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UofT and York U TA Strikes 2015

I'm not sure the big deal. When I was in university, the TAs would do some tutorials for profs and mark assignments. So what, profs mark their own assignments. Now I didn't go to U of T ... don't their profs do most of the work?
 
nfitz said:
I'm not sure the big deal. When I was in university, the TAs would do some tutorials for profs and mark assignments. So what, profs mark their own assignments. Now I didn't go to U of T ... don't their profs do most of the work?
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Doesn't seem like a big deal here, no. More people are getting riled up over principles than over actual issues of canceled classes it seems (though I've seen some angry posts on r/uoft over canceled classes being announced a half hour before the class begins). York striking is a way bigger deal since their unit includes a larger share of teaching staff and York's higher dependence on bus transit (that won't cross a picket in solidarity) means that the campus is effectively shut down for a strike.

Actually, that means the opening of the Spadina subway might actually have an effect on York CUPE striking power as closing campus will be harder. A Liberal conspiracy?!/tinfoil hat

Oh and yes, some TAs do lead classes. I only have one class canceled myself but TAs definitely lead classes. According to CUPE 3902, TAs teach 60% of classes now (and presumably that does include leading tutorials as well as lectures) and haven't seen a raise in 8 years.

http://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/2xr37b/why_im_on_strike/ This post on reddit seems to sum up the CUPE and TA position well.
 
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I don't know the issues at play in these strikes but I remember when I was a TA in engineering school we found these strike and bargaining positions annoying. Perhaps we were naïve or just privileged because there is generally more scholarship money and more direct business or industry involvement in our graduate programs.

There are TA's making arguments about poverty wages etc. This argument holds to the extent that you agree that TAing and being a student is an occupation. Universities may be fueling this view to the extent that they increasingly lean on TAs to do the teaching and course work. But we never thought about it that way. TAing is like a paid internship where you learn how to teach, interact with students, and prepare yourself for further academic or vocational pursuits. Being a young engineering academic is worse than the real world so no one would think to stay there for the money. It appears as if some TA's are trying to make TAing better than the real world, a vocation rather than a paid internship.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I don't know the issues at play in these strikes but I remember when I was a TA in engineering school we found these strike and bargaining positions annoying. Perhaps we were naïve or just privileged because there is generally more scholarship money and more direct business or industry involvement in our graduate programs.

There are TA's making arguments about poverty wages etc. This argument holds to the extent that you agree that TAing and being a student is an occupation. Universities may be fueling this view to the extent that they increasingly lean on TAs to do the teaching and course work. But we never thought about it that way. TAing is like a paid internship where you learn how to teach, interact with students, and prepare yourself for further academic or vocational pursuits. Being a young engineering academic is worse than the real world so no one would think to stay there for the money. It appears as if some TA's are trying to make TAing better than the real world, a vocation rather than a paid internship.
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Unfortunately, as you've suggested, engineering has it a lot easier comparatively than other graduate disciplines. More funding, more opportunities and, from what I've gathered, more non-university work. In a discipline like history, it's basically work for the university or...nothing really. Another issue seems to be around work hours declared versus actual work hours. The $42/hour figure is built on the assumption a TA will only work 205 hours a year but basically that would be 17 days of 12 hour work. That's nowhere near enough to accomplish an acceptable job as a TA with 50-100 essays to mark or a full course to instruct. Many TAs I know are expected to lead at least one lecture and often more. Again, this work is presumably unpaid. The nature of TAing also ensures that even if they attempt to find other work they're unable because one week they might only have their tutorials and then another they might have a large amount of marking. And of course there is the issue of their research which is unpaid and is considered more important for the university. So the $15,000 a year is more important than the $42/hour here.

No one seems to be trying to make TAing a permanent position as they're just trying to gain living wages. $15,000 a year is just not livable in Toronto.
 
wolfewood said:
No one seems to be trying to make TAing a permanent position as they're just trying to gain living wages. $15,000 a year is just not livable in Toronto.
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Nor should it be. It's only for 200 or so hours of work a year. Many grad students don't even get a TA - so how is that livable?

