The local unit of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is celebrating after receiving a mandate to strike against its employer, the University of Toronto.
The 5,000 member unit, which represents teaching assistants at U of T, has been negotiating with administration for tuition guarantees, increased benefits, and funding changes since May 2005. The strike mandate received the support of 81.4 per cent of the voting members of the union, the largest margin of support for collective action in the local unit’s history, during voting that ended Tuesday.
The mandate will not lead directly to a strike, which would paralyze the university during the upcoming exam period. TAs are responsible for invigilating and grading exams.
CUPE chief spokesperson Anil Varughese explained at a victory party held Tuesday evening that he hopes this mandate will increase the union’s leverage in its negotiations with the university.
“We hope this decisive vote will be enough to move the employer to give us a fair deal,” he said. U of T’s administration and CUPE have jointly applied for a conciliator from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, who will supervise further negotiations in January.
“Both SAC and the GSU have overwhelmingly endorsed our decision to seek a strike mandate,” Varughese stated. SAC president Paul Bretscher attended the victory party at Hart House, and Varghese said that Bretscher wrote a letter to the university administration supporting the union’s objectives.
One of the central issues in the negotiations is the possibility of increased fees for graduate students once Premier Dalton McGuinty lifts the province-wide tuition freeze. CUPE hopes that the university will specify the amount by which graduate tuition will increase and compensate the teaching assistants accordingly.
“The administration states that it will offer funding protection [only] over the level of inflation set by the university,” explained CUPE chair Archana Rampure. According to her, the value of the wage increases offered is less than the current rate of inflation.
“The deal the university was offering would leave TAs in a worse financial position that the last collective agreement did,” stated Ann Wolfgram, a teaching assistant in the department of history. “Because the tuition freeze has been lifted, tuition will increase without a corresponding increase in pay.”
The nature of the funding package, which U of T guarantees to all doctoral students, is also a contentious issue. The package includes a maximum of 210 hours of work as a teaching assistant. History Department Union steward Melanie Brunet complains that U of T sometimes counts additional graduate work placements, such as research assistant positions, as part of the funding package, denying grad students much-needed additional funding.
“It’s not that we don’t want to teach,” explained Brunet, “We just want to be fairly compensated for our labour, especially if work keeps us from completing our degrees.” The university expects doctoral students to complete their dissertations within five years of enrolment.
Kris Coward, a teaching assistant in the department of mathematics, is also concerned with U of T’s stance on parental benefits. He and his wife are expecting a child in January.
While U of T already provides a dental plan for graduate students, CUPE is requesting improvements to a number of equity issues including increases for EI maternity/paternity benefits.
U of T vice president of human resources and equity Angela Hildyard emphasized that the strike mandate does not represent the breakdown of negotiations between CUPE and U of T.
“We’ve reached an agreement on a large number of positive issues,” she said.
Hildyard did not state the particular issues that have been resolved. U of T does not discuss labour negotiations that are still in progress.
If CUPE does decide to strike in January, tutorials and labs on all three campuses will be cancelled. Since graduate students provide 40 per cent of teaching hours at U of T, as well as the majority of grading, a strike would significantly disrupt undergraduate studies. Both CUPE and the university administration state that they hope negotiations will succeed.
UTSC computer science teaching assistant George Chalkiadakis explained, “We will not necessarily go on strike, but we will go on strike if necessary.”
