TAs End Strike by 91.5%, Reject Administration Back-to-Work Offer by 97.5%

Eric | June 19, 2008

For those of you who have been following news about the TA Strike…

AGSEM writes:

In a General Assembly held [yesterday], a landslide 91.5% vote by McGill’s teaching assistants ended their 72-day strike. TAs are eager to return to work now that the parties have agreed on a collective agreement.

At the same time, TAs voted by an even stronger margin–97.5%–to reject the Administration’s Back-to-Work Protocol tabled [yesterday] morning. Members refused to accept a protocol that would inadequately address the TAs fired and suspended from their on-campus employment and would rather return to work and let their cases proceed in court.

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TA strike coming to an end

Eric | June 13, 2008

Strike Yesterday McGill’s teaching assistants voted 96.2% in favor to accept a recommendation made by the conciliator a few days earlier. I think that the recommendation is a fair compromise and in particular it does not contain any strange loopholes no more like they did exist in the original proposal that McGill tabled some weeks ago. All that’s missing now is a proper back-to-work protocol. Once that’s negotiated and ratified the strike will finally be over – yeahhh!

The back-to-work protocol might cause another long debate though because McGill wants to avoid the lawsuits that AGSEM is currently running against them but on the other hand still does refuses to pay any compensation to people who were fired because of the strike. On the other hand McGill is running out of time as the case will go before the court in a little more than a week.

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McGill's Teaching Assistants still on strike

Eric | May 1, 2008

In case you didn’t know yet: McGill’s Teaching Assistants have been on strike for serveral weeks now, demanding, among other things:

  • n1219822718_20185_2150 (Small) a sufficiently fair representation of TAs within McGill
  • an official person that will act as a negotiator when it comes to working overtime or other TA related grievances
  • a workload form that describes precisely what the TAs task are (and not!) for the given term
  • and a substantial pay rise.

AGSEM, the TA union has been negotiating with the McGill administration since October but only after a strike was called in early April did McGill begin to move. The first moves were however to intimidate current TAs by firing them from additional jobs that some of them had, as invigilators or research assistants. Whether that’s actually illegal or not is currently being fought out in court, but no matter how this process is going to end, it certainly is bad for McGill’s reputation in general.

To find out more from the union’s point of view, watch the following video or go to http://www.agsem.ca/. (links to media coverage included) To find out more about more about McGill’s point of view click here.

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