McGill is continually ranked as a top research university in Canada, recently coming in second for medical research. Despite this status, the school consistently fails to adequately recognize the rights of its workers. From pushing its teaching assistants (TAs) to a hard strike for livable wages to undermining its law professors’ union, McGill has time and again resisted progress that would lead to fair labour practices.
How can a university be leading in research while lagging so severely in workers’ rights? Does top-ranked research come at the expense of workers’ rights, or even worse, in spite of them?
If McGill aims to maintain its prestigious ranking, it must prioritize the needs of its TAs and professors—the driving force behind its research output. This became especially clear after the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) strike in March 2024. After nearly a year of McGill disregarding AGSEM’s demands, the TA strike began. Even as the work stoppage unfolded, the university resisted reasonable requests for a month before finally conceding to a deal. Some of these included a wage increase, demands for more say in Teaching Support budgets and the working hours of TAs, as well as special protection for transgender TAs and support for mental health.
Some might argue that because of McGill’s high ranking and reputation, it is justified in having high demands of workers, or that these demands contribute towards McGill’s prestige. But many TAs have said that, under these conditions, they have been forced to sacrifice their quality of work to get by. If graduate students are struggling with mental health, overloaded with extra hours, working a second job, or worried about paying rent, they will not be able to produce the cutting-edge research that McGill boasts, or the high-quality education necessary to remain in the undergraduate rankings.
McGill faces a stark choice: Support its workers or forfeit the benefits of their labour. The university cannot expect excellence while its staff struggles to make ends meet.
A study by Northwestern University shows that productivity increases with minimum wage—that higher pay will lead to better output. So what is standing in the way of McGill prioritizing its workers when it is likely to benefit the TAs and the university alike?
While the AGSEM strike was significant progress—offering TAs a 15.5 per cent raise over four years—for McGill Law professors, things are different.
Before temporarily suspending their strike on Oct. 1, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) was striking for better pay, for more of a say in the governance of the faculty, and for their right to unionize. McGill resisted their demands for months, taking actions to undermine the legitimacy of the union by legally challenging its certification, which was granted by Quebec in 2022.
McGill’s actions were ruled illegal by the Quebec labour tribunal after two administrators attempted to undermine the union in communications to Law professors just before a critical strike vote. On Oct. 1, AMPL agreed to go back to teaching for now, after McGill threatened to cancel the semester if the strike continued.
Progress has been made since then, but not because of McGill’s support for unions—rather, because of AMPL’s tireless work for months on end. AMPL reached an agreement with McGill on Oct. 7, with McGill agreeing to drop its legal challenge of the union in exchange for AMPL negotiating collective agreements with two other unions in the Arts and Education faculties. Still, this decision took far too long to reach and shouldn’t have been challenged in the first place; it reflects McGill’s stubbornness and reluctance to prioritize constructive dialogue with its faculty and staff.
So, can McGill balance its high rankings with low workers’ rights? Worker rights are non-negotiable, and McGill can no longer afford to ignore them. Silencing dissent only transforms isolated grievances into a unified call for change. The more the university resists, the stronger its workers’ resolve grows.
