GSA Council

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A Joint Statement by Graduate Student Organizations at University of Alberta

September 16, 2022

As you are no doubt well aware, over the past few weeks a large number of graduate students from different departments have been experiencing delays in receiving their Graduate Assistantship (GAship), Academic Teaching Staff (ATS), and marker/reader contracts. This issue had already come to our attention in August, since some students had already expressed concern that they still had no contract as fall term approached and were beginning to worry about not getting their September salary payment. Multiple students reached out to the Staff Service Centre under the Shared Services Unit but were merely told to wait. On September 9, as many of us had yet to hear from the Shared Services nearly two weeks after our fall term contracts were supposed to start, one of our organizations sent a letter to the University’s management demanding immediate resolution of the problem. In response, the University privately contacted individual students without a contract that they were going to receive an employment confirmation by September 15, 5pm.

The deadline has now passed, and we have confirmation that more than 30 graduate students from different departments still have no contract. Some, but not all, have received an email from the University stating that “You can expect to receive a formal appointment letter for signature by Friday, September 30, 2022,” alongside an empty promise that they will get paid on either September 23 or September 29, the first paydays of September. Without any indication of the specific terms of employment or the rate of pay, it is difficult to find security in this solution. An employer should not ask employees to simply trust that they will get paid before a contract has been signed. Only a formal contract, agreed upon by both parties and containing all details, terms, and conditions of employment, can guarantee that an employee will be paid on schedule. It is also the only basis upon which workers can be protected from various forms of abuse in an employment relationship. Without a contract, the University’s reassurance that graduate students will be paid on time can only come across as a hollow promise.

The current contract crisis is a direct result of the University’s plan for restructuring into a new operating model. After the Government of Alberta announced a three-year funding cut to our institution in 2019, the University launched the so-called “U of A Tomorrow (UAT)” initiative in June 2020 to rearrange the management structure for cost reduction. A key feature of the restructuring is to centralize all administrative work under the Shared Services Unit, so that administrative resources and staff previously allocated to each department can be minimized. As the University has entered the second year of restructuring this summer, academic departments were stripped of their power to issue contracts to their graduate students. Previously, students would normally receive a single contract email from their department about a month before an employment was to commence. Now, students have found themselves involved in a complex multi-step process: First, a student would receive an email from their department about their appointment/reappointment. Their department would then send an employment request to Shared Services, who would then dispatch another email to the student confirming their employment. Only after these numerous communications would the student eventually receive another email with their contract.

Shared Services was clearly unprepared and understaffed to monopolize this unnecessarily complicated procedure. As a result, the scale and impact of the current predicament has snowballed for graduate students. The University has repeatedly said that all students will receive their September payment on time. However, given the above background and the apparent inefficiency of Shared Services to carry out such an oceanic amount of administrative work, we have strong reasons to believe that this will not occur. The creation of Shared Services was supposed to “free up time for faculty and staff across the university to concentrate on their core work,” but thanks to the epic failure of the University’s management and restructuring, a significant number of students now have to withstand the anxiety of potentially not getting paid, alongside bearing the economic, physiological, and mental burdens caused by the ongoing pandemic. Graduate students are a vulnerable population, and it is likely that many students do not have the means to support themselves financially should pay be delayed, which could result in homelessness and hunger.

We regret to see the University’s mismanagement, inaction, and prioritization of revenue over the wellbeing of students. We demand the following actions from the University:

1. Issue all pending fall term contracts to graduate students immediately, including but not limited to GAship contracts, ATS instructor contracts, and marker/reader contracts.

2. Openly apologize to all graduate students.

3. Temporarily suspend all steps of the second-year restructuring relating to contracts of graduate students under the UAT initiative, until it is proven that the University has the capacity to do so without negatively impacting the basic rights, well-being, and academic work of all students.

4. Form a special committee involving representatives of undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, faculty members, alumni, and any other stakeholders of the University to re-evaluate the feasibility and potential harm of all restructuring plans under the UAT initiative.

If the University fails to fulfill any of the above demands by September 22, 2022, we will have no choice but to consider taking further actions to address the problem. Graduate students are indispensable to the University’s delivery of high-quality education and research output. We as graduate students should never be the scapegoat bearing the disastrous consequences of the unethical and harmful fiscal austerity measures put forward by the current UCP provincial government, which has proven time and again to not have the well-being of Albertans at heart.

U of A student organizations endorsing the statement:

Association of Graduate Anthropology Students

Graduate Psychology Association

History, Classics, and Religion Graduate Students’ Association

Political Science Graduate Student Association

Sociology Graduate Student Association

Note from AGAS:

As of September 21st, 2022, many graduate students across multiple departments had still not received their contracts and were in jeopardy of not being paid on time.

Further information about this can be found at The Gateway: https://thegatewayonline.ca/2022/09/sociology-graduate-student-association-letter-urges-university-to-send-out-contracts/

Message from GSA President: https://www.ualberta.ca/graduate-students-association/gsa-news/2022/16sept_messagefromgsapres.html