Effective today at 12:01 a.m., teaching assistants of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill will be on strike, after negotiations with the McGill administration this past Saturday and Monday deteriorated.
AGSEM Vice-President External Natalie Kouri-Towe pointed to a general lack in response from the negotiators representing McGill as the final decision to strike.
"There has been an overall lack of movement from McGill," Kouri-Towe said.
Last Thursday, Deputy Provost Student Life and Learning Morton Mendelson, who is not involved in the negotiations but speaks for the university, sent a McGill-wide e-mail detailing that "various measures will be taken to maintain normal functioning of the University." Prior to the weekend negotiations, Mendelson and Robert Comeau, director of Employee Relations at McGill and head of the McGill bargaining delegation, had been optimistic about coming to an agreement.
Despite assertions from the AGSEM bargaining committee and the executive that the administration has been unwilling to comply with their demands or make any effort to seek common ground, both Mendelson and Comeau assert that McGill's negotiators have worked to seek common ground.
"We made some agreements; we agreed on training sessions for the TAs," Comeau said. "One thing we do not agree on is their salary demands."
At the core of the conflict between the TA union and the administration is the debate over wages. McGill TAs, on average, are paid $22.24 per hour, and AGSEM has been asking for a wage increase to $31.50, or 41 per cent, a level that would make McGill TAs' wages competitive with the top 13 research-intensive universities in Canada, commonly known as the G13. However, the administration has stood fast by a 2 per cent raise per year, to $24.03 by 2011.
"McGill TAs are the best paid TA's in Quebec," Mendelson said, adding that a wage increase of 41 per cent is "totally unacceptable" and an "unjustified amount of money."
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John
posted 4/12/08 @ 6:49 PM EST
Another great article by Ken Sun!
Kaler Whitehead
posted 4/19/09 @ 1:56 AM EST
Good information. Thanks for the post.
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