Originally Posted by Mowicz

Crap on a crutch, I should've... No wait, I did.


Just for the record, 10 hours is two weeks of pay...so essentially Mac is 'punishing' TAs who went on strike by counting 'Monday' as an entire week.

Not quite... Mac is deducting 7.7% of the term's hours, which for those with 130 hours happens to be 10 hours. If you have 65 hours, they deduct 5 hours. CUPE of course took the example with the highest level of lost pay to make McMaster look awful.

7.7% is pretty much exactly 1/13th of total hours, which sounds like a week out of the term to me.

Obviously I've missed something in my time on this planet, so I'm fixing it now! I'm gonna call my boss first thing tomorrow morning and tell her that I won't be in on Thursday, but I still expect to be paid. Thank god CUPE set me straight.

Originally Posted by sniderj

Not quite... Mac is deducting 7.7% of the term's hours, which for those with 130 hours happens to be 10 hours. If you have 65 hours, they deduct 5 hours. CUPE of course took the example with the highest level of lost pay to make McMaster look awful.

7.7% is pretty much exactly 1/13th of total hours, which sounds like a week out of the term to me.

Obviously I've missed something in my time on this planet, so I'm fixing it now! I'm gonna call my boss first thing tomorrow morning and tell her that I won't be in on Thursday, but I still expect to be paid. Thank god CUPE set me straight.

Well, it would actually be more like calling and saying: "I'm not coming in today, but maybe I'll make up the hours with work that needs to be done and I'll still get paid".

Originally Posted by Mowicz

Crap on a crutch, I should've... No wait, I did.


Just for the record, 10 hours is two weeks of pay...so essentially Mac is 'punishing' TAs who went on strike by counting 'Monday' as an entire week.

It is definitely a bigger problem for people whose marking is clustered in places throughout the term.

Most TAs that I know (humanities) wind up doing 5 or 6 hours a week when they aren't marking or when major assignments aren't due.

Originally Posted by webzn

I recall some posts which talked about how York got 90% of their pay back after returning from strike, and some people were talking about how that policy applied to undergrad TAs and not grad TAs that worked at Mac.

I think at some point, this was referenced as some sort of precedent. It might have been inferred that some back pay would be negotiated during the back to work protocol meetings.

I agree completely Justine. That last comment was less than justified. I have no issue at all with TAs being allowed to make up the lost time later, if their individual situations permit. That being said, if the University views the week as having forced students to learn their own material and go on without the assistance of TAs, and therefore concludes that the work the TAs should have been doing last week is a "missed opportunity", then I would not view that as unreasonable.

So CUPE, the union who urged their members to strike and not voted for the University's offer is now trying to make the University look bad for not paying TAs who didn't work?

Last time I checked if I don't show up to work for my part-time job I don't get paid for the hours I missed.

What was all that stuff about strike pay that CUPE was spewing though? I'm sure they made it sound like you wouldn't lose money if you chose to support the strike and you would lose money if you chose to vote YES on McMaster's offer.

Hmmm.

This is not to say I think TAs who striked shouldn't be given the opportunity to make up the hours, I'm just saying CUPE is clearly trying to lay blame only on the University when clearly they are at fault for spreading false information about back pay, strike pay etc and how striking would be better than scabbing.

I remember reading somewhere that strike pay only starts in the second week of the strike. It was in one of their FAQs. So TAs would miss out on pay in the first week and start getting paid for hours done in the second week.

It's just bullying, plain and simple.

I wish I'd paid more attention when the union rep came in for my TA day. Honestly though, I was so annoyed at how she was speaking to us that I kind of shut down. I felt really pressured, and that I didn't really have much choice in what was about to happen. I'm glad that all of the TAs that wanted to keep working came out to stand up for themselves. Although now, it seems that CUPE is going to start playing victim and trying to make its members feel guilty for what has happened.

It's sad that my experience as a TA will be tarnished by all of this. I really do love my job, but I hate all the political crap that's come with it.

Originally Posted by michelle

It's just bullying, plain and simple.

I wish I'd paid more attention when the union rep came in for my TA day. Honestly though, I was so annoyed at how she was speaking to us that I kind of shut down. I felt really pressured, and that I didn't really have much choice in what was about to happen. I'm glad that all of the TAs that wanted to keep working came out to stand up for themselves. Although now, it seems that CUPE is going to start playing victim and trying to make its members feel guilty for what has happened.

It's sad that my experience as a TA will be tarnished by all of this. I really do love my job, but I hate all the political crap that's come with it.

That's very unfortunate Michelle.

CUPE is likely pretty pissed that for a second time a row their membership didn't give in to their demands and it looks like they're placing the blame everywhere but where it belongs, on the heads of the leadership at this local.

Clearly they are doing something wrong, there is a reason their membership doesn't agree with them and it probably has something to do with the fact that they don't listen to their membership in the first place.

Its unfortunate that students are being forced into a Union that isn't serving its true purpose which is to aide its membership and listen to their wants and needs. If it is tarnishing people's views of their TAship it can't be very good. The last thing students need (besides a union that doesn't care) is to have TAs who are unhappy, anxious or full bullied or scape goated by an entity that is supposed to protect them.

