They were playing savage garden this evening

"I wanna stand with you on a mountain!"

(more like push you off a mountain, CUPE)

Originally Posted by micadjems

They were playing savage garden this evening

"I wanna stand with you on a mountain!"

(more like push you off a mountain, CUPE)

Strike song parodies anyone?

What other songs have they played?

The Cootes entrance is equally backed up.

They're doing the whole 4 car's hostage thingy, etc.

Get here before like 7 AM if you want to avoid it.

no I think that video is showing the average mcmaster bro

what a bunch of idiots. you are getting paid 20+ bucks an hour. stop being greedy and do your job. if you are not happy with the pay, dont work in the education field. dont ruin our daily routine at school just so you can get paid 1-2 dollars more an hour.

Keep in mind its not the TAs themselves being forced into this but a union leadership that is refusing to let them vote on a contract.

Hop on over to the CUPE 3906 website find the contact information for the union leadership and let them know that you are unhappy, and that the actions they are taking are turning opinion against them not for them.

Originally Posted by meerf

what a bunch of idiots. you are getting paid 20+ bucks an hour. stop being greedy and do your job. if you are not happy with the pay, dont work in the education field. dont ruin our daily routine at school just so you can get paid 1-2 dollars more an hour.

Please read up and inform yourself on the actual issues before throwing out comments like this.

A wage increase is NOT one of the main demands this strike is based on.

A brief synopsis:

-They want to be compensated for more hours. Right now they are only compensated for 260 hours a year, they feel they work more hours than this and want their hour compensated to be increase to 280 hours, the standard at other Universities. They've lowered their demand to 270 hours.

-They want caps on tutorial and lab sizes.

-5th year PhD students aren't guaranteed TAships and 6th year PhD students aren't eligible for them, they want this to change.

-They want more competitive wages for undergraduate TAs so that more graduate TAs will be chosen b/c it is not more economically to just hire an undergrad instead despite who may be more qualified.

-McMaster hasn't updated their benefits contributions even though they've hired more TAs so the money McMaster pays into the TAs benefit fund is staying the same but being spread across more people.

Wanting these things doesn't make TAs greedy. Its just the way the Union is going about the whole thing that is sketchy.

Originally Posted by sew12

-They want 5th and 6th year PhD students to be allowed TAships, right now they aren't.

Just to correct that point, 5+ year PhD students are not guaranteed TAships though they still are eligible. They have to inform the head of their department they're interested in a TAship.

Originally Posted by DannyV

Just to correct that point, 5+ year PhD students are not guaranteed TAships though they still are eligible. They have to inform the head of their department they're interested in a TAship.

Thanks for the clarification, the CUPE literature didn't make this clear.

It made it as clear as they wanted it to be. Their expired CA has all the details though.

More and more people are asking to vote on the University's offer.
http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.c...date/#comments

Originally Posted by DannyV

More and more people are asking to vote on the University's offer.
http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.c...date/#comments

Whoa whoa.. One of those comments said that grad TAs make $18,000 per year. Is that true? If so, how is it possible that some of them are complaining about not making enough money to live on?

For the last 3 years, I have survived on no more than $6,000 per year (not including tuition). Where are these grad TAs living??

Look at where the money comes from. Half from TAing (so a student job) and half from a grant from his prof (let's call this bursaries / scholarships)