One thing I'd like to know - have you actually heard a TA complain about how much money they make?

I'm not trying to be a *****, I'm actually curious.

Originally Posted by Taunton

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.

Cost of living is something we consider, that's why we don't expect or even propose to be at the top of the total compensation scale. It wasn't explicitly included in the diagram because cost of living indexes are notoriously variable and biased and it would make it really difficult to decipher the data (in my opinion).

Rather the way we approach the cost of living question is to look at a similar situation, in this case we looked at Guelph. Guelph has similar cost of living to Hamilton and has significantly higher pay (due to more hours being compensated for). For graduate TAs, our initial proposal to increase the paid hours for graduate TAs to 280 / year would put McMaster in line with Guelph, which I think is quite reasonable.

Originally Posted by michelle

One thing I'd like to know - have you actually heard a TA complain about how much money they make?

I'm not trying to be a *****, I'm actually curious.

That's a totally fair question,

Here's what we heard from our members:

For graduate TAs, people across the board think the wage rate is reasonable, hence why we proposed a freeze. Their main complaint about compensation was the number of hours being worked and the fact their paycheques were being cut by hundreds of dollars per year due to tuition increases. Those are the two issues we've tried to tackle for graduate TAs.

For undergraduate TAs we did hear complaints that TAs didn't think it was fair they were being paid at about half the rate for the same work being done as graduate TAs. We also hear complaints that undergraduate student TAs are often pressured into reporting less hours than they actually worked. We've tried to address the first issue through initially proposing to close half the gap between undergraduate and graduate TA wage rates. The second problem of under-reporting hours we've tried to address by having the contracts for undergrads be for a guaranteed number of hours. Currently they're written as "up to N hours" which is why the pressure comes in to stay well below N hours worked.

The things we've proposed in our package are all directly from our membership bringing the issues forward.

Mowicz:

You fail to consider the biggest benefit of a TA job. It has an intrinsic value that is far greater than any part-time job I have.

I might make marginally more money in a year, but that doesn't help me get ahead academically, which is my primary goal. I do not get reference letters from profs, and it does not get to go on applications to grad schools.

Nobody TAs for the money, yet this strike threat is predicated on that entire fact.

I do not want a TA who is in it for the money because they tend to do a pretty lackluster job.

Dsahota:

If Guelph and Mac have comparable standards of living (which they do not, considering the distance that the Guelph student ghetto is from their campus), but incomparable payment of TAs, the solution is not to jack up the wages of TAs.

The problem there is that Guelph TAs are overpaid.

With a 21% student unemployment rate, which is SHOCKING, nobody should be trying to jack up the cost of hiring a student. The University has a finite amount of resources, and higher wages for staff just means that we will either see more cuts to our programs, or increase in tuition.

I don't understand where you people get off thinking you are doing a proper thing. You represent a tiny minority of students, most of whom don't particularly complain about how much they get paid. Yet, you come onto MacInsiders trying to get the larger majority (non-TAs) to buy into this plan and support you, when we are completely and absolutely SCREWED over by this plan.

Originally Posted by michelle

One thing I'd like to know - have you actually heard a TA complain about how much money they make?

I'm not trying to be a *****, I'm actually curious.

Yes .. all the TAs that want to go on strike for better wages.

If your REAL problem with the job is about how many hours you work, why not strike over that? Why not say "Pay us for the hours we work" instead of "Give us more money" ?

Besides, that wasn't even the point of my post. My point was: there are a lot of people who work A LOT harder and get paid a lot less.

TAs complain and threaten to strike a lot. There are so many people (in Canada, not like third world countries) who are so much worse off and would LOVE to be a TA for much less pay.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Yes .. all the TAs that want to go on strike for better wages.

If your REAL problem with the job is about how many hours you work, why not strike over that? Why not say "Pay us for the hours we work" instead of "Give us more money" ?

Besides, that wasn't even the point of my post. My point was: there are a lot of people who work A LOT harder and get paid a lot less.

TAs complain and threaten to strike a lot. There are so many people (in Canada, not like third world countries) who are so much worse off and would LOVE to be a TA for much less pay.

What I meant was, have you heard it come out of someone's mouth? As in - not from the union?

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Yes .. all the TAs that want to go on strike for better wages.

If your REAL problem with the job is about how many hours you work, why not strike over that? Why not say "Pay us for the hours we work" instead of "Give us more money" ?

That's certainly the way we're trying to portray things, but we should work harder to get that message out. We'd rather not strike over any issue, but rather get it solved at the table. Betting paid for ours worked is one of our main priorities of this bargaining.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Besides, that wasn't even the point of my post. My point was: there are a lot of people who work A LOT harder and get paid a lot less.

TAs complain and threaten to strike a lot. There are so many people (in Canada, not like third world countries) who are so much worse off and would LOVE to be a TA for much less pay.

There certainly are always people who are much worse off. CUPE 3906 is actually a social justice union, so we do have a political action committee which works within the community to advocate and support the struggles of other workers for better working conditions.

