Since you're all smart people, maybe someone could help me understand just why there's going to be a strike...

I don't get it... When the TA's signed up to be TA's, they knew what they were going to get paid and the benefits... Now, a couple of months later, it's suddenly not enough? Why sign up in the first pace if it wasn't enough, and if it WAS enough then, why isn't it enough now?

Originally Posted by Flag

Since you're all smart people, maybe someone could help me understand just why there's going to be a strike...

I don't get it... When the TA's signed up to be TA's, they knew what they were going to get paid and the benefits... Now, a couple of months later, it's suddenly not enough? Why sign up in the first pace if it wasn't enough, and if it WAS enough then, why isn't it enough now?

Exactly.

A few good points were made - lets clear things up.

I dont want to start quoting quotes because it will get messy, so i will respond to the past few comments in whole.

TAing is not a normal part time job, its unique and it cant be simply compared to a part time job, at say Subway, or even at a private tutoring firm. I say its unique because a) its unionized and b) it goes hand in hand with the academic role of a graduate student.
Unionization is important to consider when discussing wages because generally unionized work pays alot higher. This is due to decades of collective bargaining, and possibly striking to acquire a strong contract. These contracts have built up over time and hence unionised workers have very high wages and benefits compared to the average unorganised group of workers.
Over the years the university has been less reluctantly allowing wages to grow in the contract. Up until one or two collective agreements (I am not sure when) ago there was no language preventing "bursary role backs" What this meant in practice was any money put into the contract was taken back by reducing bursary, so the net payout from the university to the student was unchanged. The union smartened up and fought for protection against this. These are the reasons why the wage is so high. The union did not ask for any wage rate increase in this round for graduate TAs, because it is already so high. Nobody claimed working condition were not safe, or harsh.
Discussing this wage rate issue any further would be getting into a discussion on unionism in general, and its not really relevant at this point. The union is here, we all have to live with it and its effects. We just need to decide whats reasonable and what isnt.
The issue however is hours paid. There is proof, through membership surveys, claims for overtime pay and grievances that strongly indicate a large group of members work more than their contract hours. One could say, why dont you "Working to Rule" ie stop working after paid hours are finished. In fact a group of students have self organised and starting doing this. It proved to be ineffective because generally graduate students have a hard time not answering emails, or helping students who ask them face to face. Also, bargaining rounds are when these issues are supposed to be addressed, and thats exactly what the bargaining team is doing.
Also, the sector standard at comparable schools is 280 hours. The union has asked for 270 - still less.

I said the get a second job argument was ignorant because most people just dont know that graduate students are not allowed to get a second job, because they can lose their funding. Ignorance, as in not informed of this constraint - not as an insult or anything like that.

As for the marriage/kids/house comment. Is it really right to have graduate level education becoming more inaccessible to those who wish to have a family? prioritizing is one thing, but being financially constrained for up to 7 years, and having the university taking steps backwards (increasing costs of education) to make this constraint stronger is another thing. It actually surprises me that anyone disagrees with this - unionist or not.

As for article XII 12.02 C
Exactly! The old collective agreement had guaranteed spots for 4th+ PhD. This was lost and replaced with this language. This language leaves the hiring up to the discretion of the university. Guess what - 5,6th year PhD TAships went down and undergraduate went up. Why? saves money!
I reread my comment, and you are right, it could be interpreted that i meant these people were not allowed to TA. To make things clear, I meant they didnt have guaranteed positions like PhD year 1-4.
Also, arguing this point seems to be arguing with me for the sake of it. How can having the most senior educated and experienced graduate students TAing be bad for anyone? maybe the undergrad TAs who get displaced... other than that it seems that even anti-union folk should be OK with this.

Stop hiding behind my education....
firstly, the quality of education at McMaster means a whole lot to me. I did my undergraduate here, I am doing part of my graduate here. If McMasters quality of education goes down, its reputation goes down and the McMaster logo stamped on my degrees and my research means less and less.

