Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) at Western University are on strike.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, Local 610 (PSAC 610), which represents the roughly 2,000 GTAs at the university, rejected Western's latest offer and walked away from the bargaining table Wednesday night. Legal strike action began Thursday morning with picket lines set up at entrances to the campus.
“It is shameful that workers are being forced to take direct action, because Western refused to come to the table with a fair offer”, said Craig Reynolds, PSAC Ontario regional executive vice-president. “Instead, Western chose to focus on undermining the critical work graduate teaching assistants perform by preparing to outsource that work to other staff.”
The union has asked other workers at Western to respect the strike by refusing to take up positions to proctor and mark exams, which begin on Thursday.
In addition to proctoring and grading exams, GTAs are responsible for maintaining grading records, assisting with classroom teaching, preparing lecture presentations, tutoring and mentoring students, and supervising group activities. The position is part-time with GTAs paid for up to 10 hours of work a week. They have been without a contract since the end of last August.
The main sticking point between the two sides is pay. The union is demanding a "real monetary increase" to address the high cost of living, while the university states it has offered an hourly wage rate of $48.16 that is retroactive to January 1 and will increase to an hourly wage rate of $51.10 by year four of the collective agreement.
"Western GTAs are among the top paid GTAs in the province and the final offer continues to provide generous pay for this work that supports teaching activities at Western. The university remains committed to achieving a mutually agreeable contract," Florentine Strzelczyk, Western's provost and vice-president academic, said in a statement.
She added that the university has supported GTAs in other ways including doubling funding requested to support graduate students affected by inflationary costs, increasing bursary funding, and building new graduate student housing.
The union said that the university's wage increase offer came without guarantee of claw-back language, making it meaningless as the institution could cut the number of hours offered which would lead to overall monetary cuts.
"Western teaching assistants receive one of the smallest funding packages in the entire province," said Pardis Baha, PSAC Local 610 president. “This is why workers are struggling to afford basic necessities like food and shelter.”
The university will remain open and operational during the strike. However, anyone heading to campus can expect delays due to picket lines.
