CUPE 3906

Teaching assistants (TAs) and research assistants in lieu (RAs) at McMaster University stand united in their fight to ensure high-quality academic jobs for over twenty-five hundred student academic workers.

In a historic strike vote held earlier this week, 90% of TAs and RAs voted “yes” to send a strong message to the university’s administration. TAs and RAs are demanding that McMaster table a fair and reasonable offer to protect students from tuition increases, address their concerns about the rising cost of living in Hamilton and a lack of work opportunities for graduate students, and to end inequitable wages between undergraduate and graduate TAs.

“Academic workers at McMaster are demanding better,” said Chris Fairweather, president of CUPE Local 3906. “The status quo of limited job security and inadequate wages is no longer sustainable for our members, especially when any wage increases can be clawed back by tuition hikes.” TAs and RAs at McMaster – nearly all of whom are students and pay tuition to McMaster – are facing once-in-a-generation inflation and raising house costs in Hamilton, yet wages and funding packages remain stagnant, inequitable, and unable to support student workers for the duration of their studies.

Your elected bargaining team is calling on the administration at McMaster to table a proposal that offers protection against future tuition increases, recognizes the job insecurity faced by graduate student-workers, and ends a significant wage discrepancy between undergraduate and graduate teaching.

“Not only are the proposals we have tabled around protections against tuition increases and extended work guarantees for graduate students reasonable and well within McMaster’s means, they also exist at many other comparable universities in Ontario” added Fairweather.

CUPE 3906 is seeking protections against future tuition increases in the form of a reimbursement, like those at the University of Ottawa and Carleton, and extended work guarantees for graduate students, similar to those that exist at the University of Toronto, York, and Carleton.

“With this strike vote, our members are overwhelmingly clear: we will not accept a contract that is more of the same and which fails to recognize the growing challenges and realities we face in simply getting by. We demand better of McMaster,” Fairweather explained.

A positive strike vote does not mean that TAs and RAs are on strike, nor does it set a date for a strike. It authorizes the bargaining team to call a strike in the event that talks break down at the bargaining table and after a provincial “no board” report has been issued. Further updates will be sent to your McMaster email accounts.

Quick Facts:

• Since 2016, McMaster University’s yearly consolidated surpluses have totalled over $730 million
• Despite representing roughly 1/3^rd of McMaster’s total workforce, TA wages make-up just 3.7% of McMaster’s total payroll
• While the average yearly rent in Hamilton has gone up $4,572 since 2019, the maximum yearly gross pay for graduate student TAs/RAs in lieu at McMaster has increased by only $575.87
• Doug Ford’s Bill 124 capped wage increases for TAs/RAs to 1% per year for 3 years starting in 2019. Had these wages kept pace with inflation during that time, TAs/RAs in lieu would be earning $5/hour more than they are today
• The wage gap between undergraduate and graduate TAs is nearly $19 per hour, despite both groups performing equivalent work
• CUPE 3906, Unit 1 represents over 2500 TAs and RAs (in lieu) per year – nearly all of whom are students

For more information, please contact:

Chris Fairweather, President, CUPE 3906 – president@cupe3906.org

Mary Ellen Campbell, Chief Negotiator, CUPE 3906 – mary@cupe3906.org

This morning, Teaching Assistants, Markers, Demonstrators, and Part-Time Academics at Dalhousie University in Halifax began strike action in pursuit of a fair collective agreement. While workers at Dalhousie have been facing staggering increases in the cost of living, their university’s wage proposals promise only to put them further behind.

All across the country, public universities and colleges have fallen increasingly under the control of lawyers and corporate executives whose only goal is to generate profits and create student debt for the big banks at the expense of students, workers, and the communities post-secondary education is meant to serve. In some cases, universities are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year while putting very little back into their communities. In others, reckless governance of this kind is putting universities at risk, as we recently saw with the catastrophic mismanagement and subsequent insolvency of Laurentian University in Sudbury.

As part of their relentless pursuit of profit, universities are increasingly exploiting the labour of precariously-employed academic workers. Rather than creating more full-time, tenure-track positions and other secure, fair-paying academic jobs, our universities are becoming job insecurity machines. This undermines not just our quality of living, but with it, the quality of the research and teaching our universities can produce. Academic workers, our students, and the communities that depend on us deserve better.

As Teaching Assistants at McMaster take their own strike vote over so many of the same issues, the CUPE 3906 Executive Committee stands in solidarity with CUPE 3912 and everyone else fighting for better post-secondary education across the country. We encourage members of CUPE 3906 to share their support for CUPE 3912. We call on academic unions and workers across the country to do the same. We join the growing chorus of groups demanding that Dalhousie return to the table and offer these vital workers a fair contract. In support of their struggle, we have also authorized a $500 contribution to the CUPE 3912 Strike Fund.

Your fight is our fight, and together, we will win!

In solidarity,

The CUPE 3906 Executive Committee

Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants (in lieu) will take a strike vote in our ongoing negotiations with the university. 

