After months of bargaining meetings with McGill to negotiate a new Collective Agreement (CA), the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is holding a strike vote during the week of Mar. 11. This decision comes after teaching assistants (TAs) gathered at an assembly on Jan. 30, during which members voted unanimously on a motion mandating AGSEM’s Mobilization, TA bargaining, and Executive Committees to organize an assembly and hold a vote for a strike mandate. If the vote passes, all teaching assistants (TAs) currently working at McGill will go on strike. 

The union submitted its monetary proposal on Dec. 18, 2023, demanding a wage raise from $33.03 per hour to $46.36 per hour—which AGSEM claims is the average amount TAs make at other Canadian universities, such as the University of Toronto. It also seeks a cost-of-living adjustment, meaning that wages will follow a change in inflation if the latter is more than three per cent. Furthermore, the group wants the university to adjust TAs’ working hours to the number of students in the class that they are TAing. Lastly, AGSEM is asking that McGill provide healthcare benefits for TAs and that care be divided into three types: Care for domestic students, care for international students, and gender-affirming care.

According to AGSEM, McGill submitted its monetary proposal on Feb. 2, proposing a 1.25 per cent wage raise—which equates to an increase of 41 cents per hour—with a 1 per cent increase for each subsequent year. This stood in stark contrast to the 40 per cent AGSEM demanded. McGill’s proposal did not include sections concerning indexing working hours to class sizes, cost-of-living adjustments, or healthcare. 

Following their first monetary proposal, McGill proposed a 2.25 per cent wage increase on Feb. 26, raising the hourly rate to $33.77 with a 1.25 per cent increase for each following year. AGSEM wrote in its newsletter that this increase does not address inflation, which totalled 4.45 in 2023 in Quebec.

In their newsletter, AGSEM wrote that McGill framed its offer in the context of the decreasing funding from the Quebec government. History Delegate to the union, member of the bargaining support committee, and TA Donnie Morard acknowledged McGill’s tight financial situation but noted that expenses related to TAs—around 13 million per year according to AGSEM’s estimates—amount to a very small portion of the institution’s operating budget.

“I believe our wages amount to something close to [one] per cent, likely less, of McGill’s budget,” Morard said. “This is despite the invaluable work we do running labs, teaching conferences, and grading assignments. Giving TAs a big raise is a good investment in improving the quality of education at the university, especially since it won’t seriously undermine McGill’s bottom line.”

As the union did not accept McGill’s proposals, the university filed for conciliation. According to Harlan Hutt, president of the Association of McGill University Support Employees, conciliation consists of the process where “the union and employer bring in an independent arbitrator to help negotiate a collective agreement when they reach an impasse in collective bargaining.”

“Conciliation is normal within the process of negotiating a Collective Agreement, and is a standard part of collective bargaining. AMUSE has utilized conciliation before, notably during our 2017 Collective Agreement negotiation with McGill.”

AGSEM will hold two of its assemblies for the strike vote at Centre Mont-Royal, near the downtown campus, one on Wednesday, Mar. 13 at 6 p.m. and the other on Saturday, Mar. 16 at 2 p.m. It will also organize a meeting at 2 p.m. on Mar. 14 at McGill’s MacDonald Campus. Members only need to go to one of the assemblies to vote.

Negotiations will continue in the meantime, as both parties are planning to meet on Mar. 14, a day after assemblies for the strike vote start. Fanny Teissandier, a TA and AGSEM Anthropology Delegate, stated that the union seeks to avoid a strike in an email to The Tribune.

“The AGSEM bargaining team has told McGill and the conciliators that the union is willing to negotiate every single day ahead of our strike vote assemblies,” Teissandier stated. “On March 14 and 19, McGill may still avert a strike by reaching a tentative agreement with AGSEM’s bargaining team, which will be presented to the union’s membership for ratification.” 

McGill declined to comment for this piece.