The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the oldest Teaching Assistant Union in the province of Quebec. As a labour union, AGSEM represents graduate Teaching Assistants, Invigilators, and Course-Based Academic Casuals at McGill. AGSEM has bargained with the McGill administration to produce TA and Invigilator Collective Agreements, which are legal documents that protect student workers.
Recent NewsUnit 2 Bargaining Update #1: A better contract for invigilators - It’s not too much to ask!
It was great to see so many of you at our tabling sessions! At assemblies in April and November, invigilators voted on a bargaining mandate. We have been working hard to turn this mandate into a bargaining proposal over the last few months and we informed McGill back in September that we were ready to bargain. After our Collective Agreement expired on December 1, we finally heard back from McGill that they will be ready to bargain in early 2026.
Same Work, Less Pay: McGill’s Proposal Creates Job Positions that Undervalue your Labour – Bargaining Updates #13 & 14
Once again, we have a double-session newsletter! On November 24th and December 2nd, we met for some intensive bargaining sessions with McGill. Not only did we sign on Article 2 (Definitions), but we had some insightful discussions with McGill on Article 11 (Positions). Job positions are a crucial part of this collective agreement, so it is worth explaining where we have come and where we hope to go in the new year.
McGill finally gives ground on job postings — Bargaining Update #12
Last Wednesday, our bargaining committee met with McGill to discuss a number of clauses: these include the subjects of the last newsletter, job postings (Article 12) and hiring/onboarding (Article 13), but also definitions (Article 2), and positions (Article 11). These last two were pretty big, but we gained quite a lot of ground during this session! Notably, we have signed on article 12, and moved to the final steps on article 2.