Enthusiasm to form a teacher’s assistant union at Queen’s University is on the rise. Some voices at U of T, however, are not so enthusiastic.

The campaign for unionizing Queen’s TA’s started a month ago, and already more than 400 TA’s have signed up in favour of the union. “It is truly encouraging to see the amount of interest and support the TA’s are showing in the union membership drive,” says Chris Churchill, chair of Queen’s University TA’s for Unionization (QUTU).

Churchill says that recent successful union drives at Ryerson and Windsor have been influential in the Queen’s campaign. “They show that the union is an option that allows TA’s to address their concerns and issues in a more organized and successful manner.”

Derek Blackadder, an organizer with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) which is the umbrella union for TA’s in Canada, says that the two main issues facing TA’s these days is increased workload (especially due to the double cohort) and tuition fees. “From our experience,” says Blackadder, “collective bargaining allows TA’s to be more successful in addressing their concerns. Our York University members have successfully fought to have their tuition fees frozen since the early nineties.”

But the local picture is not too exciting. The TA’s Union at U of T (CUPE 3902) has been operating for 30 years, and members say that there are still major problems with or without the union. Michael Stickings, a Political Science TA at U of T says that although CUPE 3902 has managed to grant TAs certain benefits, there are issues that the university simply neglects when it comes to TAs. “TAs are a transient workforce at the university. New TAs come in, older ones go out. Since we don’t have time to get actively involved in the union (we are busy marking students’ work, leading tutorial, and dealing with our own work), the university takes advantage of us,” says Stickings.

The fact that TAs are such a transient and fragmented workforce at universities is the main problem for Stickings. “For example,” he says, “if the auto workers decide to strike, the whole auto business will shut down. If we strike, the university will keep on running as nothing is happening.”

Another issue is the mounting workload for TAs, says Stickings. “The union can’t take away the double amount of marking and teaching that just came with the double cohort. What happens is that we get paid an hourly wage but end up doing a lot more work than we are paid for.”

Regardless of these problems, TA’s unions have proved to provide TAs with a secure collective bargaining voice within universities. Some of the unions’ benefits include decreased tuition fees, higher hourly wages, access to grievance procedures, protection from discrimination, increased job security, and dental health plans.

Joshua Tabah, the external representative of CUPE 3902, says that the main challenge to the union is that TAs are not aware of the union’s responsiveness to their needs. “Many TAs don’t come to the union with their concerns because they don’t know how effectively it can help them, and they are afraid to harm their relationship with fellow professors and university administrators,” says Tabah. “But overall, CUPE 3902 is thrilled for the Queen’s campaign, and we hope that they will achieve their goal.”

Under the Ontario Labour Relations Act, QUTU must sign up 40 per cent of TAs (or more) in order to conduct a vote for a union. The final results will be known in November.