Teaching assistants at Carleton University won a stunning victory hours before their strike deadline on Jan. 31. In addition to wage increases of 3.5 per cent in the first year and 4 per cent in the second, their new agreement provides for tuition increase protection.
They also won intellectual property protection assuring teaching and research assistants rights to the work they do as bargaining unit members proportionate to their participation in a project. This includes authorship rights, copyright, and profits from commercializable research.
They gained agreement to a jointly administered employee assistance fund to provide support for child care and extended health insurance coverage. In addition, the administration signed a letter of intent guaranteeing that the impact of the double cohort on class size will be discussed at a joint consultation committee and a recommendation from this committee will be made no later than May 2002.
At an emergency general meeting just prior to the strike deadline, the Carleton University Academic Staff Association (CUASA) voted unanimously to support the CUPE 4600 bargaining unit by urging their members to refuse to do the work of the striking assistants and to press to make sure no student suffered any academic penalties as a result of the strike. CUASA had made preparations to move their office off campus and to mobilize members to join the picket line.
Aalya Ahmad, president of CUPE Local 4600, expressed delight at their victory.
"We were willing to put our jobs on the line to prove our commitment to affordable, quality public education. Now we can stand up and say we have a tuition fee assistance plan. That's what we went in for and that's what we got," Ahmad stated.
Carleton's tuition increase protection plan provides a rebate to teaching assistants equal to 75 per cent of any increase in tuition up to 2 per cent each year. During negotiations the dean of graduate studies gave assurances that tuition would not be allowed to rise more than 2 per cent in each year of the collective agreement.