People who work against the strike, reduce the pressure put on the university by work stoppage. This means less reason to settle. This means longer strike.
Telling CUPE to go away wont do anything but make both sides tensed and annoyed.
Scabbing would lengthen a strike - no way around it.

As for the validity of PhD going past 4 years. If it never happens then what’s the harm in putting guaranteed spots in the contract. I dont know why it happens, but it does.

And finally, it certainly isnt a consensus that undergraduate TAs offer a better quality of education. compared to graduate students in the same field, undergrads are less educated and less experienced. Freshness of material in the mind is not a factor. Being able to advise on test questions and assignment problems isnt really the job of a TA. Its to ensure the material taught by the course instructor is understood.

Originally Posted by nelmik

As for the marriage/kids/house comment. Is it really right to have graduate level education becoming more inaccessible to those who wish to have a family? prioritizing is one thing, but being financially constrained for up to 7 years, and having the university taking steps backwards (increasing costs of education) to make this constraint stronger is another thing. It actually surprises me that anyone disagrees with this - unionist or not.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree (vehemently) on this one. People have been making sacrifices and prioritising for a very, very long time while getting their higher education and living their lives, and this sense of entitlement is shocking to me.

My friend's mother got her Ph.D while raising two children and running a household.

If you decide that doing a Masters or Doctorate is more important than a family, well, all the power to you. Just don't go holding the students hostage when you feel that you're not getting spoonfed enough. Why not go and work for a few years, then come back and get a degree?

so if a deal is not reached within the next couple of hours there will be a strike or is it tomorrow night?

As for the marriage/kids/house comment. Is it really right to have graduate level education becoming more inaccessible to those who wish to have a family? prioritizing is one thing, but being financially constrained for up to 7 years, and having the university taking steps backwards (increasing costs of education) to make this constraint stronger is another thing. It actually surprises me that anyone disagrees with this - unionist or not.

I think its pretty general consensus that nobody should be starting a family until they are ready to take on that responsibility. I know I could personally never start a family while doing the work that is required of a high school student or an Undergraduate, let alone of a Masters student. If someone else thinks they can manage because they are a super person, fine. But if they can't manage, they should wait; not try to get more money from their school. I don't know why anyone would try to start a family before they have a career (not just a job), being a student and TAing is not enough to raise a family on, if it is than they are being payed too much.

People who work against the strike, reduce the pressure put on the university by work stoppage. This means less reason to settle. This means longer strike.
Telling CUPE to go away wont do anything but make both sides tensed and annoyed.
Scabbing would lengthen a strike - no way around it.

Actually, that's not true. If enough people scab that McMaster has the manpower to continue operations as normal for long enough, CUPE will have to give in, or look irrelevant. I'm pretty sure they'd rather give in than have people see them for what they are.

And finally, it certainly isnt a consensus that undergraduate TAs offer a better quality of education. compared to graduate students in the same field, undergrads are less educated and less experienced. Freshness of material in the mind is not a factor. Being able to advise on test questions and assignment problems isnt really the job of a TA. Its to ensure the material taught by the course instructor is understood.

And who do you think does a better job of making sure the instructor is understood, someone who learned the material 5-6 years ago, from a prof that is no longer at Mac (or learned it from a different school)? Or someone who took the course 2 years ago from the same teacher teaching it now?

Freshness of material is a huge factor, and you didn't give any reasons why it isn't. I'll give some pretty important reasons why it is though: because they have to teach the material. They can review the material certainly, but that a) isn't as effective as still remembering it clearly, and b) most TAs don't do that. I know some TAs (ie Mowicz) goes over the problems the students are assigned so that they can answer questions and understand the material. But not all TAs do that, I've gone to office hours and recieved wrong information from TAs because the material wasn't fresh enough in their heads.

Another important factor is that with UG TAs you are almost guaranteed to be learning from a student who got a 10+ in that course, (and quite a few courses only accept people who got 12s) just because of how competitive it is. With a Graduate TA you know they got into Grad school. Which, while I'm sure is no easy task, does not require those types of marks.

