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.

The Undergraduate/Graduate Divide

A key element of this negotiation is the potential divide between undergraduate workers and graduate workers. Unit 3 (made up of graders, course assistants, tutors, and McGill Writing Centre workers) currently encompasses both. AGSEM already has an established collective agreement covering Unit 1 (teaching assistants, TAs), and the labour that teaching assistants do can parallel Unit 3 positions. 

McGill has been very unwilling to limit course-based Unit 3 work to undergraduates. We have seen McGill changing an increasing number of TAships into grading contracts in the last couple of years, and they recognized in our November 24th session that the rationale is purely monetary. 

Our approach, in contrast, is to clarify most course-based Unit 3 work as open exclusively to undergraduate students. Such a division would be a win-win for Unit 3 and Unit 1: this respects the broad hiring patterns already established with regards to Unit 3 work, allowing us to better focus on the issues specific to undergraduate students employed in teaching support roles; likewise, this also would apply pressure on the employer to provide TAships in the instances where Unit 3 positions are already being offered to graduate workers. Seeing as TAships are exclusively provided to graduate students, they should be hired as TAs when doing work that TAs do.

Positions

Before meeting on November 24th, there was little agreement on job positions. While we had proposed a few very distinct, very clear job positions in earlier sessions, McGill’s initial counterproposal was to delete most of our proposal. Their counterproposal did little to clarify which positions do what labour, meaning McGill retains operational flexibility while being able to undercut wages.

With Unit 3 being entirely new, the work they do has been largely undefined. Each McGill department has defined different positions arbitrarily. For example, currently, a course assistant in Math acts largely as a grader, while in computer science, course assistants are practically undergraduate teaching assistants. This makes tracking hiring patterns difficult, and waters down collective worker power. Furthermore, McGill stated in the November 24th session that there is currently no oversight as to what jobs have what responsibilities—something very common to non-union work.

Our proposals before November 24th consolidated work into clear and distinct positions. We had proposed that Unit 3 be defined as graders, course assistants, Graduate fellows, and McGill Writing Centre (MWC) employees. Course-based tutors were not initially part of our proposal, as meeting with students was seen as part of the course assistant role or part of a TA’s office hours. Notice that we don’t have graduate student assistants (GSAs) either! Most GSAs are hired to do grading — in which case, they could be a grader (if we allow grad students to be graders). If they are not exclusively grading, that’s a TA!

It’s important to have clear job definitions. We want you to know that you are signing up to grade when you apply to a gradership, not to grade, tutor a bit, and assist in course development. We don’t want departments to try to hire you as a tutor and pay you less when you should be a course assistant. Finally, we really don’t want McGill to hire you as a tutor and a grader, making you fill out two separate contracts for the same course, when you could work as a course assistant or a TA.

We also proposed that the employer notify the union when they want to hire someone for less than 45 hours of work and justify why. Unit 1 has this clause, and it helps the union monitor where cuts are being made. We know Unit 3 jobs are often quite small, so we’re not committed to the number 45, but really want to try to prevent workers from being squeezed to do the same work in fewer hours.

November 24th

With this all in mind, McGill’s November 24th positions-focused counterproposal was concerning. To start, their counterproposal cut back on the careful delineation we provided in our prior Article 11 proposal. 

• For graders, McGill refused to include that graders do not attend lectures or interact with students. They said they didn’t want to define a position based on what it doesn’t do, but we know that loose definitions like this would allow graders to keep being required to do activities other than grading, like in Integrated Studies in Education. 
• For course assistants, McGill refused to include that these workers can grade; instead, they tried to argue that a course assistant helps in class only. 
• For tutors, McGill tried to argue that we need them! They want tutors to support students (by teaching), while course assistants support course supervisors (by teaching). We aren’t convinced! Meeting with students takes a lot of work and knowledge, requiring more than simple familiarity with the course contents. Realistically, this should be a course assistant or TA!
• And for MWC jobs, McGill’s proposal really cut down the number of jobs defined. We are investigating whether this proposal achieves the administrative clarity that MWC workers themselves are seeking!

They also removed our stipulation that Unit 3 course-based work should be exclusively given to undergraduate students rather than graduate students.

Furthermore, McGill explicitly said that they would like to hire the same person as both a grader and a tutor for the same course, and were very explicit that they would do this because it is cheaper than hiring a TA. This is exactly what we don’t want—using piecemeal job definitions to pay someone half the wage for the same work.

While November 24th was a fraught bargaining session, McGill did agree to some very important points! They agreed that workers should have a workload form, which helps to define clear expectations between supervisors and workers, and protects against unpaid hours. 

McGill also agreed about what to do when there is more work than can be completed in a contract! Workers will have first right of refusal for more paid hours—that is, if there is more money available in the department, then they will offer you (the current grader or course assistant) the chance to work those hours before posting the job on Workday. This is a win, as we want to strike a fine balance between McGill offering currently employed workers more time should they need it within a semester’s work, and McGill maintaining a hiring practice that is meritocratic between semesters.

Finally, after explaining our deep reservations about their proposal, McGill agreed that there is a need for clarity between positions. They also conceded that it would be unwise to hire a grader and tutor for a course instead of just a course assistant or a TA. This is not to say they are explicitly against this, however! Therefore, we aim to make sure this is not allowed in future proposals. 

December 2nd

With this backdrop of tentative agreement on some crucial ground, we took the December 2nd bargaining session to push McGill for clarification as to why course-based Unit 3 positions should be open to both graduate students and undergraduate students. 

More specifically, at issue during this bargaining session was the job of the course assistant (CA). McGill has still not provided a clear rationale for why CA work shouldn’t be exclusive to undergraduate students, let alone any other Unit 3 course-based work. On one hand, they argued that it is a matter of expertise, where, if a job does not require the experience of a graduate student, they might still have the position open to graduate students. However, seeing as the job of TA already exists, and is exclusive to graduate students, it looks more like McGill wants to have its cake and eat it too.

One positive was agreeing to the principle of a “pyramid of responsibilities.” This model distinguishes between graders, tutors, and course assistants. In this model, graders and tutors would have a clear set of responsibilities, and course assistants (CAs) would sit 1 level above them, taking on some of each role’s responsibilities.  This way, a grader and a tutor are distinct positions, and while their responsibilities may add up to a CA, they are not to be given work outside their specific job position. There is still much to be done, and many specifics to nail down, but we see this as a step in a mutually beneficial direction and a step towards protecting our members from ambiguous, broad positions.

Regarding MWC jobs, we are still looking to discuss what would be best for our members in the writing centre! If you are one such member, please do feel free to reach out!

Finally, this was the last bargaining session with Bronwyn Walsh on our bargaining committee! They have been an invaluable part of this team, and we wish them nothing but the best in their future endeavours. A heartfelt thank you for all the hard work, good energy, and collaborative spirit you brought Bronwyn! You will be missed. 

On our side of the table were 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? Do you have thoughts and insights to provide (of course you do!)? Come to our unit assembly on January 19th! 

Please fill out this form to sign up, and we’ll be in touch!

Love and solidarity, 

Your Bargaining and Bargaining Support Committee

PS. We are still looking for your input on article 14.05 (Conflict of interest policy)! If you have anything to say on this clause, or have 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.