Picket Line Bulletin No 4

Picket Line Bulletin 19 march, 2015 Vol.1 No.4

Support for Strike Strong and Growing

Tuesday

UTM Shutdown!

We responded to the Administration's insulting counteroffer loud and clear on Tuesday as traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see. Spirits ran high as bus load after bus load arrived to march together. The Day of Action captured both regional and national media attention. Wednesday

Undergraduate Walk Out Rally

Thousands of undergrads abruptly left their classes at 12:10pm on Wednesday, chanting End the strike! Thank-you for the support! Special call-out to the Greed Ghoul aka the Spectre Haunting UofT.


UTM Student Sit-in

Students staged a sit-in in front of the Principal and VP of UofTs Office.

Thursday

UTSC Day of Action!

Not Your Basic Income Unit Scarborough Campus Students Union Sit-in, 1pm, UTSC Registrar's Office.

Petition to Governing Council

This Thursday at 3:30, students and CUPE members will submit a petition to the Academic Board of the Governing Council. The petition already contains over 15,000 student signatures demanding the Administration bring grad student funding to the poverty line. Two members have been granted rights to speak at the Academic Board. They will be presenting the petitions, emphasizing that we want to get back to teaching, but that the Administrations hostile negotiation stance has left us little options. They will also correct the latest misinformation coming from the Provosts office and demonstrate how the Union has been more reasonable than the Administration during negotiations. The Strike Needs Rhythms!

Rhythms Need You!

Thursday night, the Hype Squad will be teaming up with Rhythms of Resistance to start a Strike Drum Band. GSU Gym, 5-9pm. Please register here: http://goo.gl/forms/6Jaf7lZlvp

Saturday

Solidarity Rally with UofT and

York Workers

Yonge-Dundas Square - 1pm


Picket Captain Meeting Recap

Over sixty Picket Captains and members met on Tuesday night to discuss strategy and picket tactics for the upcoming weeks. Various break-out groups created action plans for the following issues: member outreach; undergrad outreach & support; hard pickets; hype squad; satellite campuses; equity & accessibility; York-UofT solidarity; and organizational strategy. A law student made a presentation that informed our Picket Captains about our rights on the picket line.

Faculty & Librarian Show Strong Support Twenty-eight letters of support have been written by departments and faculty. A letter of support was published in the Toronto Star by over 240 faculty & librarians. The Chairs, Directors, and Administrators at the University of Toronto Scarborough have also written an open letter to the Provost in support of the strike. Faculty have started to join picket lines--some even wearing their robes! The University of Toronto Faculty

Association has a new strike update email on their website that is useful for members who are speaking with faculty: www.utfa.org

UTSC Letter On March 17th, sixteen Chairs, Directors and Administrators at the University of Toronto Scarborough wrote a pointed letter to to the Provost:

"we believe we have reached the point at which the harmful effects of the strike can only mount. Already, the academic integrity of many of our undergraduate courses and programs is seriously compromised.many of our faculty are feeling demoralized, and collegiality between faculty and students, both undergraduate and graduate, is beginning to crumble.We thus urge you to continue working toward a speedy resolution to the current labour dispute. the University needs to offer a new vision for graduate funding at the University of Toronto.We urge the university to make a strong public statement that celebrates our graduate students and recognizes their central role in our research endeavours. One important way


to do so is to renew our commitment to fund graduate education at an internationally competitive level.

We TAs Who are these mythical 'TAs' and why do people love them so? We investigate....

I was born in Hong Kong in 1985. My parents brought me to Canada in 1988. They sacrificed a lot. My mom was an accountant. My father, VP human resources & part-time lecturer at HKU (Hong Kong University). They left behind their jobs, family, friends, and the only home they knew to bring me here. We bounced around a while, as they tried to find new jobs. My mom ended up an administrative assistant here, my dad an insurance salesman. Hes never really recovered; hes sad and lost even now. They did all this because they wanted me to grow up in a country where I could vote, where I had freedom of expression, where

students could protest without being run over by tanks. Im on strike, and my parents are proud. But I commit to you, my students, that I will be here every Friday. I cannot teach you but I owe you my time and energy. Come or not; talk to me or not, I will be here. (Brian, CSC263 TA, CSGSBS President, University of Toronto) Photo: Michael Chiu

Write your personal story about the strike in an empty classroom or in some unusual way, take a picture of it, and submit it to the We Heart TAs Facebook group or to [email protected]

Chants of the Week:

Whats outrageous? Poverty wages! Whats disgusting? Union busting! Whats appalling? UofT stalling!

