While CUPE 4163 is not picketing yet, I was part of an information line that handed out fliers to people coming on to campus. The idea was to slow down traffic a bit and tell people about the reasons for the job action. We even had people getting on the buses and handing our fliers and giving little speeches. I was just there to make the crowd look bigger (being the outgoing person I am).
All the union members were being good, but of course there were some people from outside the union who were being a bit militant. One guy seems like one of those people who just likes to protest everything. He was bring Gordon Campbell into it, and making us look immature and obnoxious. There was a girl there from UBC, who is a member of the UBC local which went on strike last year so they could get a contract renegotiated. She was almost jumping in front of cars to get them to stop. This other guy was holding out his arm in front of cars and hitting them if they didn't stop. THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR IS NOT HELPFUL!
In a previous meeting the Union leadership specifically said not to do things like this, but even though they were all there when these people were doing these things, nobody said anything to them.
If people don't want to stop, and don't care, then hitting their cars is just going to piss them off. Jumping in front of them may get them to stop, and they may take a flier, but it is also going to piss them off. Do that to too many people who are just ambivalent, and suddenly you have people who wouldn't have said anything one way or another coming out against the union. It's a good way to lose public support.
I personally have kind of mixed feelings about it. We obviously need a new contract (the last one expired last August). The University has offered to create fellowships that they can revoke at anytime rather than actual pay raises that are set in the contract, which is obviously ridiculous. They also haven't even addressed any of the other issues, like benefits etc.
TA's at UVic make $17 something per hour, which is pretty good I think. Of course it's skilled work; most TA's are grad students, so they have done a undergrad degree. Most people off the street can't walk in and get a job as a TA. So the pay level should take that into account. TA's at UBC get something like $23/hr, and at Toronto (I think) it's closer to $30/hr. So UVic TA's are underpaid relative to those at other Canadian Universities.
UVic grads also pay tuition; around $1800 a semester ($5400 /yr) right now. Tuition has been raised by the maximum amount since the tuition cap was lifted by the government. So the people who have to pay tuition just from their TA job have to work a lot of hours. Most people in sciences have grants or research assistantships (mandatory in my department), so it's possible not to be a TA and still pay tuition and live relatively comfortably right now.
Not being the sort that really gets excited about these things, I would settle for a status quo deal. A pay raise would be nice of course, but the maximum I would TA would amount to 3 hours a week, so it's a just a drop in the bucket. The only reason I'm making my presence available to make crowds look one person bigger is because I think that any civil pressure we can put on the University to get this thing resolved as quickly as possible is a good thing. They won't get too much of my time though; I can do research from home if it comes to closing campus. They especially won't be getting much of my time if the let the militant factions get out of hand.
Apparently the University wanted to bargain all weekend, so hopefully they make some progress. Maybe they will even settle for binding arbitration, which would probably be the fastest way to get things resolved.
