Dear AGSEM members, old and new,

We wish you a successful start of the academic year!

Our union, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the oldest TA union in Quebec, and represents graduate Teaching Assistants (Unit 1), Invigilators (Unit 2), and Course-Based Academic Casuals (Unit 3) employed at McGill.

Sign your AGSEM Membership Form!

Sign your membership form for every semester that you work as a Unit 1 TA, Unit 2 invigilator, and/or Unit 3 academic casual. You can sign your form here. If you have any issues with the form, try clearing your cache or using an incognito window. If issues persist, let us know at mail@agsem-aeedem.ca and we will troubleshoot!

Monday 15 April 2024

***Content warning:***this newsletter describes AGSEM’s negotiations with McGill around policies on harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence.

In the evening of Monday April 15th, 2024, after eight months of negotiations for a new contract, AGSEM and McGill reached a Tentative Agreement. Whether this Tentative Agreement will be ratified and become the new Collective Agreement is entirely in the hands of TAs.

This coming Thursday, April 18th at 5pm we will be holding a Ratification Assembly, open to all who have held a TA position in the last 12 months, at which the Bargaining Committee will present the tentative agreement and members will decide whether to accept it or not. While we will go into more detail then, we did want to share an overview of what is in this tentative agreement.

Content warning: this newsletter describes AGSEM’s negotiations with McGill around policies on harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence.

In the evening of Monday April 15th, 2024, after eight months of negotiations for a new contract, AGSEM and McGill reached a Tentative Agreement. Whether this Tentative Agreement will be ratified and become the new Collective Agreement is entirely in the hands of TAs.

This coming Thursday, April 18th at 5pm we will be holding a Ratification Assembly, open to all who have held a TA position in the last 12 months, at which the Bargaining Committee will present the tentative agreement and members will decide whether to accept it or not. While we will go into more detail then, we did want to share an overview of what is in this tentative agreement.

Tuesday 2 April, 2024

Nada, Nick, and Dallas from the Bargaining Committee join the picket line on TAs’ first day of strike!

Content warning: this newsletter describes AGSEM’s negotiations with McGill around policies on harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence. It also discusses instances of transphobia.

On Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024, AGSEM and McGill met for their 20th negotiations session, the second since the beginning of TAs’ strike last week, and the sixth session in conciliation. As usual, the bargaining team was joined by rank-and-file workers in the room.

Tuesday 19 March, 2024

AGSEM TA Bargaining Committee and regular members attending the negotiation session.

It has been two weeks since AGSEM and McGill last met for negotiations—and what an eventful two weeks it has been!

During the week of March 11th, teaching assistants (TAs) held a strike vote over three assemblies**.** A strike mandate gives the union the power to call a strike at any time based on the progress of negotiations. And the results of those votes were clear: TAs showed up in record-shattering numbers and voted 87.5% in favour of a strike mandate.

A new chapter in bargaining with a strike vote a week away

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

AGSEM TA Bargaining Committee and regular members attending the negotiation session.

RSVP for the TA strike vote assembly!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for bargaining!

As mentioned in our last newsletter, after our session on February 26th, McGill filed for conciliation. Conciliation began last Friday, March 1st, and we had additional sessions on Monday March 4th and Tuesday March 5th. Conciliation is a process where the negotiations are facilitated by conciliators, who are employees of the Ministry of Labour. Unlike typical negotiations, wherein ground rules are determined by the negotiating parties, conciliators set the terms of the discussion. Conciliators cannot impose a deal unilaterally but they can make a recommendation of what they think “the deal” is. They can also try different methods to bring the parties closer together, including meeting with the parties separately. What we say to the conciliator in those meetings is highly confidential—they cannot tell the employer the content of our discussions, but they can use what we tell them to try and bring the parties closer together.

McGill’s latest counterproposal leaves TAs no closer to a deal

Monday February 26, 2024

AGSEM TA Bargaining Committee and regular members attending the negotiation session.

On Monday, February 26th, AGSEM and McGill met once again for another session of negotiations of a new Collective Agreement (CA) for Teaching Assistants (TAs). AGSEM’s Bargaining Committee (Nada El Baba, Dallas Jokic, and Nick Vieira) and TA Bargaining Advisor (Jean-Philip Mathieu) were joined by union advisor Sébastien Boisvert from affiliate Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ) of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). They were also joined by a number of rank-and-file members from across the university, both in person and on Zoom.

AGSEM makes a counter offer. What will McGill’s next offer be?

Tuesday February 20, 2024

AGSEM TA Bargaining Committee and regular members attending the negotiation session.

On Tuesday, February 20th, AGSEM and McGill met for another session to negotiate the new collective agreement for TAs at McGill. AGSEM’s Bargaining Committee (Nada El Baba, Dallas Jokic, and Nick Vieira) and TA Bargaining Advisor (Jean-Philip Mathieu) were joined by union advisor Sébastien Boisvert from affiliate Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ) of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). They were also joined by a number of rank-and-file members from across the university, both in person and on Zoom.

Friday Feb 9 and Tuesday Feb 13, 2024

AGSEM TA Bargaining Committee and regular members attending the negotiation session.

We are in a negotiations blitz! AGSEM and McGill have recently met twice for negotiations of a new Collective Agreement for TAs: on Friday, February 9th, and Tuesday, February 13th. At the previous session (Friday, February 2nd), AGSEM finally received McGill’s insulting and unserious counter-proposal, which included nothing on healthcare, nothing on indexing TA hours to class sizes, and a wage “increase” of 1.25% in the first year followed by 1% for subsequent years—for five years. As we pointed out in our last newsletter, this is a significant pay cut in terms of real wages and TAs’ ability to pay tuition, rent, and the rising cost of living.

Tuesday Jan 16, 2024

It’s a new year, a new semester, and we are back at the bargaining table, fighting for a new contract for McGill TAs!

Molly and Lauren hold a “We all deserve a living wage, Huge raise and healthcare for TAs!” banner at Roddick Gates; Marta drums on a bucket

To celebrate AGSEM’s return to the bargaining table, and the start of the monetary portion of our negotiations we held a rally, beginning at the Roddick Gates, and eventually walking over to the HR building in which negotiations are being held. Despite the cold and the snow, TAs from across the university joined us, drinking hot chocolate, talking about our work conditions, listening to rousing speeches, and singing labour anthems.