Originally Posted by ferreinm

If you want to be paid, you are required to picket though.

Strike pay. I could understand that for someone in need. A carrot to keep us going, since the stick is not an option.

Originally Posted by ghjkghkghkgh

I've been trying to figure out this whole thing and I can't get through the jargon. Callen, could you explain the issues with the pension plan proposal?

So in a nutshell from my understanding, the university wants to move towards a defined contribution pension plan from a defined benefit pension plan. All current employees would remain on the defined benefit plan but all new hires would have a defined contribution plan.

In an employment pension plan (as opposed to a state pension or a disability pension) the money is usually invested in the stock market.

An employee on a defined benefit pension plan is guaranteed a certain payout when they retire based on a fixed formula which takes into account their salary and how long they have been working.

An employee on a defined contribution pension plan will receive a payout based on the performance of their investments and how much was contributed.

There are pros and cons to each plan. Employers obviously like the defined contribution plan (there has been a huge transition towards this plan recently) because they are not obligated to pay anything to a retiring employee.

The proposal that the university is offering will put all new hires onto a defined contribution plan. Current employees are on a defined benefit plan. Hence the two tier pension system within the ranks of CAW members.

Hopefully I explained that well enough...

Originally Posted by .:callen:.

In an employment pension plan (as opposed to a state pension or a disability pension) the money is usually invested in the stock market.

...

An employee on a defined contribution pension plan will receive a payout based on the performance of their investments and how much was contributed.

Wow. If this is the case, I understand the upset. Who on earth would think this is a good idea? From the university's perspective the risk seems to present enough of an objection to this type of thing, but taken with the fact that the current employees seem to be happy with the old way of doing things would to me make it a "no-brainer." I'll never understand this stuff.

Thanks for boiling it down for me, Callen.

Originally Posted by ghjkghkghkgh

Wow. If this is the case, I understand the upset. Who on earth would think this is a good idea? From the university's perspective the risk seems to present enough of an objection to this type of thing, but taken with the fact that the current employees seem to be happy with the old way of doing things would to me make it a "no-brainer." I'll never understand this stuff.

Thanks for boiling it down for me, Callen.

Any time

Yeah when you consider the recent economic situation you can understand the animosity towards defined contribution plans. I know my stocks have taken a huge hit this year, I can't imagine people who are on this type of plan and are planning to retire soon... and have now lost a lot of their retirement money.

Originally Posted by .:callen:.

Any time

Yeah when you consider the recent economic situation you can understand the animosity towards defined contribution plans. I know my stocks have taken a huge hit this year, I can't imagine people who are on this type of plan and are planning to retire soon... and have now lost a lot of their retirement money.

Umm are you sure it is stocks and not mutal funds or annuity bonds? I'm somewhat sure investing in stocks would be rather ridiculous under any circumstaces(Even the more stable gold/silver/multinational ones)! Do you have a source for that?

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Umm are you sure it is stocks and not mutal funds or annuity bonds? I'm somewhat sure investing in stocks would be rather ridiculous under any circumstaces(Even the more stable gold/silver/multinational ones)! Do you have a source for that?

I was just making an off hand comment about my investments.... not the Mac employees.

Originally Posted by .:callen:.

I was just making an off hand comment about my investments.... not the Mac employees.

Oh okay my bad! Stocks is a veryyy risky Business to invest in for someone who as a student might be too busy to watch the market on a daily basis; despite that even the experts get it wrong!

As proven by my badass 80% return portfolio I maintained on the real time facebook stock application back in 06/07 by being on it everyday. But since the whole "crisis" now it's an epic FAIL unless I day trade! The only thing that survives is Gold/Silver!

Hi all,

Below I've tried to answer some of the common questions and address some of the misunderstandings that have been raised over this forum. While these should not be read as "official statements from CUPE," they are the most accurate answers available, as they are from me, Jesse Payne, one of the staff represnetatives at the bargaining table on behalf of CUPE Unit 1 members. For more information, please visit http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.com



Did the university administration (our employer) make an offer of settlement to CUPE's bargaining team?

