Originally Posted by arathbon

Anyone have any ideas for small tokens of appreciation for TA's who are scabs/champs?

Personally I think the MSU should make "Student's Hero" buttons for them.

Coffees/Teas if you happen to know your TA drinks them.

what do you dislike most about cupe? why are you neutral on the university and why aer you pro-TA? (im just curious)

In short:

I dislike CUPE because at this point for a few reasons, mainly for not allowing their membership to vote on the final deal offered by McMaster when McMaster specifically asked them to put it to a membership vote AND their members expressed a desire to vote on it. Also for threatening "scabs." Scabs are essentially TAs who feel and obligation and desire to continue to help their students which means they need to cross the picket like or scab to do so. Threatening them is unfair.

As for the University, I haven't seem them do anything I'm particularly against, nor have I seen them go above and beyond in their offerings to the TAs. I have no reason to be against them nor do I have any reason to side with them on this issue.

As for the TAs none of this is their fault and I hate to see them blamed for the strike. I feel TAs are beneficial to my education. I may not like a few TAs here and there and their methods but overall I find my TAs to be knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and great people in general. The point of this strike is to see a fair deal for the TAs who teach us and that's the main outcome I hope for, a deal they vote on and accept as fair. I appreciate my TAs and therefore in this whole 3 way issue I'm pro-TA.

Didn't a TA post on this forum saying each TA has the right to continue working? All they have to go is go to their department, fill out a form saying they want to continue to work, and they will work their normal workload for the normal hours with their normal pay, and they won't face any consequences from the union ..?

Although I completely disagree with what CUPE is doing, they did allow their membership at the General Meeting today to vote on a motion to hold a ratification vote and it failed 91-199-4.

As for consequences, I have spoken with the President of CUPE and a labour relations professor and these are apparently the only consequences:



1)You no longer have a Union to represent you in the event that your employer takes advantage of you.
2)They cannot guarantee that the University will ensure we get paid.
3)CUPE can hold a “Union Trial” against you to remove your voting rights within CUPE 3906. This is what CUPE meant in their e-mail to all TAs that suggested legal action against individuals crossing the picket line. This is the farthest they can legally go to punish individuals for crossing.
4)Finally, they can remove our benefits provided by CUPE for the duration of the strike.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Didn't a TA post on this forum saying each TA has the right to continue working? All they have to go is go to their department, fill out a form saying they want to continue to work, and they will work their normal workload for the normal hours with their normal pay, and they won't face any consequences from the union ..?

The Union has still threatened anyone who chooses to do this, what they call scabbing.

On the CUPE blog they've said things like get full names of TAs who scab, take their pictures, get their addresses and license plates #s etc.

Also there have been comments like "where I come from scabs need to watch their backs" etc.

Even though it shouldn't have consequences consequences have most certainly been threatened.

Originally Posted by McIntyre

Although I completely disagree with what CUPE is doing, they did allow their membership at the General Meeting today to vote on a motion to hold a ratification vote and it failed 91-199-4.

I won't pretend to know much about this, but from what I've seen here the meeting was announced 2 hours before it was held and that 199 people supporting the strike works out to about 6.6% support.

Originally Posted by McIntyre

Although I completely disagree with what CUPE is doing, they did allow their membership at the General Meeting today to vote on a motion to hold a ratification vote and it failed 91-199-4.

So basically a vote on whether or not a vote should be held failed.

Of roughly 3000 union members though it looks like only less than 300 were able to get out to the meeting, that doesn't seem like a very legitimate vote. I imagine most of the people who were conveniently able to make it to this very short notice meeting were people the union happens to know are pro-strike.

Shocking.

DavidR the meeting was announced Saturday evening, less than 24 hours before it was to be held. This is more than 2 hours yes but definitely very short notice. Lots of union members may have gone home for Halloween weekend, may not live in Hamilton etc. There should have been at least 48 hours notice for a meeting where they planned to hold a vote on whether or not the members wanted an official vote on McMaster's offer. Also the fact that a vote on a possible ratification vote was not formally announced to be occurring at this meeting, only speculation.

Heh, didn't even notice it was a vote to vote. These union guys are sneaky.

Originally Posted by sew12

The Union has still threatened anyone who chooses to do this, what they call scabbing.

On the CUPE blog they've said things like get full names of TAs who scab, take their pictures, get their addresses and license plates #s etc.

Also there have been comments like "where I come from scabs need to watch their backs" etc.

Even though it shouldn't have consequences consequences have most certainly been threatened.

And that's what it comes down to. Intimidation, veiled threats, and fear. I hope the police investigate the people making the veiled threats. In fact if I were a TA intending to cross the line i'd be phoning the cops right now about it...

ISPs have had to turn over IPs for far less.

Originally Posted by DavidR

I won't pretend to know much about this, but from what I've seen here the meeting was announced 2 hours before it was held and that 199 people supporting the strike works out to about 6.6% support.

Who wants to bet that strike supporters got some sort of unofficial advanced notice? If they did, it's yet a chapter out of the book "Underhanded things that people do in politics"

Oh I'm not saying it was at all representative - there were really no undergrad TAs - it was mostly older graduate students...a lot with children!

Don't be afraid to call Security in the event you ever feel threatened, uncomfortable or unsafe.

A general membership meeting to discuss issues pertaining to the upcoming strike action will be held at 4PM in the Burridge Gym on campus.
- (unit1bargaining.word press.com)

Ironic.

Originally Posted by DavidR

Heh, didn't even notice it was a vote to vote. These union guys are sneaky.

No kidding.

From the announcement that was sent out yesterday regarding this very short notice emergency meeting as far as I can tell union members were not officially informed that a vote regarding a ratification vote was going to be held at the meeting. If people knew they'd be allowed to vote on whether or not they wanted the opportunity to vote on McMaster's offer surely more people would have shown up.

The wording as its been posted is that discussion of issues would be going on at the meeting, NOT a vote.

If anyone has information to prove that CUPE actually officially announced the vote on the ratification vote prior to the meeting within a reasonable amount of time people post it.

As far as I can see this meeting was total bs and the union made sure not enough anti-strike members would be able to show up on such short notice.

A mere 6.6% in favour of not holding the requested ratification vote shouldn't even be legal.

Just to confirm - CUPE has no sort of quorum that must be met for any type of vote? (I'm curious..)

Originally Posted by McIntyre

Oh I'm not saying it was at all representative - there were really no undergrad TAs - it was mostly older graduate students...a lot with children!

Don't be afraid to call Security in the event you ever feel threatened, uncomfortable or unsafe.

I don't feel unsafe, I'm just a lowly student. But as I was pointing out, I think scabs should be vigilant considering the veiled threats and the fact they will be named and shamed (along with their photo, address and license plate) on a union website.

THIS: http://www.unionfacts.com/articles/crimeViolence.cfm

is why i would be worried.

Originally Posted by DavidR

Just to confirm - CUPE has no sort of quorum that must be met for any type of vote? (I'm curious..)

I'm not sure on this but it doesn't seem like it. Also I think I recall reading earlier that they don't have quorum.

That's all kinds of ridiculous as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder what students would think if they knew the strike disrupting their education was going ahead even though only 199 union members out of approx 3000 actually voted not to allow a ratification vote.