McMaster should let TAs make up the hours if that is a possibility but beyond that they aren't some big bad monster here. CUPE is trying to make them and their membership the scapegoat in the aftermath of this strike instead of re-evaluating and perhaps re-structuring the union leadership. CUPE should have made it abundantly clear that TAs who chose to strike could lose pay but in their obvious arrogance and with the belief that this strike would be longer that it ended up being they just talked about strike pay and cited examples of results of a long-term strike at York last year. This is wrong on so many levels and its unfortunate for those TAs who felt they had to strike last week.

Originally Posted by sniderj

I agree completely Justine. That last comment was less than justified. I have no issue at all with TAs being allowed to make up the lost time later, if their individual situations permit. That being said, if the University views the week as having forced students to learn their own material and go on without the assistance of TAs, and therefore concludes that the work the TAs should have been doing last week is a "missed opportunity", then I would not view that as unreasonable.

I can appreciate that, certainly. I imagine it probably will work that way for some TAs for some courses. Unfortunately, I truly only know my own case.

I feel like this sort of logic would technically entitle me to:

(a). not answer questions on the material for the last week
(b). not comment on/mark essays based on the material for last week
(c). not mark final exam questions based on the material

All 3 of which I find (quite obviously) troubling.

What I also find troubling is that in some classes (including the one I TA) we don't actually work 10 hours a week if we aren't marking.

Three hours are being taken away from my marking time at this point. In addition to the fact that I now have to learn the material from last week without being paid.

I can live with the latter (it isn't too hard to get through second year philo readings), but not with the former, and the combination of both is sort of screwy.

Regardless, hopefully most people can spare the 10 hours. Sucks if not.

Anyway,

I digress, my point was simply that "hey guys, they're not asking for anything particularly outlandish here".

Originally Posted by sniderj

I agree completely Justine. That last comment was less than justified. I have no issue at all with TAs being allowed to make up the lost time later, if their individual situations permit. That being said, if the University views the week as having forced students to learn their own material and go on without the assistance of TAs, and therefore concludes that the work the TAs should have been doing last week is a "missed opportunity", then I would not view that as unreasonable.

I will agree that it would be outlandish to get paid without making anything up after a week of striking. That would be silly.

Originally Posted by sew12

That's very unfortunate Michelle.

CUPE is likely pretty pissed that for a second time a row their membership didn't give in to their demands and it looks like they're placing the blame everywhere but where it belongs, on the heads of the leadership at this local.

Clearly they are doing something wrong, there is a reason their membership doesn't agree with them and it probably has something to do with the fact that they don't listen to their membership in the first place.

Its unfortunate that students are being forced into a Union that isn't serving its true purpose which is to aide its membership and listen to their wants and needs. If it is tarnishing people's views of their TAship it can't be very good. The last thing students need (besides a union that doesn't care) is to have TAs who are unhappy, anxious or full bullied or scape goated by an entity that is supposed to protect them.

McMaster should let TAs make up the hours if that is a possibility but beyond that they aren't some big bad monster here. CUPE is trying to make them and their membership the scapegoat in the aftermath of this strike instead of re-evaluating and perhaps re-structuring the union leadership. CUPE should have made it abundantly clear that TAs who chose to strike could lose pay but in their obvious arrogance and with the belief that this strike would be longer that it ended up being they just talked about strike pay and cited examples of results of a long-term strike at York last year. This is wrong on so many levels and its unfortunate for those TAs who felt they had to strike last week.

It was made abundantly clear by both the University and CUPE that our pay would cease. CUPE made no guarantees (that I know of, and I've been quite involved) that anyone would get to make their missed hours up.

Strike pay was available to those who were on the picket lines, as far as I know that was the only money they insinuated would be available to us if we withdrew our labour. I'm sure they were hopeful that the back to work protocol would allow missed wages to be made up, but in no way, shape or form did they guarantee it.

McMaster says:
“TAs who choose to participate in the strike will not be paid for each day of the strike. Pay will cease on the first day of the strike, for the duration of the strike. The amount of pay lost will be a function of the actual date that the strike commences, the duration of the strike, and the period during whcih the TA participated in the strike.”

The Truth:
If the strike is short, as is expected if members are supportive, MEMBERS ARE NOT EXPECTED TO LOSE ANY PAY, as individual employment contracts will still need to be completed, and guarantees will still need to be honoured. As such, in the past, those who have supported a strike and then completed their contract hours at the conclusion of the strike have actually MADE money and NOT lost any money. This HAS been the case in the past at McMaster and across the province in TA/RA strikes.

CUPE didn't make any guarantees, but in hindsight, they probably shouldn't have suggested that everyone would be paid either.

I would suggest that the propaganda arm of the union needs to tone it down in 2011, otherwise it will be another mess.

http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.c...he-strike-faq/

Originally Posted by kleung

CUPE didn't make any guarantees, but in hindsight, they probably shouldn't have suggested that everyone would be paid either.

I would suggest that the propaganda arm of the union needs to tone it down in 2011, otherwise it will be another mess.

http://unit1bargaining.wordp ress.c...he-strike-faq/

I'm not sure if I'd call that propaganda IF it was written in good faith.

I never saw that bit though, I do find that troubling.