No, the parties (the administration and the union) have not had enough time at the bargaining table for a "settlement offer" to have been made by either party. Some progress has been made, and with each bargaining session there are a number of additional items resolved, which allows both sides to focus in on more difficult items to negotiate, such as benefits, tutorial and lab student/teacher ratios, and protection again the erosion of our total funding due to tuition and cost-of-living increases. In early August, the administration offered an initial "comprehensive proposal," but it did not include any response to many of the union's proposals, as greater discussion was needed at the table. The parties will continue to negotiate through September and into October, and will BOTH work toward being to table an offer that the other party can carefully consider. Until that time, it is not possible that either party can simply "accept what's been offered," as the parties have not yet completed the work at the table needed to produce a final contract for consideration. But both parties will keep the university community informed about the status of talks and are working toward a fair collective agreement.

Has the union held a strike mandate vote? I am entitled to vote, but wasn't available at the time of the open membership meeting and/or balloting, can I still vote?

Yes, the union has begun holding its strike mandate vote, in order to show the administration that the membership supports the bargaining proposals they developed last spring. This is a normal part of the bargaining process, and does not signal that talks have broken down or that a strike is likely. In fact, experience shows that the higher the strike mandate vote results, the greater the likelihood of voiding a strike and reaching a fair, negotiated contract.

The union is holding the strike mandate vote in 3 phases. In each phase, there will be a General Membership Meeting open to all Unit 1 members, followed by voting by secret ballot that night until 10pm and the next day from 10am until 5pm. The next phase will be held on September 2 and 3 and the final phase will be held on September 22 and 23. The union is using this new process to enable more members to take part in discussions about bargaining at our meetings and to vote to give our bargaining team a strike mandate.

If you are a CUPE Unit 1 member, but have not been receiving updated bargaining information, please feel free to send us your updated e-mail to [email protected] rg. We do not receive an updated list from the administration until late September, so our best form of communication with members will be the membership meetings, direct discussion at our office (B108 Wentworth House), and our blog at http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.com. But we will continue to do everything possible to reach all of our member, including putting up information posters around campus, attending departmental orientations in September, holding information sessions about bargaining, and walking door-to-door in departments to try to meet members in person. But we have 3000 members and rely on members staying informed using the blog and by coming to meetings.

Are undergraduate TAs part of Unit 1, and can they vote and participate?

Yes, all Unit 1 members, including undergraduate TAs, markers and lab demonstrators can vote and take part in the bargaining process.

Who sits on the bargaining teams for the union and the administration? Are they highly-paid, professional negotiators?

The administration's bargaining team consists mostly of full-time employees of the university, including administrative staff, professors and a legal team, plus one professional negotiator brought in from outside of the university to negotiate with the union.

The union's bargaining team consists mostly of full-time graduate and undergraduate TAs and students, plus one Sessional Faculty member and 2 union staff representatives. Your elected bargaining team members are highly skilled volunteers, many of whom have graduate degrees and years of experience in labour relations.

While it is often a slow process, we can assure you that because both parties are highly skilled professionals, bargaining is generally a collegial, respectful process.

Since some progress has been made, will the CUPE Unit 1 contract talks (or a possible strike) be settled before the first week of class?

No, bargaining will absolutely not be completed prior to the beginning of classes this September. Talks have been scheduled throughout September and will likely continue into October. There will almost certainly not be a conclusion to bargaining, or a strike by the union or lock-out by the employer, in September. There has NOT been a deadline for bargaining set at this stage, as talks are progressing normally. In the event that either party sets a bargaining deadline, it will be announced widely.

Does CUPE care about students?

Yes. Most of our 3000 Unit 1 members ARE students at McMaster as well as workers, and we are very aware of the anxiety that many students and workers experience during the bargaining process. We are doing everything possible to negotiate a fair contract and avert any possibility of a strike or lock-out this Fall. In the event that negotiations break down and a strike/lock-out deadline is set, we will do everything possible to minimize the impact on any possible disruption on students.