If it's not worth it, don't do it and get a job if you need it.

When I was a TA, it was made pretty clear to everyone what the limit was. I don't remember ever working, or any of my colleagues working significantly harder than required. Though I don't think anyone actually tracked there time - it was non-issue really.

If there are profs out there abusing their TAs, they should be reported, and made a pariah. When I was a TA the faculty wouldn't put up with that.

To be honest, grad school was a far easier ride than undergrad. I kept regular hours for the first time in years. Seldom worked in the evening. Didn't work weekends. And that included the TAs. Was I poor? Dirt poor. Certainly couldn't afford a car - but really, who needs a car in University? Could I have worked on my thesis faster and get out of there ... yes, but why not savour it?
 
The expectation is that being a grad student + TA allotment is a full time job, and as others have alluded the work tends to be assigned in bursts so you are expected to be able to drop everything for days to get grading done. A course instructor would justifiably flip out if you told them you had to go to a second job rather than mark papers... Also, universities are quick to cut off funding and guaranteed TA hours after a set number of years as they want you out of the system ASAP.

IMHO, the issue is not so much that TAs are not paid a living wage, it's that grad students and contract faculty are the backbone of undergraduate education, but are paid subsistence wages by the university and treated like second class citizens within academia. Potential grad students are sold a bill of goods before they get in only to find that the reality is that you spend years subsidizing the university's research efforts, and end up with a piece of paper that is nearly worthless given the huge oversupply of PhDs.
 
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DarnDirtyApe said:
The expectation is that being a grad student + TA allotment is a full time job, and as others have alluded the work tends to be assigned in bursts so you are expected to be able to drop everything for days to get grading done. A course instructor would justifiably flip out if you told them you had to go to a second job rather than mark papers...
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And so they should.

Being a grad student is supposed to be a full time job. That's what student loans are for.

The TA's are nice, but there are not intended to be a livable wage. Nor should the be for so few hours of work.

DarnDirtyApe said:
IMHO, the issue is not so much that TAs are not paid a living wage, it's that grad students and contract faculty are the backbone of undergraduate education, but are paid subsistence wages by the university and treated like second class citizens within academia.
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Contract teaching is an entirely different issue. These were relatively well-paid positions when I was in school. But also very rare - as I assume they still are at quality schools. I'd assume any university carrying out the practice to a significant extent was pretty second-rate and if all else was equal, I'd avoid hiring students from such an institution.

DarnDirtyApe said:
Potential grad students are sold a bill of goods before they get in only to find that the reality is that you spend years subsidizing the university's research efforts, and end up with a piece of paper that is nearly worthless given the huge oversupply of PhDs.
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That's not exactly a secret. This was well known 30 years ago before the InterWeb.
 
nfitz said:
Being a grad student is supposed to be a full time job. That's what student loans are for. The TA's are nice, but there are not intended to be a livable wage. Nor should the be for so few hours of work.
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Uh, most TAs are grad students, and I personally don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to take out student loans for a 5 year commitment on top of undergrad. Let's chalk that one up to philosophical differences.

Contract teaching is an entirely different issue. These were relatively well-paid positions when I was in school. But also very rare - as I assume they still are at quality schools. I'd assume any university carrying out the practice to a significant extent was pretty second-rate and if all else was equal, I'd avoid hiring students from such an institution.
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Quite the opposite... on a per-course basis it pays much less than an equivalent full-time teaching position, and the practice is widespread - the figures are something like 30+% at U of T and 60+% at York. The university actively discourages departments from hiring full-time teaching faculty because they have to pay more for the same work.

Furthermore, student enrollment for each course is predicated on the assumption that there will be TAs available to handle the marking. In a strike situation, a prof can't possible mark up to 500 papers, exams, etc., never mind answering student questions.
 
