AGSEM News and Statements
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Dear AGSEM members, old and new,
The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the oldest TA union in Quebec. Our members are graduate Teaching Assistants (Unit 1), Invigilators (Unit 2), and Course-Based Academic Casuals (Unit 3) employed at McGill.
Table of Contents Winter 2025 Events and Assemblies AGSEM News Come to our rally! Austerity is bad! Unit 3 Bargaining Update/Invite to OB Occupational Health and Safety Survey In the Community CREW Update Alliance Ouvrières Week of Action Against Amazon FNEEQ AI Survey Sign your membership form!Following two months of delays from McGill, negotiations have finally begun with AGSEM’s Unit 3!!! The first bargaining session on March 27 kicked off with a breakfast barbeque in front of Sherbrooke 680, with workers grabbing coffee and food while showing solidarity with AGSEM’s Unit 3. Beyond the graders, course assistants, graduate fellows, and McGill Writing Centre employees that are part of AGSEM’s Unit 3, members from AGSEM’s Units 1 and 2 representing Teaching Assistants and Invigilators showed up early to give their support to the bargaining committee and stand united with their fellow workers!Calling all graders, course assistants, tutors, graduate teaching fellows, and members of the McGill Writing Centre. Your bargaining unit (Unit 3) in your union (AGSEM) is holding a Unit Assembly on Monday, March 17th! Your Unit 3 Bargaining Committee is ready to negotiate with McGill to win your first collective agreement—they have been since January—but McGill continues to stall. On the agenda of this important assembly are: Revisiting elements of the bargaining mandate established at the first November 2024 Unit Assembly Should the Bargaining Committee have the power to call members to vote on a strike?The Invigilator Collective Agreement, that is, the document governing the working conditions for all invigilators at McGill, expires on December 1, 2025. This means that we have an opportunity to re-negotiate this agreement to improve our working conditions (anything from pay to breaks, to hiring, to protections against harassment).
The first step of the bargaining process is understanding how invigilators feel about their work conditions and what they would like to change.The Invigilator Collective Agreement, that is, the document governing the working conditions for all invigilators at McGill, expires on December 1, 2025. This means that we have an opportunity to re-negotiate this agreement to improve our working conditions (anything from pay to breaks, to hiring, to protections against harassment).
The first step of the bargaining process is understanding how invigilators feel about their work conditions and what they would like to change.Dear AGSEM members, old and new, The Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the oldest TA union in Quebec. Our members are graduate Teaching Assistants (Unit 1), Invigilators (Unit 2), Course-Based Academic Casuals (Unit 3), and Writing Centre Employees (Unit 4 - for now, read more below) employed at McGill.
Table of Contents Winter 2025 Events and Assemblies
AGSEM News
Teaching Support Budget Cuts at McGill Academic Casuals: Writing Centre Unionization Drive Invigilator Pre-Bargaining Update Upcoming TA Assembly Addressing Budget Cuts and Reviewing the Strike TAs Continue Refusing to Work for Free Introducing the Queer and Anti-racist Contract Action Teams (CATs) In the CommunityIn May 2024, after an ambitious two-year unionization campaign, Amazon warehouse workers in Laval unionized with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and became the first Amazon warehouse to successfully unionize in Canada.
In response, Amazon is closing its warehouses and operations in Québec, leaving 3500 - 4500 workers without jobs.