In the event of a labour disruption, will classes be cancelled?

This is unknown at present, and is a decision made by Senate and the university administration. It is expected that more information about the status of classes during a labour disruption will be made available once a bargaining deadline has been set. Until then, progress at the bargaining table continues, andthere is no immediate cause for concern.

Can Unit 1 members be required to picket?

No, Unit 1 members cannot be required to picked. However, only those who picket or perform during to assist in the bargaining process (such as staffing phones, helping process picket pay, etc) will receive picket pay. More information about picketing will be made available shortly.

Thanks for reading, and please keep asking these great questions. The best way to mitigate against the uncertaintly caused by bargaining is to become informed about the process. In solidarity,

Jesse

Jesse,

Thank you for taking the time in your response and for providing valuable information.

Perhaps it's a misunderstanding on my part that's caused my negative feelings toward the effort put forward by 3906 in involving its members in management activities. Out of the 3000 active members, how many confirmed active email addresses are on your mailing lists? Could you also release the distribution of involvement (both through the mailing lists and the executive) from each faculty?

The first question I ask because none of I and my colleagues have received mailings from the union. We'd really like to be more involved, but aside from a small poster in a bus shelter I once saw, I've never seen much advertising or heard anything about union activities unless there's a strike that's happening. Most of the TAs I know barely realize that they're in a union. The second question I ask because from my limited experience in attending meetings, I really do feel that the larger faculties are under-represented (and I could be wrong - hopefully). By what this is caused I don't know, but it does concern me. Could you address this, and hopefully point out that I'm wrong?

Thanks.

Hi all,

I'm one of the elected members of the Unit 1 Bargaining Team and a Master's student in Engineering Physics. I'd like to try to provide some answers to the questions about representation from various faculties.

There are several different groups within CUPE 3906 that have key roles in bargaining and the process of negotiation and the representation on all of them is mixed.

The bargaining team consists of 5 elected members and 2 support staff members and is primarily responsible for developing proposals and negotiating with the Administration's bargaining team.

The bargaining support committee is an open committee that contains representation from across the university and helps out with designing and distributing information related to bargaining (e.g. the unit1bargaining blog and the bulletins posted on boards around campus) as well as providing any other support needed by the bargaining team.

The executive is responsible for various daily operations of the union, such as administration of benefits funds, and provides support to both the bargaining support committee and bargaining team.

Off the top of my head in alphabetical order, these three groups have active members from computing science, engineering physics, english and cultural studies, health science, history, labour studies, mathematics, mechanical engineering, medical physics, political science, sociology and a host of other departments. While the precise makeup of the bargaining support and executive committees does vary as people graduate and move on, as an engineering student, I can certainly attest that there is representation from the faculties of engineering, science, humanities and social science at all levels of the union.

We've made a significant effort this year to be much more visible all around campus, although we certainly recognize we can always do more. We have just started a large advertising campaign on Facebook (look for the black CUPE 3906 logo) to try and reach those members who we might miss through out regular communication means.

We will be endeavoring to be even more visible as more students and teaching assistants return to campus over the next few weeks. If you're a TA (undergraduate or graduate) one of the best ways to get involved with minimal time commitment is to help us get information distributed to your department. We have weekly or bi-weekly updates on bargaining and always use more people within departments to ensure members get access to it. The goal of the bargaining team is to be as transparent and open as humanly possible, so if you have a suggestion on how we can better get out information we'd be more than willing to give it a try.

Thanks again for posting and please continue to discuss the process here and amongst your friends. Please also free to PM via the macinsiders board or send me an email if you have any further questions.

Thanks,

Derek Sahota
-------------------
Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant
Department of Engineering Physics

Originally Posted by dsahota

The goal of the bargaining team is to be as transparent and open as humanly possible

What is the process by which email addresses are collected for your mailing lists?