DarnDirtyApe said:
Uh, most TAs are grad students, and I personally don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to take out student loans for a 5 year commitment on top of undergrad. Let's chalk that one up to philosophical differences.
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Why not? If the studying in an area where there's demand, they should be able to get research funding or grants. If they want a PhD in an area where there's an oversupply, such as the arts, why shouldn't they be footing the bill?

DarnDirtyApe said:
Quite the opposite... on a per-course basis it pays much less than an equivalent full-time teaching position, and the practice is widespread - the figures are something like 30+% at U of T and 60+% at York. The university actively discourages departments from hiring full-time teaching faculty because they have to pay more for the same work.
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30% seems far too high, and I'm not sure I'd consider hiring a grad from a university with such poor ethics. Still, much less? WLU pays over $7,000 per each 3-month course. So if one carried 4 courses in each of the 3 semesters per year, that's over $86,000 a year. If each course has 4.5 hours of lecturs per week (I hear some only have 3!), and assuming the typical 3:1 rule of thumb for prep time, that's a 40.5 hour week.

I don't know what York or U of T pay per course for contract teaching, but if it's similar to WLU, I'm not seeing it's that extreme.

Though is contract teaching the issue at UofT? I thought it was just a TA strike.
 
nfitz said:
Why not? If the studying in an area where there's demand, they should be able to get research funding or grants. If they want a PhD in an area where there's an oversupply, such as the arts, why shouldn't they be footing the bill?
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And it is as if the amount of research funding or grants hasn't been going down post 90s. Plus the government really can't wash their hands off completely given graduate program expansion is part and parcel of provincial policy, which is also partly driven by expansion of credentialism.

At issue is probably not the amount paid for TAing (other than how it works out as an alternative to teaching by full-time faculty from a system perspective) but the overall amount of funding and support students have, vis-a-vis cost of living, etc. Bring up experiences 10, 20 years ago when funding is more abundant and the cost of living is much lower is kind of missing the point in some way.

Now of course if I should complain about the excess number of grade schools, adding a few more kids in a class and what not...

AoD
 
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nfitz said:
30% seems far too high, and I'm not sure I'd consider hiring a grad from a university with such poor ethics. Still, much less? WLU pays over $7,000 per each 3-month course. So if one carried 4 courses in each of the 3 semesters per year, that's over $86,000 a year. If each course has 4.5 hours of lecturs per week (I hear some only have 3!), and assuming the typical 3:1 rule of thumb for prep time, that's a 40.5 hour week.

I don't know what York or U of T pay per course for contract teaching, but if it's similar to WLU, I'm not seeing it's that extreme.

Though is contract teaching the issue at UofT? I thought it was just a TA strike.
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A full teaching load at U of T is 3 courses each in fall/winter semester plus 2 in summer semester (so maybe $50K a year in theory) but for the most part it's not possible to get that many courses because they are not available. The university only assigns the work prior to each semester, and there are no guarantees that you will get any courses at all. The university likes to have grad students teach the courses as a way to alleviate funding pressures, and also they get paid less per course. Everything is set up so that those doing the teaching have as little leverage as possible. This is the case everywhere.

At York, both TAs and contract lecturers are on strike. At U of T it's only the TAs, but of course some of them teach courses too.

Obviously it is a supply and demand issue, but the current situation is such that there's a massive oversupply of grad students relative to full-time hires, yet the universities are trying to increase enrollment to get more funding, increase their status, etc. There's a huge disconnect yet the whole system is set up around the assumption that grad students will follow the academic model.
 
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DarnDirtyApe said:
Obviously it is a supply and demand issue, but the current situation is such that there's a massive oversupply of grad students relative to full-time hires ...
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Well, that's the root cause then.

U of T should look outside the union for TAs then - they aren't unionized in many universities. I'm not going to take York very seriously ... I'm not convinced it really is an academic institution.

What does U of T pay for contract teaching though? I was using WLU rates where they do carry 4 courses rather than 3.
 
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