Amazon’s dramatic move of ceasing all operations in Quebec is in line with their history of union busting, and appears to be intended to chill unionization efforts at Amazon not just in Canada, but around the world.In October 2023, AGSEM’s Delegate Council adopted its Motion of solidarity with Palestine, which resolved that “AGSEM Delegates’ Council will take tangible steps to boycott Israeli products and services, such as by transitioning away from website and email servers hosted by a company that benefits from the occupation of Palestinian land.” This resolution referred to our use of WIX, a website builder owned by an Israeli company. AGSEM has been hard at work rebuilding the website since then.Course-based academic casuals hold their first assembly and elect their first bargaining committee! It’s was a historic day for course-based academic casuals at McGill! On 27 November 2024, the recently unionized unit (Unit 3) of course-based academic casuals held their first Unit Assembly as a part of AGSEM. At this assembly, members set their priorities for negotiations, elected their first bargaining committee, elected a bargaining support committee, and agreed on a mobilization strategy.On Dec 11, 2024, an armed security agent assaulted and detained an AGSEM member and worker in the McConnell Engineering building. When this member saw an armed security agent, she took a photo. In response, the security agent put his hand to his gun, grabbed her arm, and held her against the wall. He attempted to question her and said that he would break her camera while refusing to identify himself or tell her what she was accused of.On November 20, the General Assembly, AGSEM’s highest governing body, overwhelmingly voted to adopt the Palestinian Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Guidelines. Since 2005, the BDS movement, a broad coalition of organizations from Palestinian civil society, has called on “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.At the 16 November 2023 General Assembly, AGSEM members passed a Motion in solidarity with the Mohawk Mothers/Kahnistensera. In this motion, the assembly voted to stand “with the Kahnistensera in their struggle for dignity, truth, and reconciliation.” Almost a year later, McGill’s morally reprehensible actions remind the McGill community of the pertinence of AGSEM’s position and the need for solidarity with the Kanien’keha:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers). On the morning of 17 November 2024, over a hundred members of the McGill community gathered for the planting of a Great White Pine—a powerful symbol of peace for the Kanien’keha:ka, since time immemorial—on “McGill’s” Lower Field.Unit 3 Newsletter: All course-based Academic Casuals have a union! All graders, course tutors, undergraduate course assistants, graduate student assistants, student course assistants, course assistants, and graduate teaching fellows now have a union as AGSEM’s Unit 3!
What we are able to win in our upcoming negotiations with McGill depends on the work we can accomplish, together.
This newsletter has some important information to get involved in your new union.Dear AGSEM members, old and new,
We wish you a successful start of the academic year!
Our union, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is the oldest TA union in Quebec, and represents graduate Teaching Assistants (Unit 1), Invigilators (Unit 2), and Course-Based Academic Casuals (Unit 3) employed at McGill.
Sign your AGSEM Membership Form!
Sign your membership form for every semester that you work as a Unit 1 TA, Unit 2 invigilator, and/or Unit 3 academic casual.In light of the recent events in Bangladesh, the AGSEM Executive Committee condemns the extreme police brutality and spread of disinformation in response to the student protests, which took the lives of at least hundreds of students, left many with life threatening injuries, resulted in a nationwide, multi-day Internet blackout, police enforced curfews, and hundreds of arrests.
The AGSEM Executive Committee stands in solidarity with all Bangladeshi students advocating for equitable access to employment and a fair and transparent democracy.On June 6th, 2024, an autonomous group of students peacefully occupied the James Administration building at McGill University in the name of Palestinian liberation. In response, university administration authorized the presence of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) on campus and granted them permission to enter the James Administration building. The police response included riot police (Section du support et interventions spécialisées or SIS).
The police unequivocally displayed excessive force against protestors.The Association of McGill Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) wants to express its deepest words of solidarity with the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) currently on an unlimited strike as of April 24, 2024.
After 18 months of negotiation, it is deplorable that it has come to this point but unfortunately, we can fully relate to AMPL’s cause as it seems to be an acceptable avenue for McGill to refuse negotiating with their employee groups in an efficient way to prevent striking to happen.Content warning: this newsletter describes AGSEM’s negotiations with McGill around policies on harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence.
In the evening of Monday April 15th, 2024, after eight months of negotiations for a new contract, AGSEM and McGill reached a Tentative Agreement. Whether this Tentative Agreement will be ratified and become the new Collective Agreement is entirely in the hands of TAs.
This coming Thursday, April 18th at 5pm we will be holding a Ratification Assembly, open to all who have held a TA position in the last 12 months, at which the Bargaining Committee will present the tentative agreement and members will decide whether to accept it or not.