AGSEM representatives at the General Assembly March 5. From left, union negotiator and engineering graduate student Hugh Potter, bargaining committee member and religious studies graduate student Sujata Ghosh, AGSEM coordinator and philosophy graduate student Karen Bardsley. PHOTO: OWEN EGAN

Teaching assistants ratify first collective agreement

ERIC SMITH | After four years of negotiations, McGill and AGSEM, the union for teaching assistants and lab demonstrators, have settled a first collective agreement effective from January of this year to May 31, 2001. With its ratification by graduate students at a general assembly last week, McGill TAs will see moderate increases in their wages and more control over their workload. The agreement also provides for a grievance mechanism and conditions for establishing priority for graduate students applying for TA positions. It covers all TAs and lab demonstrators paid from the University's operating budget. Until December, negotiations had progressed very slowly. Little had been resolved before the appointment first of a conciliator in May of 1995, then of an arbitrator in April 1997. Through the conciliation and arbitration pro-cesses, McGill and AGSEM were able to reach agreements on many non-financial issues. But according to Robert Savoie, Executive Director of Human Resources, "Our position on salaries was quite different." Then, in November of last year, the arbitrator was appointed to a position in the Ministry of Labour, and AGSEM's negotiators were sure that would mean more delays. According to Hugh Potter, who had been negotiating on behalf of AGSEM since the union was formed four years ago, "We thought it was going to be another year. We thought McGill would drag out the arbitration. Then all of a sudden, just before Christmas, we were called by McGill's lawyer to try and settle it." Savoie says, "When I look at it, we had come to a point where it was in both parties' interest to settle. The turning point was the appointment of the arbitrator to the Ministry. Losing the arbitrator accelerated the negotiations." AGSEM coordinator Karen Bardsley, a graduate student in philosophy, says the determination of the union paid off. "It was interesting to see the attitude of McGill change over time," she says. "Initially they seemed to be saying 'Stall, stall, stall, until we graduate the rabble-rousers.' But by the end we thought they were bargaining in good faith." The definition of a TA is now the same across the University and applies equally to all graduate students assisting in the teaching of a course. But although all TAs are now covered by the collective agreement, salary rates continue to vary from department to department. Prior to the agreement, wage levels were set by each department with some faculties applying the same scale to all departments. With the establishment of five salary categories under the new accord, the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid TAs is narrowing. "There were angst-ridden discussions within the bargaining committee," says Potter. "We realized that in the interest of getting an agreement, we weren't going to get equity on campus. But we're moving towards equity." Anatomy TAs, the lowest-paid on campus, will see their hourly wages rise from the current rate of $7 to $14.50 by June 2000. Arts TAs will continue to receive $18.13 per hour for the duration of the agreement. A handful of TAships where salaries are higher than in Arts will drop to the Arts level, but those currently holding the positions will continue to work at the higher rate this year. Bardsley is one of those TAs whose salary will be frozen for the duration of the agreement. But she says issues of workload -- also addressed in the settlement -- are often of greater concern to TAs in her faculty. "The only issues I ever encountered as a TA were workload issues," she says. And although she says her department is "very understanding," she adds that with growing class sizes, "the syllabus doesn't change but the number of students doubles." With the provisions of the collective agreement, a TA who has more work than can be done in the 12 hours a week provided for should contact his or her professor to work out either a reduction in workload or payment for the extra hours. Bardsley and Potter have devoted a lot of time to negotiating the contract, and each has the same priority once the agreement is signed. Says Potter, "Now I've got to finish my thesis."