In three assemblies with record turnout from March 13 to 16, McGill teaching assistants (TAs) voted 87.5% in favor of a strike mandate. Since the vote passed, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) has begun a new round of the ongoing negotiations with McGill over TA working conditions, now with the leverage of the threat of a strike.
Although the vote to strike passed, TAs will not go on strike immediately. Rather, the vote allows the AGSEM to “call for a strike whenever it seems strategic to do so,” according to the AGSEM President Mario Roy in a statement to The Bull & Bear. Once called, the strike will last for eight weeks, during which TAs will “stop grading, teaching, holding office hours, answering emails, or anything on [the] TA workload form,” as described on the AGSEM website. Under Quebec labor laws, it is illegal for TAs to continue to do their work under the strike and if they do, this will result in a fine. If McGill loses TA labor due to a strike, there are concerns that there will be scabbing, which is taking on the tasks of striking workers while they are on strike and is illegal in some cases as it violates Quebec Labour Law article 109.1. During the last TA strike in 2008, there were instances of scabbing organized by McGill, thus weakening the power of the strike, and AGSEM fears this will repeat itself if the upcoming strike comes to fruition.
The strike is a tactic in a larger campaign demanding to improve the TAs’ pay and working conditions. They are demanding to raise the average TA wage to be in line with that of other Canadian universities. At schools like the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, and Queen’s University, the average TA wage is $46.36 per hour, whereas the average wage at McGill is only $33.03 per hour. Furthermore, TAs are advocating for a Cost of Living Adjustment to ensure that their annual salary keeps pace with inflation. Additionally, TAs are pushing for healthcare benefits and an annual allocation of one million dollars to cover essential medical expenses for TAs. Lastly, TAs are advocating for TA hours to be indexed based on student enrollment. This measure would prevent McGill from arbitrarily reducing TA contract hours between semesters, even when class sizes and workloads remain constant, thereby safeguarding TAs from excessive workloads.
A TA for the Department of Political Science commented on the objectives of the strike in a statement to The Bull & Bear, stating that “virtually all of the demands are about helping grad students meet [their] basic needs.” They shared that “at the strike vote assembly, [the TAs] heard testimony from [graduate] students who are living paycheck to paycheck or else going to the food bank just to have their basic needs met” because their TA salary is insufficient to cover their expenses.
According to the AGSEM President, the organization has decided to use striking as a tactic for their efforts as “the strike is one of the tools that can show to the employer that [they] are serious about [their] demands and therefore, can really be effective.” When asked about their thoughts on the effectiveness of striking, the Political Science TA commented that on one hand, “historically, [striking] has been the most effective way for many of [TAs’] needs to be heard,” and striking may be particularly effective at this point in the semester “with midterms, term papers, participation, and final exams all needing to be marked.” However, on the other hand, there is also “concern that McGill simply isn’t in the right position to respond to this” given the recent tuition hikes.
In light of the vote for the TA strike passing, some classes have already begun adjusting their course requirements to reduce exams and assignments that rely on TA grading. Although a TA strike would hugely impact students and inconvenience professors, there has been larger support for the strike and the broader campaign to improve TA working conditions. AGSEM President shared that the organization has received “positive support from both professors and students who expressed their willingness to stand with [them] should [they] go on strike.” In an interview with The Bull & Bear, an employee from the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) emphasized the importance of solidarity because “an AGSEM strike is going to affect every single union” and “every single worker at McGill is implicated and every single worker is required for [the strike] to be successful.”
If you are interested in learning more about or supporting the TA strike and the AGSEM, you can visit their website, agsem.ca.
