Before you sign your contract…
Posted on | January 3, 2012 | No Comments
As we enter into a new year, hundreds of new TA and RA contracts will be signed. Before signing yours, you should familiarize yourself with your rights as an employee and as a union member. All TAs and RAs are members of TRAC by default and covered by the TRAC Collective Agreement.
1. Read the Collective Agreement
Collective Agreement – Teaching Assistants [PDF]
Collective Agreement – Research Assistants [PDF]
2. Know Your Rights
You can look under the “Information for Members” section of the TRAC web site for more information about various issues that may affect you. Here are a few things that you should know before you sign your contract:
- Your contract must specify a number of hours, and you do not need to work any more than those hours.
You are only required to work the number of hours in your contract. If your department wants you to work more than that they will need to provide you with another contract that specifies how many more hours they want you to work.
- Your contract must specify starting and ending dates, and you do not need to work outside of those dates.
You are only required to work for the period that your contract covers, whether or not you have worked the number of hours specified. For example, if you have a contract for 130 hours that ends on 6 December 2010, but as of 6 December 2010 you have only worked 120 hours, you cannot be asked to put in the 10 missing hours over the Winter break, or in the Winter term. Once the contract ends, so does your obligation.
- Your contract must contain a job description – i.e., specify what the job entails, your duties and responsibilities, and you do not need to do work not covered in your job description.
If your contract does not specify a job, you need not do it. For example, if you are hired to do marking and nothing else, you need not answer emails, hold office hours, or attend classes. Everything you are expected to do must be specified. As well, you cannot be asked to put something in the contract that is not in keeping with the normal duties of Teaching Assistants or Research Assistants – you are not a personal assistant.
- TA’s hired for eConcordia courses work for Concordia University, not for eConcordia, and all TAs hired for eConcordia courses are members of TRAC.
As of Fall 2011 there is absolutely no difference between TAs hired for “regular” Concordia classes and TAs hired for eConcordia classes. All TAs are covered by the same Collective Agreement, and all TAs have exactly the same rights.
3. Put Everything on Paper
- All agreements or arrangements with your supervisor should be put on paper or in email.
In order to protect yourself, all arrangements made with your supervisor should be in writing. Although verbal agreements are legally binding, they are very hard to prove. So, if you make any special arrangements regarding scheduling, working conditions, details about how work is to be done, or anything else, make sure that you either receive an account of it on paper or in email, or write down an account of it on your own and email it to your supervisor.
- Keep track of the hours you work and email them to you immediate supervisor regularly.
In order to know whether you have worked all the hours in your contract you need to know how many hours you have worked. We suggest that TAs and RAs keep track of all hours worked, including preparation time (if you review the material for a conference, attend classes, look up articles, or go over what will be presented in a lab – it all counts as work). Email a weekly report of those hours to your immediate supervisor, and if you like to your department: this will provide a written record of how many hours you have worked.
It may be useful to put your duties and an estimate of the hours they will require on paper before you start working. We have prepared a form for TAs based on one from the Political Science department.
Teaching Assistant Duties and Timetable
Please note that such a document is only a guide, and should not be regarded as an enforceable part of your contract.
Questions and Complaints
If you have any questions about the Collective Agreement or complaints about how it is being applied contact TRAC at info@trac-union.ca. Someone should be in touch with you within 24 hours. In your message please tell us what position you were hired for, what grade (if applicable), the department that hired you (not necessarily your own), a copy of your contract if possible, and if it is a complaint a detailed description of the problem. It is very important that you document what you do: keep emails, take notes with names, dates, and places, etc. Most problems can be taken care of by discussion, but you do have recourse to a more formal grievance process.
The McGill Daily: TAs avoid strike
Posted on | November 27, 2011 | No Comments
McGill accedes to three of union’s five demands, but hours will not be increased
By Michael Lee-Murphy
Published on November 26, 2011
For the first time in their history, McGill’s Teaching Assistants (TAs) have signed a new collective agreement without going on strike.
In a General Assembly last Thursday, the TA unit of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) voted overwhelmingly in favour of ratifying the contract offer in a vote of 97 to 26, or 77 per cent.
The McGill Daily – Commentary: Support your TAs
Posted on | November 27, 2011 | No Comments
By the Editorial Board
Published on November 21, 2011
Students may not realize it, but there’s another labour dispute brewing at McGill – one that has nothing to do with MUNACA. McGill’s teaching union, AGSEM, has been in negotiations with the administration over a new contract for TAs since March. Last Friday, after months of stonewalling, the administration presented them with a new offer. While the union’s lips are sealed until TAs vote on Thursday, The Daily hopes that they met the TAs demands, which include more TA hours, the limiting of conference and lab sizes, paid training, mandatory meetings with course supervisors, and a 3 per cent wage increase. Read more
TRAC General Assembly
Posted on | November 5, 2011 | No Comments
Please be advised that a General Assembly of the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia, local 12500 of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, has been called for:
12:00pm – 2:00pm
16 November 2011
Hall Building, H-110
1455 de Maisonneuve O.
Metro Guy-Concordia Map
Agenda
1. Call to Order
2. eConcordia
2.1 Missclassification
2.2 Equity
3. Election of Auditor
4. Other Business
eConcordia
There are many issues outstanding regarding the integration of eConcordia employees into the TRAC TA bargaining unit. We will be providing an update, and specifically information about misclassification and pay equity issues.