The union is here, we all have to live with it and its effects.

History tends to craft auras of inevitability around what exists. But that statement is not true. Any sort of legislation that gave people the choice about whether they want to be in the union or not would most likely prevent any future labor disruptions by CUPE- how many TAs do you think would join CUPE if they weren't forced into it? And how many do you think would quit in response to threats to strike like this, when they don't want to strike?

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

If enough people scab that McMaster has the manpower to continue operations as normal for long enough, CUPE will have to give in, or look irrelevant. I'm pretty sure they'd rather give in than have people see them for what they are.

This is something that I've been wondering about. Even if the results of the strike mandate vote are never released, based on what has been said a voter turnout of 25-35% seems like reasonable assumption. If it turns out that more TAs decide to break the strike than actually voted yes, is the union given any pause to reconsider exactly how supportive the membership is of strike action? What if more break the strike than even voted in the first place?

I'd be interested to see how the union would respond to these questions, but at this point I don't think any response is likely.

Originally Posted by hummeld

This is something that I've been wondering about. Even if the results of the strike mandate vote are never released, based on what has been said a voter turnout of 25-35% seems like reasonable assumption. If it turns out that more TAs decide to break the strike than actually voted yes, is the union given any pause to reconsider exactly how supportive the membership is of strike action? What if more break the strike than even voted in the first place?

I'd be interested to see how the union would respond to these questions, but at this point I don't think any response is likely.

Probably not. None of the TAs I've talked to (and I've been going out of my way to ask them now) wants to strike, and none of them voted. Most didn't get any sort of notification about a strike vote either (although apparently that was different for each faculty based on when they released lists).

When will we know about a strike? Will it be posted somewhere tonight?

someone will post it on MI, hopefully

or check mcmaster.ca

I don't like how the union folk keep telling students to pressure University management to compromise when they themselves are being stubborn and not accepting any of the pressure thousands of students are throwing at them.

We have pressure to give, and we chose to give it to you, not management. Get the hint yet?

Originally Posted by DavidR

I don't like how the union folk keep telling students to pressure University management to compromise when they themselves are being stubborn and not accepting any of the pressure thousands of students are throwing at them.

We have pressure to give, and we chose to give it to you, not management. Get the hint yet?

Wanna hear something funny (or stupid) about this?

The e-mail address the CUPE bargaining blog auto e-mail thingy goes to sends back an auto out of office reply for that person. They won't even be seeing these e-mails until after the strike deadline.

I sent one in support of TAs, not really to pressure them or to agree with CUPE. Just saying I support my fellow students and TAs and want to see a fair deal for their sake.

Oh, and although I'm no longer a student at McMaster - I really hope the pickets (if there is a strike) don't get too disruptive. In my second year the custodial/support staff went on strike and the traffic was literally backed up from the Cootes entrance to the Main St E exit on the 403. That's right - the highway! Took 2 hours from Burlington to Zone 6 (M?) and I missed 2 entire lectures.

Tip for commuters - if you sneak around the back way on Cootes (from Dundas), the picketers didn't show up there back then. That, or get an SUV and start hopping curbs.

I hope for your sakes there's no strike, but I'm just glad I got out when I did.

Originally Posted by DavidR

Oh, and although I'm no longer a student at McMaster - I really hope the pickets (if there is a strike) don't get too disruptive. In my second year the custodial/support staff went on strike and the traffic was literally backed up from the Cootes entrance to the Main St E exit on the 403. That's right - the highway! Took 2 hours from Burlington to Zone 6 (M?) and I missed 2 entire lectures.

Tip for commuters - if you sneak around the back way on Cootes (from Dundas), the picketers didn't show up there back then. That, or get an SUV and start hopping curbs.

I hope for your sakes there's no strike, but I'm just glad I got out when I did.

Do you know if the picketing affected buses, GO buses or HSR buses?