to budge on any major issue. A deadline is a very effective tool for getting negotiations moving and to reach a fair deal. We certainly saw this in our Unit 2 bargaining last year where the sides were very far apart and yet managed to come together and avert a strike in the last few hours before a deadline. If we are unable to reach a fair collective agreement before the deadline (which still isn't set yet) then the decision will come to the bargaining team whether to actually call a strike. In the event this decision has to be made, it won't be taken lightly and would require a consensus of the team that it is necessary to actually have a labour disruption to get a fair agreement.

There are other options for getting a deal done besides putting a deadline in place, but they also have negative implications for students. One method is work-to-rule, which would see most of our TAs run out of paid hours partway through the semester. This would also have a negative impact on students as marking wouldn't get done and tutorials might also be cancelled unless the department was willing to compensate the TAs for the additional hours (which they generally aren't, which is why we have a problem to begin with). Its a slow way to get a deal and might could also require a deadline at some point to actually get the deal done. The longer process also means a longer time of uncertainty for students, which isn't helpful. We also don't want to end up having to set a deadline in the Winter semester, when a potential strike could really disrupt the school year. If a labour disruption is absolutely necessary and it occurs in the Fall, then a quick resolution will hopefully be found and the school year can be completed with minimal disruption.

We could also just sit across the table and wait for a deal to come, which is what we spent most of the summer doing. We could continue to wait, but experience has shown that style of bargaining can take years to reach an agreement. During those interceding years of bargaining the University would be under a cloud of uncertainty, our members would see significant decreases in benefits and take-home-compensation, and we'd have no ability to address structural issues around quality of education. In addition, many of our members would graduate and move on, so waiting for years for a deal isn't really a solution, especially when the issues are so relevant right at the moment.

In short, we can't refuse to strike, because that would remove the main mechanism we have to get the University Administration back to the table and to make the hard decisions that both sides need to make. But we also don't want to strike because it disrupts our lives as TAs and students, it disrupts undergraduate student education, it disrupts the entire community. Going on strike is a tough decision to make and if we end up at that point, the bargaining team will consider the entire picture when making the call. We can't accept a deal that causes significant hardship for our membership and leaves our University on the road to losing its world-class status.

How about this - give TAs as much money as they want, but allow the student's they are teaching the right to fire them if they collectively determine them to be useless?

I think that's fair, we'd end up with about 8 TAs at the university and we could pay them all the money they want