By: Olivia Sherman, News Writer
On September 28, the Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU) engaged in a full work stoppage and began demonstrating in picket lines across all three SFU campuses. The stoppage of all work for teaching assistants (TAs) is an escalation of the current strike, which started in June. The Peak interviewed media spokesperson and bargaining committee member, Dalton Kamish, to learn more about the strike and ongoing actions.
The TSSU has been campaigning for an adjustment in pay to keep up with the rising cost of living, end wage theft, and ensure a better future for instructors with a pension plan, Kamish said. They noted the SFU administration has been unprepared and inflexible with their terms. “The employer and their spokesperson just won’t bargain meaningfully,” they said, and it’s “not the employer’s intention” to do so. Kamish noted the SFU administration didn’t attend the arranged bargaining meeting on the evening of the work stoppage.
TAs are paid for how many courses and hours they teach. This compensation model doesn’t account for how many students are in each of the TA’s classes, therefore a TA is paid the same for a class of 10 students as a class of 100 students. This is also not reflective of office hours, assignment and test grading, or the number of emails and online communications sent, which the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. Kamish said this is an example of wage theft, which is when an employer fails to accurately compensate a worker for their job.
The university said the reason this compensation model cannot be changed is because of the mandate of the Public Sector Employers’ Council (PSEC). PSEC is meant to oversee BC’s labour relations and compensation planning. Kamish said PSEC sets a limit on the general wage increase a workforce can acquire, which isn’t what TSSU is asking for, but rather compensation for the work already completed. “It’s not a cost to the university to pay for the work that’s already being done. It’s not a general wage increase.”
Kamish said “employers like SFU hide behind this mandate” and “use PSEC to shirk their own responsibilities to actually administer and manage the university. They act like they can’t decide to take some of this enormous surplus and spend it on the people who do the work.”
On the day of the work stoppage, all graduate and undergraduate students at SFU received an email on behalf of the administration from Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, the vice-president of people, equity, and inclusion. They also received an email from Dilson Rassier, provost and vice-president, academic. The notices made reference to the 41 bargaining meetings between November 2022 and September 2023. “In that time, the university tabled approximately 50 proposals while TSSU leadership tabled more than 500 proposals,” SFU said. “To date, there are still more than 200 TSSU proposals outstanding.”
Kamish said TSSU is aware of the mass emails to students. “The irony of it is that, it reflects how much work we’ve put into our proposals, in contrast to how little they’ve put into theirs,” Kamish said. “I know for a fact that they’re counting changing typos as a proposal, because there’s no way that their math works.” TSSU members have expressed frustration with SFU spending much of their bargaining time in meetings discussing spelling errors, grammatical errors, and minute details. Kamish also noted many of the items TSSU proposed are recurring issues that have been brought up since 2012, “but every round they act like they’ve never seen them before.
“Every single proposal we’ve made to improve our collective agreements, they’ve said, ‘that will reduce your wage increases.’ It’s only in the last three bargaining sessions they admitted ‘okay, maybe some things don’t need to count against your wage increases.’”
The mass email on September 28 also stated SFU’s bargaining team will continue to “look for solutions to present to TSSU to resolve collective bargaining” in order to strike a deal with the union, but said this will be accomplished “when the TSSU is prepared to return to the bargaining table.”
Kamish said TSSU is “waiting to go back to bargaining [ . . . ] We’re out on picket lines, we’re on strike.” They added, “We don’t see a lot of sense in confirming a bargaining date when they’re going to waste our time, and we know that.” At the time of publication, TSSU had announced they would return to the bargaining tables on October 6, but no results from the meeting had been released.
The work stoppage means TAs will stop teaching all tutorials and labs, and grading tests and assignments. Communication with TAs, such as through emails and Canvas messaging, will also cease during the strike. “While bargaining should follow logic and reason, it follows power, and our greatest power is our labour. The way that we show that is by withdrawing that labour,” Kamish said. “The normal, everyday function of this university relies on exploiting TSSU members’ work.”
Kamish and the TSSU have hope of winning the strike. “We have a long and proud tradition of winning strikes.”
This is an ongoing story The Peak will continue to cover. For more information on ongoing job action, visit https://www.tssu.ca/. The Peak reached out to SFU administration for a comment, but they declined to speak.
