Category: Uncategorized

4pm today at Roddick Gates (In front of McGill, corner of Sherbrooke and McGill College)

Journée internationale des droits des femmes : 8 mars 2023

How much progress have women made in the workplace? On the 46th International Women’s Day, here are 46 facts showing how much we do — and don’t — value women’s work.

https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2023/03/08/not-so-rosie-on-the-46th-international-womens-day-46-facts-showing-how-much-we-do-and-dont-value-womens-work.html

Would you be willing to sign the petition? The background to this petition is the McGill Tribune’s article from October 2022.

Over 15 million dollars from McGill Investment Pool tied up in Uyghur genocide

The link to the petition is found at: https://powerforms.docusign.net/91bdc6c6-eab9-482a-950e-cee51878c1cb?env=na3&acct=cd92b358-1a2c-407b-bc42-054da7df6206&accountId=cd92b358-1a2c-407b-bc42-054da7df6206

** The petition will ask for your McGill Staff ID and McGill email address. This is because, this petition will need a number of McGill staff to sign before it can be brought before the McGill Board of Governors. If you do not wish to provide those you can still sign using a non-McGill email address and leave the Staff ID space empty **

AMURE’s postdoc bargaining team needs your support. The University is refusing to address our most important issues:

• Fair wages
• Professional development
• Paid parental leave
• Sick days

McGill’s offer of a minimum salary of $37,500 and 39,000 in 2023 would mean that postdocs would have the lowest Minimum salary out of all full-time McGill positions. Every single other McGill position has a higher minimum salary.

The median salary for postdocs is $48,000, but for comparison, laboratory technicians, research assistants and research associates have a minimum salary above $50,000 a year. While our offer is even below this amount, we feel that this agreement will be the first step for fair salaries of postdocs. Please support the bargaining demands of postdocs by signing this petition

Today, December 6th marks the 33rd anniversary of one of the most brutal mass killings in Canadian history at Ecole Polytechnique. Today we take time to reflect upon violence against women. We take some time to consider the impact this horrible act had on not only the 14 women who were viciously murdered simply because they were women but on the impact it has had on their friends, families and love ones and on our society as a whole. Please keep these women in your thoughts and hearts today.

Say their names!!!

We have created this calculator that you can download and use to calculate your new salary and an estimate of your retro pay. Please direct any questions to QandAnewCA@munaca.com.

Dear Members,

Our office has received inquiries from members about the status of the ‘Negotiations’. This bulletin is to inform you of the difference between Negotiations, Conciliation, and Arbitration.

Negotiations (2020-2022)
As you know, your MUNACA Negotiations Committee was in lengthy negotiations with the employer’s representatives from 2020 until 2022. After more than 50 meetings, we were not able to reach an agreement.

Conciliation (2022)
The Employer requested Conciliation on or around the 9th of December. The parties first met with the Conciliator M. Hervé on January 27th, 2022, with subsequent meetings until late April when, despite our best efforts, conciliation broke down as we failed to come to an agreement acceptable to both parties. It was near the end of this process that MUNACA members called for strike action.

Arbitration
McGill requested first contract arbitration on April 14th and after many attempts the Parties agreed to Me Cavé as the arbitrator. Arbitration is scheduled for August 29th 2022 and September 1st 2022. This will continue until the Arbitrator has made their binding decision. Although the Arbitrator has the authority to make a binding decision on the collective agreement, they can also try to give the parties one last chance to reach a negotiated settlement through a process of mediation. MUNACA and McGill have agreed to work through the mediation process in hopes of reaching an agreement. The Parties, along with Me Cavé, have agreed to meet on Wednesday July 13th in an attempt to mediate an agreement.

2022-04-20 Strike Press Release

Today, the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA – PSAC Local 17602) which represents more than 1800 non-academic support employees, has gone on strike after being without a contract since November 2018. At 12:30pm today, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)’s Regional Vice-President for Quebec, M. Yvon Barriere, will be joining our picket lines and will be available for comment along with MUNACA’s President, M. Thomas Chalmers, and PSAC Representative and Lead Negotiator, M. Mathieu Brulé.

Striking is the last resort to call attention to ongoing conflict between McGill’s Administration and their ardent and steadfast support staff. The Administration has praised MUNACA members’ diligent, and committed work many times during the pandemic. However, the expression ‘A handful of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged’ comes to mind when considering the ‘concrete’ ways the university hopes to offer compensation. During the 20 months of negotiations, McGill has not offered anything for essential workers in the form of COVID pay as other Universities in Quebec have done. For example, in September 2020, Concordia University gave all employees a $500 COVID stipend to help with expenses resulting from the pandemic. McGill, despite receiving the same government subsidy, offered their employees nothing other than some vacuous words of thanks during Town Hall meetings.

For the below reasons, MUNACA  support staff are hitting the streets today in protest:

• Retroactive cuts to economic increases – Proposed economic (cost of living) increases for the first 3 years of the contract, covering 2019 – 2021, totaling 4.5%. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for that same period was 6.9%. The ‘Top University’ extends its thanks for all our members’ fidelity by gouging retroactively on cost of living.

• Cuts to economic increases going forward – For 2022 and 2023, the university is offering 2% economic increases. In February 2022, we saw the CPI soar past 5.7%, and is expected to remain as high, or higher, for the next several years. This effectively cuts several additional percentage points deeper into members’ earnings and actual spending power in future years.

• Cuts to step increases – McGill agrees with the union that the lowest salaries for employees are well below those of the rest of the University sector, and these need to be adjusted as the university is now having trouble recruiting and retaining new employees. Their proposed solution is to make employees pay for increases by lowering the annual step increases from 2.97% to 1.97%. Were MUNACA to agree, losing these gains already won in the 3 month long 2011 strike, this would cement McGill support staff as the lowest paid in the Quebec University sector. Step increases are recognition for experience and expertise gained on the job over time. It currently takes 12 years for employees to reach the full value of their positions.

• Cuts to top of salary scales – In further efforts to improve salaries to the lower ends of the scales, McGill is also proposing cuts to the top of the salary scales for their longest serving employees, forcing this latter group to bear the brunt of correcting McGill’s market shortcomings, while depriving their longest serving, and most experienced employees of potential future earnings as they start to think about retirement. This is unacceptable.

To the McGill Administration, who pays their upper management the highest in Quebec, and in Canada, and who will be forking out an obscene $860,00 to outgoing Principal Fortier in her final year alone, we want to send the clear message that we will not be disrespected, insulted, or taken for granted! Come to the negotiations table with a new mandate to address our members’ priorities and sincerely work with us to reach a fair and satisfactory collective agreement.

Contact:

Thomas Chalmers

Phone: 514-398-6565

Email: reception@munaca.com