CUPE 4600, who's currently in the process of negotiating its collective agreement with the University's administration, asked the TAs they represent whether they were in support with their Bargaining Committee's strike mandate.
51.6% voted AGAINST the strike mandate, thus further weakening their Union's stance in the negociations.
This is a shameful example of apathy, selfishness and spinelessness that currently plague this country's university population.
In the weeks that have led to the referendum, I've heard things such as ''like TAs don't make enough money already!'', or ''I don't want to picket 20 hours a week during the strike'', or ''look at York University. Do you really want to end up in a similar situation?''
Yes, at first glance, it does look like graduate TAs are being paid a fortune. In fact, they make $34 an hour. But the problem is that they are only allowed to work a maximum of 10 hours a week. Therefore, TAs working during their fall and winter terms will make a little less than $9,000 a year. And when you're a TA, you're also a registered student paying tuition fees that are constantly increasing!
So. Taking all of this into consideration, my take-home pay this year from my TA work will have been of about $3,500.
Unless you've got a scholarship that helps you ease the burden of tuition fees or you have a second job, you're basically earning well below this country's low-income cut-off.
With the increase in tuition fees, this take-home pay further erodes.
Fortunately, in the past CUPE 4600 has been able to negociate an important clause that has allowed TAs to keep their take-home pay from decreasing due to raising tuition.
This clause enabled TAs to keep paying the 2005 tuitions fees, no matter how much they increased throughout the years. Employees would pay the current tuition fees but would get a refund at the end of each term. This refund would represent the difference between what they had paid in tuition fees and what they would've paid in 2005.
Fabulous!
But it's this same clause that Carleton University wants to take away from CUPE 4600's collective agreement.
They want to replace it with something called a rolling index. New TAs would pay the normal tuitions fees during their first year of work. No rebate. Then, during their second year of work, if the tuition fees increased from the previous year, TAs would get that difference refunded.
The 2005 benchmark disapears. The new benchmark is whatever year you start to work as a TA.
We're in a situation where the employer wants to take away a right that has been won by our Union in the past.
It's similar to the City of Ottawa that wants to take away from the OC Transpo drivers their right to make their own schedules. We all know the consequences of this move...
A union simply can't stand back and allow an employer to take away a concession they've made in the past! And union members should stay united, if only to show respect to our previous members that were able to win us this clause.
Yes, it would suck to go on strike. No, I don't want to do 20 hours of picketing in order to get a strike pay that would represent half of my normal pay. I already sleep an average of 5 hours a night in order to get all my school work done.
But that's the whole point of unions. We take a hit for all the others. TAs are currently being used by the university as CHEAP labour. Cheap labour without which the University could not function.
And if the University succeeds in taking this clause away from us, it could also harm TAs that work for other universities.
For example, the branch of CUPE that represents TAs and lab assistants at the University of Ottawa has been wanting to negociate a similar tuition rebate clause. They were counting on using the example of Carleton University as ammunition when they will be negociating their collective agreement in 1010.
But by voting no in last week's strike referendum, we showed our employer that we don't really care about our rights nor about the future of the TAs that will inherit this new collective agreement. We showed them that we accept our role as cheap labour, while weakening our colleagues's rights around the country.
It's funny, but I have the feeling that if such a situation happenned in Quebec, nobody would've thought twice before voting yes!
