SFU teaching support staff union votes to strike over wage negotiations

Teaching support staff at SFU have voted to strike in the coming days as they negotiate wage increases and job security with the university.

The Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU)—which, at about 3,800 members, is SFU’s largest union—includes research assistants, teaching assistants, graduate facilitators, educational mentors, and sessional instructors among other positions. The union says 94 per cent of members voted in favour of job action.

It’s been involved in negotiations with SFU since the existing collective agreement expired last year.

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Wages are the main issue at hand—the TSSU is asking for a ‘full cost of living adjustment’, along with a minimum funding package of $32,000 a year plus tuition for graduate students.

TSSU chief steward Amal Vincent told the Beacon that many union members barely make enough to get by, in spite of working full time at the university.

“I was talking to a member a couple of weeks ago, and they were telling me after paying rent they have like $300 remaining per month for everything. And he's going to the food bank, like every week waiting on the charity of strangers to be able to eat. He only has two meals per day, not because he wants to but there's really not a way for him to afford three,” Vincent said.

“And he's working full time at SFU doing teaching, doing research that is critical for the institution.”

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Most of the union’s members live in and around the Lower Mainland—impacted, Vincent said, by the region’s high cost of living.

The union is also asking for compensation increases related to class size, along with stipulations for job security and several other asks.

It’s not clear yet what form the job action could take.

“It could be as small as putting a sticker on top of grade assignments, and talking at the start of the class to students about the strike. Or it could be like full scale pickets,” Vincent said.

The TSSU says the university has not addressed its key demands, and hasn’t shown up to the bargaining table itself—instead sending “a consultant who demonstrates little knowledge of SFU,” according to a press release.

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SFU, meanwhile, said in a statement Wednesday that it was disappointed the union has chosen to pursue job action with “over 200 outstanding items still to be discussed.”

“This is the second time during the 22/23 collective bargaining period that TSSU has cancelled all bargaining meetings and walked away from negotiations since the commencement of the current round of bargaining,” the university said.

“... SFU has invited the TSSU back to the bargaining table in April to continue working together and negotiating these outstanding proposals. We are eager to collaborate on a collective agreement and want to table a monetary proposal which fulfills our commitment to becoming a living wage employer. We also want to mitigate job action that would disrupt our students’ academic pursuits or adversely impact other members of the university community.”

However, the TSSU challenged those statements—saying that it only cancelled bargaining sessions after its membership decided to take a strike vote, and said it told the university it would return to bargaining as soon as the vote was completed. The union says SFU declined several options to meet.

The TSSU also said that it provided the university with wide availability in early April, but hasn’t heard back from SFU in nearly two weeks to set up a bargaining session.

SFU said it has applied to the Labour Relations Board to being a mediation process with the TSSU.