TSUM News and Statements

At our June 17th bargaining session, we presented our counterproposal on Article 11 (positions) and Article 15 (leaves). McGill presented their counterproposal on wages and union liberations.

McGill’s wage offer includes massive pay cuts (up to 50%!) for many workers. While marginal gains would be made for those working at minimum wage (who would see a 5.64% raise), the majority of our union members would actually face a pay decrease with only a 1.25% increase per year (which is a lot less than the cost of living increase).

On Friday, 22nd May 2026, we held our seventh bargaining session with McGill as part of our efforts to win a better contract for invigilators. Our committee consists of Sneha Senthil (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Maureen Nayebare (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Andrews Baada (Invigilator, SAA), Ari Blondal (AGSEM President), and Guillaume Forest-Allard (our FNEEQ bargaining advisor).

As reported in our previous newsletter, we had been awaiting McGill’s response to several union proposals. This session brought some movement. McGill agreed to notify invigilators of their specific role (Invigilator or Circulator) prior to the start of their shift, giving workers the time they need to prepare appropriately. The Employer also agreed to improve access to mandatory training materials by providing clearer job aids and more readily available technical support. On the question of shift assignment, McGill accepted language stating that shifts should be distributed as fairly and impartially as possible. While this is a step in the right direction, the language remains vague, and we will be pushing to strengthen it in future sessions.

This update covers two closely spaced bargaining sessions, held on May 6th and May 11th, where discussions focused heavily on positions, workload protections, and leaves. Across both sessions, your Unit 3 bargaining committee continued pushing for clearer job definitions, stronger accountability mechanisms around workload, and explicit protections against excessive preparatory work, unclear job expectations, and the erosion of leave rights through vague external references to labour standards legislation.

May 6, 2026 

On Monday, 4th May 2026, we held our sixth bargaining session with McGill as part of our efforts to win a better contract for invigilators. Our committee consists of Sneha Senthil (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Maureen Nayebare (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Andrews Baada (Invigilator, SAA), Dallas Jokic (AGSEM President), and Guillaume Forest-Allard (our FNEEQ bargaining advisor).

A key focus this session was addressing the growing issue of invigilator no-shows, which have placed increasing strain on working conditions. The union presented detailed, practical mechanisms to better manage and reduce no-shows. This issue has been particularly acute in Enrolment Services where gaps in staffing have left circulators burdened with taking students each to bathrooms and invigilators covering significantly more rows than assigned. This raises concerns about workload and overall academic integrity. Based on data from McGill, no-shows have reached approximately 10% this semester. 

The month of April has been unusual, with McGill cancelling multiple sessions as they needed time to go back and reevaluate their position. This followed March, where the Unit 3 bargaining committee tabled its monetary proposal and McGill responded with a wage offer that was not only a real wage pay cut, but furthermore, a pay scale that would allow your wages to be decided arbitrarily by the manager. First, we will cover our session with the McGill Writing Centre (MWC) on March 25th before discussing our latest (brief!) bargaining session on April 29 that saw McGill cave in to some of our demands at the table.

On Monday, 13th April 2026, we held our fifth bargaining session with McGill as part of our efforts to win a better contract for invigilators. Our committee consists of Sneha Senthil (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Maureen Nayebare (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Andrews Baada (Invigilator, SAA), Dallas Jokic (AGSEM President), and Guillaume Forest-Allard (our FNEEQ bargaining advisor). 

We began by discussing points from our previous bargaining session. The following matters were discussed:

Fairer Shift Allocation

McGill signaled openness to improving how shifts are assigned. They accepted our updated language defining priority (to make the current language clearer). They also proposed that shifts be distributed as “fairly and impartially” as possible, while considering factors such as employee availability and hours worked in the previous exam period. While this is a promising start, we think it is insufficient. Our proposal called on the employer to offer workers within a given category an “approximately equal” number of shifts and to offer shifts to those (in a given category) who have worked less that semester. McGill’s proposal relies on the more vague idea of “fair and impartial” shift allocation and bases priority within a category on who worked less the previous semester. This puts many invigilators at a disadvantage since the list of invigilators including the number of hours worked is not updated during the semester in McGill’s proposal. We will be making a counter-proposal on this item during our next bargaining session. 

On Friday, 27th March 2026, we held our fourth bargaining session with McGill as part of our efforts to secure a stronger contract for invigilators at McGill  Our committee consists of Sneha Senthil (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Maureen Nayebare (Invigilator, Enrolment Services), Andrews Baada (Invigilator, SAA), Dallas Jokic (AGSEM President), and Guillaume Forest-Allard (our FNEEQ bargaining advisor). 

As mentioned previously, proposals are often organized based on how easily both parties can reach agreement. Typically, the easier non-monetary items are discussed and signed off on first before negotiations move toward more complex issues, particularly those involving monetary matters.

On Wednesday, March 18th, we met with McGill to receive their monetary response to our proposal, and it was bleak.

Regarding leaves and absences, McGill said they still need some time, so we expect to hear those items during one of the next two bargaining sessions. However, for non-monetary items, McGill separated their proposal into three distinct sections.

Starting with section one (articles 4 to 14), McGill proposed liberating 2 “average contracts” of 30 hours per semester. Liberations are commitments in a collective agreement that free up workers to be able to take on union work. In some unions this will just mean time off work, but in unions like ours it takes the form of money paid to the union that we distribute as honoraria among members taking on responsibility. AGSEM represents over 4000 workers, and it takes many people working daily to keep the employer accountable to established collective agreements, nevermind the bargaining of a new collective agreement. Without liberations, we would not be able to protect and advocate for our workers nearly as much.

With freezing rain battering Montréal, we met virtually with McGill on Wednesday to present our global offer, that is, an offer on every item we have not yet agreed upon. including monetary items! This was a unique session, as there was less back and forth between the employer and ourselves than usual. Rather, we walked them through our monetary proposal, to which they will respond next week.

So what exactly was in our proposal?

On Friday February 27th and Monday March 9th , we held our second and third bargaining sessions as part of our efforts to secure a stronger contract for invigilators at McGill  Our committee consists of Sneha Senthil, Maureen Nayebare, Andrews Baada, Dallas Jokic (AGSEM President), and Guillaume Forest-Allard (our FNEEQ bargaining advisor).

Friday, Feb 27, 2026

During bargaining, proposals are often organized based on how easily both parties can reach agreement. Typically, the easier non-monetary items are discussed and signed off on first before negotiations move toward more complex issues, particularly those involving monetary matters. At our first meeting, McGill proposed grouping different articles of our bargaining proposal into different categories, which our committee agreed to. After agreeing on several non-monetary items, mostly related to harmonizing language with other Collective Agreements or current practices , we began moving into broader demands outlined in the invigilator bargaining mandate, particularly those related to contract stability and shift distribution.