The Association of McGill Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) wants to express its deepest words of solidarity with the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) currently on an unlimited strike as of April 24, 2024.

After 18 months of negotiation, it is deplorable that it has come to this point but unfortunately, we can fully relate to AMPL’s cause as it seems to be an acceptable avenue for McGill to refuse negotiating with their employee groups in an efficient way to prevent striking to happen. While AMPL pledged that the issues separating them to the employer are not complicated, the University still refused to give them replies to their proposals on compensation, working environment, one-pension-for-all, and others. McGill knows what it takes to end the strike and AGSEM urges McGill to come to the negotiating table with a reasonable offer that will meet AMPL’s demands.

The Association of McGill Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) wants to express its deepest words of solidarity with the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) currently on an unlimited strike as of April 24, 2024.

After 18 months of negotiation, it is deplorable that it has come to this point but unfortunately, we can fully relate to AMPL’s cause as it seems to be an acceptable avenue for McGill to refuse negotiating with their employee groups in an efficient way to prevent striking to happen. While AMPL pledged that the issues separating them to the employer are not complicated, the University still refused to give them replies to their proposals on compensation, working environment, one-pension-for-all, and others. McGill knows what it takes to end the strike and AGSEM urges McGill to come to the negotiating table with a reasonable offer that will meet AMPL’s demands

April 7, 2024

Negotiations

McGill’s latest email is their first public statement on negotiations. We have been publishing detailed newsletters on bargaining since September, and we encourage all curious about bargaining to consult them here.

We all know that McGill is a top school in Canada, and frames itself that way when recruiting students. It pays high level admins salaries competitive with schools like University of Toronto and University of British Columbia. But when it comes to paying TAs, McGill suddenly only cares about the Québec market.

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Attn: Deep Saini, President and Vice-Chancellor

Christopher Manfredi, Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic)

Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning)

Robin Beech, Dean of Students

Mathieu Laperle, Senior Director, Student Housing and Hospitality Services

Diana Dutton, Interim Vice-President (Administration and Finance)

22 February 2024

Montréal, Québec

We the undersigned of the McGill Communities Council are writing to you with a sense of urgency in light of the news that McGill is collectively dismissing Floor Fellows on April 24. This decision will effectively dissolve Unit B of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE).

At AGSEM’s Fall semester General Assembly on November 16th 2023, members passed, by unanimous vote, a motion in favour of solidarity with the Mohawk Mothers (Kahnistensera) in their legal fight against McGill’s attempts to redevelop the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital without concern for evidence of potential unmarked Indigenous graves on that land. The full text of the motion is pasted below.

On December 20th, 2023, the Provost of McGill University, Christopher Manfredi, once again made use of the university-wide listserv to reinforce McGill’s narrative of their handling of the search for unmarked graves on the New Vic construction project. Leveraging their sizable legal and public relations teams, McGill continues to insist that they have not breached the settlement that they previously reached, despite evidence to the contrary.

On 18 October 2023, the Delegates’ Council (DC) of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) discussed at length, amended, and ultimately voted to approve two separate motions related to the recent escalation of violence in Palestine and Israel, and the employer’s response to the student-run club Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill.

Our union’s Delegates’ Council and non-delegate AGSEM members in attendance had a lengthy and respectful discussion of both issues. Our union is not a monolith: those present represented a plurality of positions and spoke with nuance, passion, and clarity on the content and purpose of these motions. The Executive Committee would like to thank and commend everyone who participated in the meeting for their commitment to upholding the values of our collective, which include encouraging the participation of all union members and cultivating spaces in which equity, diversity, and safety are fundamental. Our diversity is our strength.

The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) Executive Committee stands in solidarity with the ex-executives of the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia (TRAC) and supports the formation of the Concordia Research and Education Workers (CREW) Union.

All executives of TRAC announced their intention to resign on 17 March 2023 in order to support a worker-led campaign to form CREW, a worker-led union. This effectively ends the relationship between Concordia TA and RAs with their parent union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). Instead, Concordia TAs and RAs are encouraged to join CREW and be affiliated with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN).

In November 2021, a petition was filed to the Tribunal adminstratif du travail to certify the association representing tenured and tenure-track law professors, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) as a bargaining unit. Following legal challenges by the employer, exactly a year later, the labour tribunal has certified the group of McGill Law Professors as a union under the Quebec Labour Code. This historic decision comes as a feather in the cap to the academic labour movement at McGill, with AMPL becoming the first faculty-specific union at the university, and the first union representing professors at McGill.

In November 2021, a petition was filed to the Tribunal adminstratif du travail to certify the association representing tenured and tenure-track law professors, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) as a bargaining unit. Following legal challenges by the employer, exactly a year later, the labour tribunal has certified the group of McGill Law Professors as a union under the Quebec Labour Code. This historic decision comes as a feather in the cap to the academic labour movement at McGill, with AMPL becoming the first faculty-specific union at the university, and the first union representing professors at McGill.

Montreal, November 7, 2022

On November 4th, 2022, thousands of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members hit the picket lines in Ontario in what marks the first day of an indefinite illegal job action. CUPE voted for a strike mandate after the parties failed to reach an agreement in collective bargaining negotiations. In response to CUPE’s legal strike mandate, Doug Ford’s Conservative provincial government passed back-to-work legislation that invoked the “notwithstanding” clause, which imposed contracts on CUPE education workers. This makes any strike action illegal with hefty fines and removes any ability for the union to challenge this legislation in court. Invoking the notwithstanding clause along with back-to-work legislation is unprecedented in Canadian labour history, and marks an attack on fundamental and constitutionally-protected rights to collectively bargain and strike.