UPDATE: CUPE 4600 members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the strike mandate, according to the union. Unit 1, which includes TAs and some research assistants, voted 93 per cent in favour. Unit 2, which includes contract instructors, voted 95 per cent in favour.
Nearly 3,000 unionized contract instructors, teaching assistants (TAs) and other employees at Carleton University are voting on a strike this week as the union has filed a request to meet with a conciliator.
The collective agreements between the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 4600 and the university expired on Aug. 31 after three years. The two sides have been bargaining since then.
The last time the union was in collective bargaining, it voted to strike, but did not due to the beginning of the pandemic.
The union is primarily asking for increased wages to match inflation and achieve parity with similar workers at the University of Ottawa. It is also looking for the establishment of TA-student ratios and a centralized accommodations and hiring process, among other demands specific to each unit.
CUPE 4600 president Noreen Anne Cauley-Le Fevre said the university has failed to respond to the union’s demands, especially on wages, which is why the union is escalating the process.
The university said in a statement to the Charlatan that the vote does not indicate a work stoppage is imminent.
“The university is committed to continuing its efforts to achieve negotiated agreements with the valued members of CUPE 4600,” Steven Reid, Carleton’s media relations officer, wrote in an email.
Wages: One of many issues
Currently, contract instructors are paid approximately a minimum of $7,500 per half-credit course. This is among the lowest in the province, despite them teaching about 50 per cent of courses at the university, figures from the union show.
Contract instructors can teach a maximum of three credits per year, including the summer term. This means the maximum contract instructors can make teaching at Carleton is around $45,000 before taxes.
But contract instructors also don’t have job security, and many of them, like Meg Lonergan, an instructor in the Law and Legal Studies department and the former president of the union, are pursuing higher education, making it difficult to reach that number.
For Lonergan, this leaves her at risk of being unemployed this summer, as her department is not hiring any contract instructors this summer due to budget cuts, she said.
“It feels terrible,” she said. “I’m probably going to end up on [employment insurance].”
The union is asking for a market-rate adjustment of wages to nearly $10,000 per half-credit course and a yearly increase of five per cent or the inflation rate, whichever is highest.
Under Bill 124, members’ wage increases were capped at one per cent per year, effectively resulting in a pay cut each year due to inflation, according to Cauley-Le Fevre.
The union is also asking for a 21.5 per cent wage increase for TAs and parity between undergraduate TAs and graduate TAs.
Graduate TAs are paid approximately $11,000 for a full assignment of 260 hours, or a rate of $42.54 per hour. Undergraduate TAs are paid $24.51, nearly half.
Without an established TA-student ratio, these TAs can often be responsible for up to 60 students, according to Eva Cupchik, a graduate TA with a PhD from Western University.
“This ratio is not acceptable,” Cupchik said. “We’re barely able to facilitate by remembering people at that ratio.”
Out of 2,182 TAs at Carleton this term, 363 are undergraduates and 1,819 are graduates, meaning nearly half of the approximately 4,000 graduate students are TAs at the university. Some of these graduate students are required to complete a TA assignment as part of their funding package for their degree.
Cauley-Le Fevre suggested many of these students have resorted to the Unified Support Centre’s food bank service for emergency assistance, as 80 per cent of the centre’s usage has been by graduate students this year.
The centre has distributed over 3,000 hampers since the summer term as demand has skyrocketed amid a food insecurity crisis on campus.
Members likely to vote ‘yes,’ but strike not yet imminent
With the strike vote running from Feb. 3 to Feb. 9, both Lonergan and Cupchik said they would vote ‘yes’ and encouraged other members to do the same.
But that doesn’t mean a strike is imminent. Cauley-Le Fevre said the union and the university are still negotiating as the union awaits the assignment of a conciliator, which has been delayed.
Once a conciliator meets with the two sides, a no-board report can be filed and the union would be in a legal strike position.
“We needed to start that process because we haven’t heard back about any of our monetary proposals,” she said.
Cauley-Le Fevre said the union will aim to strike before the academic drop date on March 15, which allows students to withdraw from courses without a fee readjustment.
For members like Lonergan, a strike might be necessary in order to keep her job.
“It’s a bummer to get overwhelmingly really supportive teaching evaluations from students … and then be facing unemployment,” she said. “It feels like you’re really undervalued.”
“It’s not necessarily a strike,” Cauley-Le Fevre added. “But a strike if necessary.”
This story was last updated Feb. 10.
Featured image from file.
