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. This means that job postings have been ironed out, and the article on definitions only needs to have its French translation reviewed before that can also be signed on.
When it comes to article 11, there was uncertainty as to what McGill’s reaction would be. Our prior proposals on positions were met with very little willingness to negotiate. Rather, our recommendations were almost entirely struck out; McGill was not willing to provide explicit definitions for numerous positions. This is a problem, as different departments use the same names for different work. Furthermore, without strict job titles and definitions, McGill can continue to create new jobs with different names but the same work, and then pay those new positions less than their labour is worth. Finally, it is hard to build worker solidarity when ‘graders’ in one department have fundamentally different responsibilities than ‘graders’ in another department, or workers with the same labour in different departments have vastly different job titles.
With this in mind, our proposal included the positions of grader, course assistant, and Graduate Fellows. Our proposal states that Graders are strictly focused on grading assignments with no interactions with students. Course assistants would have a similar role to teaching assistants, but would notably be undergraduate students. Our proposal for Graduate Fellows is a doctoral student employed to provide training, research, and support within their hiring unit to graduate students. Ultimately, this has been met with some forward momentum, and we hope that we can make further progress on article 11 after McGill provides their counter proposal.
Regarding the McGill Writing Centre, our proposals have aimed to maintain the status quo for workers. We have been in touch with our Writing Centre membership, and they have voiced disinterest in narrowing down writing centre positions, and general contentedness with these aspects of employment. However, if you, reader, are a writing centre employee, we would love to hear your thoughts! We are always interested in better representing our membership.
As for article 13, McGill only came back with a timeline for successful vs unsuccessful applicants. Their proposal offers the employer up to 25 days to provide rejection letters to unsuccessful applicants. We are still waiting for McGill’s counter proposal on other parts of article 13, such as the worker information (such as contract hours, and course enrollment) that McGill HR provides to the union.
Finally, we still have not tabled a revised conflict of interest policy (Article 14.05). We are still looking to bring it back to you, our membership; we need your input! Do you have anything to say on this clause? Have you ever had to grade a friend? We want to hear about it! Reach out to Jordan Cowie bargaining.casual1@agsem-aeedem.ca – she’d love to discuss how we can make this clause both workable and realistic for you.
On our side of the table were Jordan Cowie (2L, Grader & Course Tutor, Management/Law), Bronwyn Walsh (Recent Graduate, Grader & Course Assistant, Math & Stats), Donald Morard (PhD Candidate, Grader, History), Guillaume Forest-Allard, our advisor from our affiliate union Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ), and both AGSEM co-presidents, Dallas Jokic and emma mckay.
Do you want to see our next negotiation take place and have your input represented at the table? Sign up to be a member in the room! Our next bargaining dates will be:
- Monday November 24th from 1-4pm
- Tuesday December 2nd from 9am-noon
Please fill out this form to sign up, and we’ll be in touch!
Love and solidarity,
Your Bargaining and Bargaining Support Committee