How The University Works

Counseled by a major union-busting law firm, McGill is playing hardball with AGSEM , the union of its striking grad employees. It’s employing what some faculty are describing as “pressure tactics” and erratic behavior at the bargaining table in an effort to stall bargaining, break the strike, and get individual students to sign workload agreements that repudiate some of their rights under Quebec law.

Luke, I am your father. Last month, the university fired striking teaching assistants from their non-union positions at the school, claiming that the Quebec labour code compelled them to do so, while–in blatant violation of the code, also forcing faculty to do the grading work reserved for the graduate employees. “The firings have really galvanized the graduate students,” one McGill prof told me. “Faculty too. It’s been a real wake-up call for some of the faculty. They’re dumping hundreds of papers for grading on the professors, and pressuring departments to do the students’ work. The provost has called at least one department head, yelling. It’s intimidation.”

Junior faculty report being advised to file grades in violation of Quebec law, and “not to say anything, because it could affect your tenure case.” There are numerous reports of graduate students denied full payment of pre-strike hourly earnings, including both teaching wages and research stipends from grant funds completely unrelated to teaching activities.

Last week, the administration overplayed its hand in an amateurish attempt to bypass union leadership and the bargaining process itself by electronically self-publishing what it called a “global offer” to teaching assistants. Students were fired up by the arrogant paternalism of the move–essentially saying to union members, “the heck with bargaining and your leadership, just sign here, kids.” But they also understood the offer as a sleazy effort to get them to agree that other university employees could do their work, essentially giving up core labor protections in the Quebec code. The “offer” was rejected overwhelmingly, by 86% of voting members.

Frustrated by the thumping rejection, McGill returned to the table but adopted an unprofessional and hectoring tone, accusing the grad students of attacking the role of the professoriate and academic freedom, and, most egregiously, telling the union’s bargaining team to”grow up and take responsibility,” resulting in the students’ walking out of the session and this response by Richard Hink, AGSEM president.

This past Thursday and Friday, the administration continued its hijinx at the bargaining table, making a verbal agreement with grad employees to a version of the workload form consistent with Quebec law, then repudiating the agreement the next day. “This deal occurred at the table with a provincial conciliator present — everyone in the room agreed. This morning, we returned to the table and the Administration informed us that they were retracting the deal,” an AGSEM official informed me “This is a stab in the back and we’re looking into legal action for bad-faith bargaining. Our position is that the text was accepted and remains part of the workload form.”

“They’re stalling,” my faculty source told me. “The administration doesn’t appear willing to bargain in good faith. It’s not just about the TAs. Their negotiations with the clerical workers’ union (MUNACA) have also been dragging on. The administration appears more interested in control than in saving money.This is the politics of neoliberalism.”

Grad student activists appear to share this view. “McGill appears to be trying to make an example out of the TA union because the administration is currently in negotiations with clerical, technical, library assistants, nurses and others. If MUNACA goes on strike, the University shuts down,” he said. He thinks the university’s hardball tactics are backfiring. “If anything, the support from MUNACA members on the TAs’ picket line indicates that our refusal to give in to pressure tactics has only inspired their membership to fight.” The same source offered several examples of McGill’s corporatization, including centralization of food services and the shutdown of student-run businesses and the takeover of spaces traditionally controlled by faculty and students:

The attempt to bust the TA union is only one part of a general plan to not only obliterate student autonomy, their organisations, and places of discussion, publication, dissemination, and thus, dissent, but to make circumstances very difficult in which students, faculty and staff could freely meet each other and discuss issues pertaining to their workplace and the increasingly stifling campus climate.

While faculty feeling about unionism is mixed, some have been questioning the role of their own faculty association, the MAUT, described by many as a classic company union. As one commenter in an earlier blog post on the strike noted:

As a junior McGill professor, I can say that it is par for the course for our faculty association to be another arm of the administration. In fact, most of the administration is part of the faculty association. Who is going to show up at a MAUT meeting and ask the faculty to cross the administration when their dean is sitting beside them? The main role of MAUT seems to be to keep the salaries rising nicely and to monitor the pension fund. Real concerns, like workloads for junior faculty, access to daycare, conflicts with management, etc., are not things that interest MAUT. The result is that the faculty are financially probably better off than many places with unions, but we have no bargaining power on other issues.

The Montreal Gazette reported one faculty member who took an even dimmer view of MAUT’s response: “I guess the MAUT folks don’t want to rile the administration [while negotiating their own salaries], but for one group of teachers to ignore the efforts of another group to improve their working conditions is shameful, at least.”

Many of the faculty support the union, and some individual profs wear AGSEM buttons, walk the picket line, distribute strike literature and are trying to find ways to help students to replace the lost income.

Recently:

• 30 Seconds From Humiliation
• Certify, Re-Tool, or Stand and Fight
• Ivory Tower Inc, Coerce U, and other Recent Reviews
• ‘Adjuncts’ to the Barricades!
• Pushback
• I’ll be Watching You
• Ballad of the Dissertators
• The Churchill Case Goes To Trial
• AAUP and the Ward Churchill case
• AP Profile of Cary Nelson