But the fact there are people who are worse off, is not a reason to stop trying to find solutions to the problems that TAs have brought up. The issues we've raised have been brought up by our membership and we've put forward what we think are reasonable solutions to address these problems. The goal now is to sit down at the table with the University Administration and find a way that works for both sides to address the problems.

Originally Posted by dsahota

what we think are reasonable solutions

Yes, but the bargaining team's job is to think that their side is "reasonable" no matter how ridiculous your demands are. You're like lawyers, paid to fight for the matters on behalf of a client.

The average non-TA/RA student does not think what you are doing is reasonable.

It's the nature of the beast.

Originally Posted by deadpool

Yes, but the bargaining team's job is to think that their side is "reasonable" no matter how ridiculous your demands are. You're like lawyers, paid to fight for the matters on behalf of a client.

The average non-TA/RA student does not think what you are doing is reasonable.

It's the nature of the beast.

The bargaining team is actually an all volunteer team elected from our membership. For example, I'm a second year Master's student in Engineering Physics and my first experience with bargaining was during the Unit 3 (postdoc negotiations) starting last winter. I had no prior involvement with labour unions or the labour movement, but I put myself forward as a representative because I thought I could contribute and bring a useful perspective to the team. Our two staff members are also at the table to provide support, but the decisions are all being made by elected representatives like myself. We do advocate for the issues our membership brings up, but we're certainly not paid like lawyers.

I certainly understand there's lots of room to disagree with the process we use in bargaining. However, its a process that's been developed over decades of negotiations and works quite well. McMaster TAs have only ever been on strike once in over 30 years (I can explain what happened in that round if you're interested). We certainly hope that we don't have to go on strike again.

Not gonna lie, I'm a T.A., and I think the money that we get paid is more than enough. Everytime I tell someone how much I get paid, their jaw drops. I think that kind of reaction would suggest that our salary is great as is.

Striking would be beyond dumb.

Originally Posted by PTGregD

Not gonna lie, I'm a T.A., and I think the money that we get paid is more than enough. Everytime I tell someone how much I get paid, their jaw drops. I think that kind of reaction would suggest that our salary is great as is.

Striking would be beyond dumb.

Well Greg I'm not sure if you are a good example when it comes to how much you value your T.A "Pay"; The weight age for that probable income in your life is negligible because of something I won't mention but I'm sure you'll understand

Think of it from a struggling middle class student's perspective!

Heh, well I also mentioned that anyone I tell my salary to also says that it's a lot. So it's a pretty decent sample size (with lots of starving students :p)!

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Think of it from a struggling middle class student's perspective!

Said perspective: why are my tuition fees being jacked up so that another of my peers can benefit off it?

If people can't live on a TA's salary, let them do what everyone else does. Work multiple jobs.

Originally Posted by deadpool

Said perspective: why are my tuition fees being jacked up so that another of my peers can benefit off it?

If people can't live on a TA's salary, let them do what everyone else does. Work multiple jobs.

I'm not sure how graduate studies are in social sciences/humanities; however, for people doing their M.Sc. everyone works at least 8 hours/day (I've spent 12 hours a few times depending on the experiment) and they also do research at home for defenses/comprehensive exams. Add to that courses and any T.A. work/prep. Many graduate students also conduct experiments on weekends. I was a summer student and I spent 48 hours a week in the lab minimum, all of the masters students spent much more time than I did.

Unless they never sleep or if they decide to slack on their research/courses, it would be very difficult to work multiple jobs.

Edit: Plus, if they're completely exhausted, it can lead to incredibly dangerous accidents in the lab. :\

Originally Posted by deadpool

Said perspective: why are my tuition fees being jacked up so that another of my peers can benefit off it?

If people can't live on a TA's salary, let them do what everyone else does. Work multiple jobs.

I completely see your point! And to me personally asking for $28 is ridiculous as well especially when It increases the chance of further budget cuts towards Arts and the fact that Mac has a possible budget deficiet of $30-40 million for next year. Even if T.A wages Constitute 4.2% of the entire salary budget that is a bit of a problem!

But I am was simply arguing based on laws and principles of economic wages; Even if we take Uoft out(Because of that PI issue) if Mac T.A's still earn less then the other Universities there still is a problem. I guess still feel that it is a completely normative statement that Guelph T.A's are being "overpaid"; there is no quantifiable evidence behind that because that still leaves them below York, Windsor, Ottawa, Ryerson, hence it would lead to the statement that "all T.A's on that list are overpaid"! But at the same time I agree that I have no idea what the true equillibrium market wage under pure Friedman Economics(I'm assuming you are subscriber of that school of thought) would be: I.e; The true market wage under the assumptions that there never were any unions there to continously push administrations for higher wages and everything was decided by the market! Would it be close to minimum wage or at the current levels? :S

I have a feeling their leverage to be able to cancel the school year has won them those high wages at other Canadian Universities; but then again that is what unions do and there are here to stay as much as we like/not like that :S They are a natural inevitability in any market.

This is actually a wierd predicament!