Dozens of CUPE 4600 members braved the cold at the “Keep Carleton Human” rally on campus Thursday, as bargaining talks with the university continue.
The union — which represents teaching assistants, research assistants, and contract instructors — is demanding Carleton put clear guardrails in place to protect jobs against artificial intelligence.
The crowd gathered on a small patch of shoveled-out concrete in the Carleton quad, as winds howled and snow flew around them.
Carleton teaching assistant Emily Jenkins-Moses said coming out in support despite the weather proves just how much the employees care.
“So much of AI is a shortcut, and I think people showing up today shows our commitment to not taking shortcuts — for actually doing the work,” Jenkins-Moses said.
Ariel Becherer, the union’s lead negotiator for teaching assistants, started the rally by calling for support among community members.
“If Carleton TAs strike over AI guardrails, are you with us?” Becherer asked to cheers and a resounding “yes” from demonstrators.
“This could become a school where ChatGPT writes the paper, ChatGPT grades the paper, rich kids buy an experience, and nobody gets an education,” Becherer charged.
Dominique Marshall, president of the Carleton University Academic Staff Association, which represents full-time faculty and professional librarians at Carleton, also spoke at the rally.
“The problems the university has with budget constraints should not be an excuse to increase TA ratios and saddle you with AI systems,” Marshall said. “These things are not magic solutions.”
After opening remarks, Bercherer led the group in a march through campus to collect signatures and raise awareness by chanting demands like, “AI slop has got to go,” and “TAs will not be forced to use AI.”
Undergraduate student Jeevan Jetty said it’s important for all students that Carleton doesn’t come to rely on AI.
“I just want to have somebody there to teach me rather than a computer,” Jetty said. “It may be personal to me right now, but before you know it, everybody is going to suffer.”
In an open letter to President Wisdom Tettey, CUPE 4600 charges that Carleton’s drafted framework presents AI as an inevitable part of life, even though “AI fundamentally undermines the purpose of higher education.”
The union is specifically demanding protection against AI reducing or replacing TAs’ work, the submission of data, intellectual property or grading feedback to AI and being forced to use AI.
They are also asking for guardrails to be put in place when it comes to hiring, evaluation and disciplinary decisions, so that management decisions aren’t made by AI.
The university’s drafted AI Framework says AI has the “potential to empower academics, students and staff to work more efficiently, deepen learning experiences and foster innovation.”
Carleton is proposing ways to strategically integrate AI into the university experience and foster “a culture that embraces change.” Those strategies include putting at least one AI-related topic or activity in each course, promoting AI as a source of idea generation for students and researchers and using AI to streamline repetitive administrative tasks.
In the framework, the university says it will “maintain human judgement in feedback, research, teaching, learning and decision-making.”
The union says the framework doesn’t promise protections for its workers.
“We have been in bargaining since September, and Carleton has refused any and all offers we’ve put on the table,” Becherer said.
The rally comes before the letter is delivered with the full list of signatories at the end of the month.
Featured image by Simon McKeown/the Charlatan
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