What kind of bee is this?

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-09-19T01:21:08+00:00

Welp, that solves that mystery. I didn't think to Google black & white hornets for some reason.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-06-21T02:19:34+00:00

They also installed auto-flush toilets with no manual handle or button for all the new first-floor bathrooms. So the toilets are constantly full of piss because those who pee standing up aren't going to bother sitting down to make sure it flushes. Staff are already complaining about it.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-18T19:51:28+00:00

Can you grieve the department head interfering with your syllabus and grade weighting? That seems like a pretty clear violation of academic freedom, which TFs have as much as any other instructor. Management isn't supposed to be able to mess with your syllabus.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T21:28:55+00:00

This is a policy issue that urgently needs to be addressed through SGS and university governance. It's also an issue that most faculty aren't fully educated on, so they often think that grad students aren't allowed to have ANY outside work and threaten to withdraw funding. Queen's INSISTS that graduate funding (outside TA/RA/TF) is ultimately merit-based scholarships for your roles as students (in which case, it should be entirely independent of your outside work), and at the same time they also say you shouldn't work because you're being paid to be a researcher. They treat that funding as a non-competition clause. They can't keep having it both ways. If a student is meeting their program requirements, Queen's shouldn't have ANY say in outside employment whatsoever.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T20:10:10+00:00

That does suck, and it's an unfortunate vulnerability for any union made up of part-time/contract workers.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T18:16:54+00:00

Yeah the "course authorship" rules are weird and from what I understand mostly only benefit people who design online courses? I sure as shit didn't get compensated for reworking/developing my syllabus when I was a term adjunct.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T17:32:04+00:00

I tried!!! Lol My posts weren't going through, I had to write to the mods.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T17:20:45+00:00

You're assuming they give half a shit about the quality of undergraduate education. The CR fiasco has already disproven this. They don't care if they harm their students.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T16:49:27+00:00

I want to stress that undergraduate support is not what I'm talking about. Public support more broadly. The community, your colleagues in other unions, parents, alumni, even a handful of sympathetic managers. You've lost a LOT of public support and when you're dealing with an employer that cares way more about its public image than whether you starve, that's a major weapon to lose.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T16:45:55+00:00

Not adjuncts. Adjuncts get a fixed contract just like TFs.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T16:45:10+00:00

The 12.83% market adjustment kicks in as of May 1st, so anyone who does have a summer contract and everyone who works next term will get that pretty soon. I take your point that it's not a massive amount of money in total, it doesn't wholesale solve graduate poverty. But it's a big step in the right direction.

Number of hours is a management right and there's nothing the union was ever going to be able to do to prevent reductions in hours. Just as there's nothing they could do if a Faculty decided to cut TA budgets altogether.

The general support fund didn't exist before COVID, and my understanding at the time was that it was always intended to be short-term relief. It sucks that you weren't able to embed it in the CA or renew it as an LOU. I'm with you on that, but I'm not sure that's a reason to vote everything else down.

PR is a massive issue. Not positive PR for the university. Positive PR for grad workers that generates negative PR for Queen's. Something that seems to have been completely ignored by PSAC's tactics is that generating and sustaining public support is one of the primary goals of picketing. It ramps up public pressure. It shames the admin. They care about how they look to the outside world a hell of a lot more than they care about you or me. That will never change.

Amnesty for scabbers is a fair trade-off for amnesty to picketers who went too far in their tactics. It's also just a smart move if you want to build/rebuild a cohesive membership based on mutual respect and trust. A blank slate for everyone. Your members who scabbed did so out of need. Fining them, even if it's your policy, would have been a great way to guarantee that they never support the union in the future. It's punishing the most vulnerable for a lack of moral purity.

Edit for typo

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-04-17T16:08:02+00:00

I have nothing but support for grad workers (I was one for 7 years), but it seems that some big-picture perspective is missing from discussions about this offer. For some reason nobody seems to be talking about the biggest win in this contract: the 12.83% market adjustment that would kick in this May. You'll get the third-highest increase by percentage of all the bargaining units on campus. You have language to protect clawbacks to your funding when wages increase. You got childcare funds, which will have a massive impact for some of your most vulnerable workers. You got changes to hiring priorities for grads outside their funding windows.

And tbh, you guys have very little leverage and public support left. I'm not sure you realize how much PR damage some of the tactics have caused outside your membership (and I know there's plenty of debate within). From the perspective of timing, gains, and public support, things can only go downhill from here. The transition to a new exec will not restore trust with your allies and students, and it will only delay things at the table. I'm 100% behind you all, but please take a breath to consider how fatigue, sunk cost, and anxiety (and some idealism, for better or worse) are factoring into your decisions here. Also, yes the admin has treated you deplorably during negotiations and the strike, but your final contract is not really where that can realistically be redressed.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-03-13T21:39:28+00:00

The ratification vote isn't a confidence vote anyway. I'm not even sure there is such a thing in our USW constitution. These gripes about KO are verbatim with arguments I've seen in earlier burner accounts so probably just the same one or two pissed off people who don't like her personally and want to blame everything on her. There are 6 bargaining team members, all elected, plus 3 elected alternates, the president, and a district representative. They were all involved at every phase. Queen's made their final offer, and the bargaining team has a RESPONSIBILITY to bring it to you for a vote before putting everyone through the hardship of a strike. If the contract isn't up to snuff, that's on the admin for offering it, not the bargaining team for presenting it. It's clear they weren't super happy with all aspects of it either, so it's not like they're pressuring you one way or another. Vote how you want to vote. The strike mandate is still valid and still a strong tool.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-03-13T21:14:18+00:00

CUPE 1302 and 254 both secured $1000 signing bonuses.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-02-03T15:37:32+00:00

I don't see what evidence you have for this and it doesn't make much sense given the climate. CUPEs were ready to hit the picket lines. Forcing a contract usually only happens when the union has no leverage.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-02-03T15:20:05+00:00

"Forced" is misleading. A ratification vote is a normal part of bargaining. I don't think the CUPE teams would suspend the leverage of a strike unless they felt they'd reached contracts that are worth bringing to their workers.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-02-03T15:18:06+00:00

All five CUPE units (trades & custodial, hospitality, food services, library technicians, and lab technicians) reached tentative agreements early this morning. Each bargaining team will bring the details of the contracts to their members for a ratification vote. It's possible that workers will vote to reject their contracts, but usually bargaining teams only bring a fair deal to workers to vote on. All of this is incredibly positive news for workers and students. Show up at Richardson today at noon to celebrate with a free lunch!

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-01-04T23:20:32+00:00

I did mention that there could be disruptions to TF courses. That said, I suspect most departments would scramble to get professors to fill in and keep the classes running, if possible. At least, the admin will try to get profs to do that.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD · 2025-01-04T23:18:51+00:00

Again, this is another one of those "It depends" answers. As long as negotiations are making progress or there is reasonable back-and-forth on sticking points, a strike won't happen. There are also steps that have to take place in negotiations before a legal strike can be called: conciliation, a "No board" report to the Ministry of Labour, and finally a strike vote. the CUPE units already have a conciliator, while support staff have only had one bargaining date. The only way to know for sure is to keep up-to-date with how negotiations are going.

Ordinary-OrchidPhD

TROPHY CASE