An advertising campaign wouldn't be as effective as collecting active email addresses. Also, what are the compared costs of sending a leaflet twice a year to three thousand people ($600 at the extreme most for the printing - b/w is good enough for a mail-out) and posting flyers around campus? Would delivering them by campus mail be possible? I'd imagine that a good number of students still pick up their pay stubs, and so they'd get whatever comes with them.

Hi,

The email addresses come to us through spreadsheets sent by the central McMaster HR department to the union staff typically a month or two into the each academic semester. We then have merge these spreadsheets with previous spreadsheets to create a new master mailing list for TAs, as your membership in the union continues for a year after your last TA. These emails are whatever is on file for current TA employees in the McMaster HR database, which is almost always the McMaster email assigned to the student/TA. There are unfortunately errors and omissions in this information.

We do find individual TAs are a bit reluctant to give out their emails, although we do always have a signup sheet with space to enter your email at every membership meeting. For now, updated email addresses can be sent to [email protected] rg, we've been trying to work out a better system and will continue to work on it.

We've done a lot of postering this summer, although we do primarily do the CUPE bulletin boards (often located in the general vicinity of departmental offices). Our most recent bulletin is two 11"x17" sheets in bright green and is posted (or soon will be) on many of the MSU boards as well.

We can send leaflets to people, but it would have to be done by our volunteers directly stuffing departmental mailboxes. This is something that we have done in the past, and will be doing in the future. We haven't done it over the summer, but I will personally ensure we get people out to the departments to get leaflets in mailboxes out before the next strike mandate vote (Sept 2/3).

As for costs, as everyone doing the leafletting and postering is volunteering, the only cost is printing. We typically print 200 bulletins to poster in B&W, so the cost of leafletting everyone would be 15x the postering assuming everything is just 1 standard page.

Derek

Okay this is an awkward question but: Can anyone from CUPE above explain in layman's terms to an undergraduate student what exactly are your demands that are currently not being accepted by the University Admin and why do you guys feel they are important enough to potentially lead the CUPE Unit to Strike ala York?

I understood bits and pieces of the issues CAW had in their negotiations(pensions plans and employee evaulations). What do the T.A's specefically want the most?

Thanks

Derek,

Excellent information, greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by dsahota

I will personally ensure we get people out to the departments to get leaflets in mailboxes out before the next strike mandate vote (Sept 2/3).

This is very encouraging. Thank you :-) Best of luck in your negotiations.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Okay this is an awkward question but: Can anyone from CUPE above explain in layman's terms to an undergraduate student what exactly are your demands that are currently not being accepted by the University Admin and why do you guys feel they are important enough to potentially lead the CUPE Unit to Strike ala York?

I understood bits and pieces of the issues CAW had in their negotiations(pensions plans and employee evaulations). What do the T.A's specefically want the most?

Thanks

Hi Huzaifa,

Its actually a great question and thanks for asking. Before I get into answering in detail I would like to reiterate Jesse's comment that, while our contract ends on Aug 31, we're still early in the negotiation process. The reality is both sides still have lots to do at the table and we still have lots of good discussions to have. Its also important to note that at the moment we're asking for a strike mandate, which is a normal part of the process to show the employer that the members of the union support the bargaining team and what we're working to get at the table.

Here's a summary of some of the major issues and the background behind them (in no particular order). I apologize in advance for the length of the summary.

Benefits
A key sticking point here is that the administration has proposed to freeze the current total amount of money in benefits funds while the number of TAs continues to increase. The key benefits that this affects are the vision coverage, hardship fund and childcare fund for TAs. With more people and the same amount of money, the dollar amount of benefits will have to be cut when the benefits are pretty small to begin with ($100 / year for childcare for example).

The union has also proposed to that the administration fund the extended health care premiums for undergraduate and graduate TAs and contribute to dental coverage for undergraduate TAs.

