Carolyn Shapiro is a first-year Master's student in Philosophy and a Teaching Assistant in CUPE 3902.
Alan Wai Kiat Tang is an undergraduate student in Political Science and History at the University of Toronto - Scarborough Campus and Assistant Invigilator with CUPE 3902.
Partial Transcript:
Q: How does this new offer by the university differ from the one they offered in January?
CS: On our bargaining point of
trying to create tutorial and lab caps, the administration has proposed that we
create a working group. However there are some problems with the solution
because all recommendations made by the working group are subject to the
Provost.
What that means is we set up another bargaining table between the
union and the administration, but it’s one which has no leverage. We can come
to a head at the end if they disagree over what those recommendations should be. In the last round of bargaining, we created a working group and that
has not been successful. It has not prevented tutorial and lab sizes from
ballooning and so we don’t need a working group, we really need a solution
which is caps in our opinion.
As to the graduate funding that
is being replaced by (Research Assistant positions), the administration has also proposed a working
group, whose recommendations are also subject to the approval of the Provost.
They have given us a one time payout of $150,000 for 2012 and 2013.
It’s important to pay attention to the language in the contract that says one-time only because virtually what this means is that we are accepting a bribe from the administration to not bring up this issue at bargaining again, that the issue is closed and that we’re not plugging the loophole in the contract which stipulates that we can be paid through these taxable and non-dissertation RAs.
It’s important to pay attention to the language in the contract that says one-time only because virtually what this means is that we are accepting a bribe from the administration to not bring up this issue at bargaining again, that the issue is closed and that we’re not plugging the loophole in the contract which stipulates that we can be paid through these taxable and non-dissertation RAs.
The third is the Doctoral
Completion Grant. The administration has proposed again another one-time payout for 2012 and 2013. That payout is $250,000. If we were to divide
that between every upper year student in five and six that really only
represents $312 and a doctoral completion grant is usually worth between $4000
and $6000, so that is a significant loss. This is one-time only issue so it
prevents us from bargaining around it or closes that door for the future.
As for the compensation around
our wages, the administration has proposed to up our wages a tiny bit 1.5% for
2011 so that it would be retroactive; 1.75% in 2012 and 2% in 2013. But ultimately
this falls below the inflation rate which means that we are losing wages every
year.
Q: How does this agreement differ from the last agreement in 2009?
The Doctoral Completion Grant use to cover senior students and it no longer does. The quality of education is declining and out working conditions are deteriorating. We're doing more work for the same pay. We are being overworked because we are responsible for more students all the time and at the end of the day we're making less because our wages are decreasing in that they are not matched to inflation. We've lost a lot since the last bargaining round.
Our demands are extremely modest. Our demands is to fight for what we had before. It's an insult to me that the administration won't take our demands seriously because we're not demanding that we get more, that we be paid more or that we deserve more. We're telling the administration that they have taken away something from us. They have taken away from the quality of education at U of T, not just for graduate students but also for undergrads.
Q: What
impact will this have beyond U of T?
CS: In the age of austerity, there’s
have been a huge push on the part of many corporate bodies including
universities to try to impose measures on their workers which basically asks
for concession and to take less and to tighten their belts. We’re seeing that here at U of T right now with the position that the administration has taken. This affects
not just our bargaining round but also the bargaining taking place at many workplaces including York with CUPE 3903. I know that the TAs and contract workers there are engaged in a round of
bargaining. If we take concessions,
then we're empowering the employer at York to also push concessions on their workers.
Q: Why is this issue important to undergrads?
AT: Given the context of the unpopularity of the labour movement where the perception of the public is that the union is for their membership and for themselves and not really as a community as a whole, the proposal that we put out, mainly centered on the slogan- our working conditions are undergrad's learning conditions.
We're trying to get across to undergrad students is that the reality in this job market is that a lot of undergrads who want to pursue their careers in their discipline won’t be able to do so with an undergraduate degree. The reality is a lot of them will go on to graduate and post graduate studies to pursue their discipline.
One of the positives in the initial mobilization by the union in reaching out to the undergrads and the broader Uof T community has been to take a more social union approach - taking demands that are relevant to everyday working students. Based on my anecdotal experience, I work out of U of T Scarborough campus. The composition of that campus is more representative of working class, more people of colour; this constituency that has been more positive to our proposal because they are centered around their learning conditions and the fact that they will be future workers as well.
I generally think that's the approach that needs to be taken by the broader labour movement. If we are going to have any relevance, we need to take a more social community unionist approach which looks to take care of its membership but also acknowledges that the broader community and articulate a point that organized labour, even though its a small section of the working class can be a lever for better social change and wages in our community.
Q: Why is this issue important to undergrads?
AT: Given the context of the unpopularity of the labour movement where the perception of the public is that the union is for their membership and for themselves and not really as a community as a whole, the proposal that we put out, mainly centered on the slogan- our working conditions are undergrad's learning conditions.
We're trying to get across to undergrad students is that the reality in this job market is that a lot of undergrads who want to pursue their careers in their discipline won’t be able to do so with an undergraduate degree. The reality is a lot of them will go on to graduate and post graduate studies to pursue their discipline.
One of the positives in the initial mobilization by the union in reaching out to the undergrads and the broader Uof T community has been to take a more social union approach - taking demands that are relevant to everyday working students. Based on my anecdotal experience, I work out of U of T Scarborough campus. The composition of that campus is more representative of working class, more people of colour; this constituency that has been more positive to our proposal because they are centered around their learning conditions and the fact that they will be future workers as well.
I generally think that's the approach that needs to be taken by the broader labour movement. If we are going to have any relevance, we need to take a more social community unionist approach which looks to take care of its membership but also acknowledges that the broader community and articulate a point that organized labour, even though its a small section of the working class can be a lever for better social change and wages in our community.
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