(To the tune of T. Swifts Shake it Off)

Cause the admins gonna hate hate hate hate And theyre going to try to play play play play us

We just wanna get paid paid paid paid So well strike it off, strike it off

Photo: Lennart Maschmeyer


Attention Course Instructors:

It is important for you to have a meeting with other CIs in your department to discuss how to collectively respond to any actions by the Chair or Administration to undermine our courses and the rights of students. Most students do not know their rights around changing the syllabus (e.g. advance notice of any vote, right to vote to not change the syllabus, etc.). Join the conversation on Facebook at : A course instructor rally being planned for next week on Wednesday March 25th. Please also note that you have until April 30th to opt-out of making your course evaluations public by going to https://course-evaluations.chass.utoronto.ca . Opting-out is advised if you suspect you will be unfairly evaluated by your class for your participation in the strike.

The CUPE3902 Economists Working Group

Did you know? Our March 13th proposal to the Administration took three fixed funds and converted them to per person funds. This was done to make sure that the university guarantees that the per person value of the funds remained constant as they plan to let on more grad students. In order to help make up part of the the extra cost, we were willing to give up $1.8 million in offered wage increase. It would have cost the university an extra $650k over 4 years (above the previous tentative agreement) to end this strike. This corresponds to 0.3% of the offered contract. The current tentative settlement rejects this approach, and insteads reshuffles wages increases back into fixed funds.

Missed Connections

Picket coordinators cant promise all your shifts will be with that cutie you met at the Kings College Circle rally? Cant find your new pal from

the Galbraith Road picket on facebook? Experiencing a missed CUPE3902 connection? No worries, just post on OkCUPE, a missed connections site set up to foster love and friendship on the picket

lines! Strike 2015 has boosted our fb friend list, but now its time to take things to the next level:

www.okcupe.ca

To: British Picket Captain I've been assigned to your picket line more than once. Your accent makes me tremble. Your passionate "We Are The Union" chanting has me head over heels. I've never seen a man so dedicated to such a worthy cause before. You're so brave when you stand on the concrete blocks at OISE - it takes my breath away. I've tried to muster up the courage to talk to you when I'm signing out, but after all, you are a picket captain and I'm just a picketer... Yours in love and solidarity.


To: Giant Skull Monster You were the giant skull monster floating around the walk-out rally by Simcoe Hall yesterday. I saw you and it felt like a dream. We made eye contact, but I was too shy to say hello, and a little afraid that you would cast me into an alternate fire dimension. Buy you a cup of coffee or something? To: New Orleans Guy You were the guy from New Orleans at UTSC on Monday with me. I wanted to ask if you wanted to play board games with me and my friends, but I chickened out. You seemed cool. To: Green Eyes You: Strange green eyes, gluten issue, ethically complex research topic, excellent megaphone technique. Me: Rhythmless navelgazer with shitty French. We waltzed to Bob Dylan on the line at UTM, and you were careful to start Solidarity Forever in an accommodating key for my bass baritone. Join me for a "study" dosa? Member Outreach Sub-Committee

Ensure that our members are not marking, teaching or invigilating is critical to winning this strike. The university is organized both socially and academically into departments, so we should be organizing our outreach (and our strike) along these lines. -Different departments also have very different cultures and ideas. The Member Outreach Sub-Committee would like to support you with organizing people inside of your department to become more engaged in the strike efforts--or to at least not mark or teach during the strike. Significant outreach has successfully occurred across all divisions. Departmental meetings are a must! Start organizing departmental pickets and coffee hours and please write to [email protected] for support of any kind, especially if you feel like you are one of the only ones in your lab or department engaged in the strike. Strike Pay $$$

If you havent already picked up your pay from the first week of strike, cheques are available at the CUPE 3902 Office at 180 Bloor St. West, Suite 803.

Joint York-UofT CUPE3903-3902 Liaison Group

This group is trying to build solidarity and strategy between our two striking union locals. Meetings are 5:30 on

Thursdays in the Centre for Women and Trans People (563 Spadina Cres).

Transformative Community Building: Community Organizing Workshop Saturday, March 28th, 523 Wilson Hall in New College, 10am-3:30pm. Free!

**Send Picket Line Bulletin submissions to: [email protected]**

Documents

Picket Line Bulletin No 4