Have Questions about the Strike Vote?

The CUPE 3906 Executive Committee condemns the racist attack against Hamilton’s Ward 14 City Council candidate Kojo Damptey that took place on or around October 10th, 2022. Kojo’s campaign poster located at Upper Paradise and Mohawk Road was vandalized with white supremacist graffiti.

We share the view that this action was not a legitimate or spontaneous engagement in debate, but rather a pre-meditated and hateful attempt to silence and intimidate this candidate and BIPOC members of our community in general. The action exemplifies that white supremacy is a pressing problem in our communities, and should be treated as an organized and dangerous component by all people of conscience. The CUPE 3906 Executive Committee re-affirms our commitment against racism and white supremacy. We will be vigilant in our attempts to root out white supremacy and create safe spaces for BIPOC community members to seek voice and representation in whatever institutions they see fit.

In solidarity,

The Executive Committee of CUPE Local 3906

On Monday, the Ontario Superior Court began hearing a challenge to the Protections of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA). The current challenge, undertaken by 25 sex workers and sex worker organization in Ontario, argues that PCEPA violates section 7 of the Charter. The CUPE 3906 Executive Committee stands in solidarity with sex workers in their fight for safer working conditions.

The current legal framework impacts sex worker’s access to safe working practices. While the sale of sexual services is legal under PCEPA, buying sexual services and advertising or communication for the purpose of selling sexual services are illegal. By criminalizing these aspects of sex work, workers have few options for vetting customers and negotiating terms. Further, the PCEPA has been criticized for conflating sex work with human trafficking and limiting sex worker autonomy and agency. Many sex workers also associate the current legal framework with police harassment, despite the sale of sexual services being legal under the current framework. This harassment, as well as the stigma surrounding this type of work, makes it difficult to take action when assault or a breach of terms occurs.

Sex workers rights are human rights!

In solidarity,

The Executive Committee of CUPE Local 3906

On September 21st the Benefits Committee met to review suggested changes to expand the Unit 2 health care spending account benefits provided to us. These benefits are secured through collective bargaining. Thanks to the hard work of the Unit 2 Bargaining Team and the support you showed to them through the bargaining process, we are pleased to announce that these suggested changes were approved and that benefits entitlements have been expanded for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Previously, the Unit 2 Health Care Spending Account provided a reimbursement of 80% up to $500 in claims, meaning that each member was entitled to up to a maximum reimbursement of $400 per academic year.

The Unit 2 Health Care Spending account maximum has been increased to $500 without any ‘co-pay.’ This means that members can now claim 100% of the costs for eligible expenses up to a max of $500 per academic year. Please note that this is subject to change at anytime due to unforeseen circumstances. Members who have already submitted claims for this academic year (September 1st onward) may submit an additional claim to be reimbursed for any outstanding balance up to the maximum allowed. If you have questions please contact

administrator@cupe3906.org or benefits@Cupe3906.org

You can find more information about the fund here: https://cupe3906.org/sessionals-unit-2/unit-2-benefits/

On September 26, Teaching Assistants will head back to the table with McMaster for the first time in a month. We expect to meet several times over the next two weeks, with Postdoctoral Fellows slated to return to the table on October 5 and 6. Expect more updates soon, but in the meantime, it’s worth recapping where we’re at so far.

McMaster’s Institutional Priorities and Strategic Framework lists “inclusive excellence,” “teaching and learning,” and “research and scholarship” among its top priorities. The university aspires to “be the go-to place for world-class researchers,” but the minimum salary for Postdoctoral Fellows is just $36,200/year. Every year, world-class researchers are actually being lost to other universities or to the private sector, while McMaster sits on its hands and refuses to talk about Postdoc compensation.

McMaster is also home to over 2,600 Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants-in-lieu, almost all of whom are graduate or undergraduate students. Our work is essential to the functioning of the university, and despite this, many of us struggle to cover basic needs like rent, groceries, and utilities. After we pay our tuition, which is a defacto condition of employment for most TAs, graduate TA’s are left earning roughly $16-19/hour, depending on our programs. Undergraduate TA’s earn approximately 40% less than graduate TA’s, for no good reason, aside from offering the university a source of discounted labour. There is also nothing to prevent future tuition increases from further eroding TA income on top of the damage already being done by once-in-a-generation inflation.

Everything that we’re asking for is about helping McMaster live up to its vision of “inclusive excellence” by making the university a better place to work and study. But we need your help. Every pay period that goes by without new Collective Agreements, essential academic workers at McMaster fall further and further behind the rising cost of living.

Please send a message of support to our bargaining teams. Share this update and your support for our priorities on social media with the hashtag #bettermac. We’re also calling on all members of the union to join the Bargaining Support Committee to organize and rally support behind our bargaining teams. If you haven’t done so yet, please sign the open letter calling on the university to Raise the Floor on graduate funding as well.

Our work is valuable. We deserve so much better than this.