Wages
Wage rates for TAs are broken down into two different categories, one for undergraduate TAs ($19.95 / hr + vac pay) and one for graduate ($36.54 / hr + vacation pay). We've proposed to freeze the graduate rate of pay at $36.54 and the Administration has proposed to raise it each year. We've asked for a freeze because most graduate TAs are ok with the current wage rate and would rather have the money put into benefits and other places where the impact is greater.

Another key point is that for every $1 dollar the administration has to put into wages, $.10 gets lost into payroll deductions (CPP, EI, etc) and the employee puts in another $.09 in deductions as well. So that $1 the administration contributed becomes $.81 to TAs (this is BEFORE income taxes potentially take more). We'd rather they put the $1 into benefits, where TAs get to see the full $1. So really, if the administration is tight for money, it makes no sense to put money into wages as they'd have a much greater impact by contributing to benefits for each TA.

For undergraduate TA's, the union has proposed in its first package that the rate be comparable to other similar schools, such as U of T, by raising it to $28.85 / hr. The administration has proposed that it be raised to $21.83 / hr by the end of year three. Again, these are basically both opening packages, so there's still lots of negotiating to be done.

Quality of Education and Overwork
McMaster's graduate TAs are hired for chunks of 260 hours over two academic terms, unfortunately this is amongst the lowest number of paid hours for graduate TAs in Ontario. The reality is the actual work that needs to be done is pretty similar across all universities and most TAs see their jobs as "work until the work is done," as they don't want to hurt the quality of education for their students. As a result, most TAs significantly work beyond their paid hours. The union has proposed to raise the number of paid hours and cap the student to TA ratio in labs, tutorials and for marking. The goal of these proposals is to get undergraduate students more access to TAs and to give TAs the opportunity to properly comment on student work while reducing the incidence of overwork.

The way that the TA hiring system is currently setup means that 5th and 6th year Ph.D students are actually the least likely to be hired as TAs. We don't think this makes any sense as these students are likely to be the most knowledgeable and most experienced TAs, so we've got a proposal to ensure these upper year students get offered TA positions, if they desire them.

Read more about quality of education : here.

Tuition Increases and Accessibility of Education
McMaster's Board of Governor's raised tuition for domestic graduate students by the maximum allowed 8% / year for the coming academic year. Tuition for graduate students actually comes directly off our paycheques, so in September, the monthly paycheques for all graduate student TAs will actually decrease, rather than the slight increase you might expect. This trend is worrying because there's nothing preventing the BoG from raising tuition another 8% next year and the way they've been talking, it certainly seems like they might.

Similarly, undergraduate students have seen 4% across the board increases (which the maximum legislated amount). Applying the same long term trend, we worry about serious long term consequences to constant increases in the cost of education.

Even with the administration's proposed wage increases, graduate student TAs will take home $300-$700 less per year on their paycheques and have access to less benefits. Obviously this is a pretty raw deal at the moment, but we have lots of proposals on how to ensure TAs end up better off, not worse off each year.

Read more about tuition hikes : here.

Where's the money to come from?
All of the above proposals seem like a lot, but if we can get the employer to agree to freeze graduate TA wages, then the money they've put into wages can fund around half of our current benefits proposals. We've also come up with a proposal that saves the administration another $400,000 / year by changing the mechanism behind paying graduate student TAs (using something called grant-in-aid), these savings could fund the rest of the benefits proposals and still have some leftover to fund other proposals.

On the issue of quality of education, McMaster also received $5.1 million this year from the Provincial government to improve "accessibility and quality" of education at the university. We're proposing just 1/3 of that money be dedicated to hiring more TAs to reduce the student to TA ratio, which would be a huge benefit to undergraduate students.

So the union's bargaining team is really hopeful we can reach a negotiated settlement by working through all of these issues at the table. We have 6 more dates scheduled in September and we'll definitely have many more updates as things proceed.

Thanks again for asking, if you have any other questions, I'm always more than willing to answer, just ask!.

Derek