Auditor
One of the two TRAC Auditors will be leaving Montreal before the end of his term, and so we will be entertaining nominations for that position. This is a position paid by a modest honorarium. A full description of the position of Auditor is avaliable in the TRAC Constitution and Bylaws (version française: AERC Statuts et règlements intérieurs), section 12.5.
Other Business
After the regular business of the meeting, we will open the floor to other business and a question and answer period.
Please direct questions or comments to info@trac-union.ca.
Technical Problems Solved
Posted on | October 28, 2011 | No Comments
TRAC experienced a number of technical problems with our web site and email over the last few months, including at least one successful attempt to hack our web site.
If you have been trying to contacts us by email in the last few weeks, your email likely bounced.
If you tried to access our web site, you may have noticed that it has been intermittently down.
These problems have now been solved. Our email and web site have been reconfigured, and should be secure and reliable for the foreseeable future.
We regret and apologize for any inconvenience that these outages may have caused. Please be sure that we take our role very seriously, that we are here to help you with any employment or other issues you have, and that we have taken sufficient measures to insure that our communications going forward will be responsive, reliable, and uninterrupted.
If you require any information or wish to discuss these issues, please contact us at info@trac-union.ca.
McGill Hiring Scabs
Posted on | September 24, 2011 | No Comments
The Gazette reports that the Quebec Ministry of Labour has concluded that McGill University is hiring scabs to replace striking MUNACA workers:
MONTREAL – An investigation commissioned by the Quebec Ministry of Labour has concluded that McGill University is employing illegal scabs to replace some of its striking non-academic employees.
The ministry had received 57 complaints from the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), which represents more than 1,600 workers who have been on strike since Sept. 1.
An investigator was dispatched Sept. 8, and after interviews at both the downtown and Macdonald campuses, found that 15 of 110 workers replacing striking employees were not managers or otherwise eligible to replace them, and hence were doing so illegally.
TRAC deplores this illegal act. We encourage all TRAC members to tell the McGill administration that the law applies equally to all, and to immediately cease using illegal labour:
Heather Monroe-Blum
Principal and Vice-Chancellor
heather.munroe.blum@mcgill.ca
(514) 398-4180
Lynne B. Gervais
Associate Vice-Principal, Human Resources
lynne.gervais@mcgill.ca
(514) 398-3228
Concordia Maintenance Workers Walk Out
Posted on | September 7, 2011 | No Comments
The Syndicat Canadien des officiers de la marine marchand (SCOMM-SGW), the union representing maintenance workers on the Sir George Williams campus of Concordia University has walked out for a one day study day to communicate their frustration with Concordia University’s handling of their contract negotiations. The University’s handling of those contract negotiations has been to refuse to negotiate a contract – for three years now.
More information is available from French media:
Journal de Montréal – Grève des cols bleus à Concordia
Radio Canada – Grève d’un jour des cols bleus de l’Université Concordia
And here is the official statement from Bram Freedman, Concordia’s VP Institutional Relations – Academic and university operations continue as scheduled during one-day strike by trades union.
PSAC: This Labour Day, let’s build a people’s opposition
Posted on | September 3, 2011 | No Comments
[francais ci-dessous]
On this Labour Day, the Public Service Alliance of Canada commits to building a people’s movement to defend public services, reaching out to allies across Canada.
The Conservative government plans to gut federal spending by $4 billion, only to hand $4 billion in tax cuts to corporations. It’s time to come together as workers and in our communities to oppose reckless and dangerous cuts to crucial public services. Read more
MUNACA – DAY 1: Strike at McGill University
Posted on | September 2, 2011 | No Comments
During the first day of strike at McGill University, members of MUNACA participated in massive numbers on the picket line. During the day, the PSAC and MUNACA asked the Quebec Minister of Labour to appoint a conciliator. This is intended to restart negotiations with McGill University. We await the response of the office of the Minister of Labour and the employer.
You can help MUNACA members in their search for a collective agreement that is fair, equitable and achieves parity with other universities in the Montreal area. Send an email to the principal of McGill University, Heather Munroe-Blum heather.munroe.blum@mcgill.ca, now!
McGill Staff Prepared to Strike on Thursday
Posted on | August 28, 2011 | No Comments
The members of McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) voted 88% in favour of a strike mandate last Wenesday. MUNACA represents about 1800 employees – library loans desk staff, the tech support people, people who work at the Service Point, departmental administrative staff, among others.
From the MUNACA web site:
Strike to Begin 6:00 am Thursday Morning if No Agreement Reached
For the last two days we have met with McGill in negotiations. Over the last two days we have seen no movement from the university on wages or pension, nor are we close to an agreement on our benefits plan or premiums for evening and weekend work. The University’s wage proposal is 1.2% with no increments. Management suggested on Thursday that if the Union is set on an increment that they divide the 1.2% into 0.6% for increment and 0.6% for annual increase.
Our position is that we want a proper wage scale like other universities, while McGill’s current wage proposal is worse than what we have in our current collective agreement.
Given the employer’s refusal to address our critical issues, and given the fact that other universities across Montreal have agreed to what we are asking for in these negotiations, we have notified McGill that a general strike of the MUNACA membership will commence at 6:00 am Thursday morning if no agreement is reached before then.
We remain prepared to negotiate. But if management does not address our fundamental concerns, we will go on strike Thursday morning.
We’ll be sure to update as things progress. If you have any questions contact your Council Representative, MUNACA Executive Member or www.MUNACA.com.