Re: Faculty Letter of Support for TSSU RA Union Drive

As someone who also hires many RAs and has multiple projects on the go at any given time, I am supportive of RAs efforts to unionize. I think RAs are vulnerable to exploitation, especially when working under conditions such as those described by Behraad. The pressure to push projects forward and to publish, both for faculty and students, has led many to accept working conditions that would be unthinkable outside the academy. I think students are wise to seek mechanisms to push back on faculty and departments (even if only a minority feel vulnerable or exploited). Demanding to be compensated for every hour worked, at a fair and equitable wage, with benefits, and only on tasks that can be considered research or research support are all fair demands that a union can help them achieve. I think as long as the RAs seek such conditions in ways that are flexible enough to accommodate the dynamic nature of research (with all the uncertainties, changes in direction, etc.) then I do not see a reason why they shouldn't move forward.

I have signed, and if this goes forward, I will encourage faculty and students to engage in productive conversations about how to implement any changes so that students can improve their working conditions while attending to their dual nature as students and employees and to the ways in which research work differs from other kinds of employment. We have a collective bargaining unit that tries to balance our roles and responsibilities with the priorities and constraints of the university—why shouldn't student researchers seek the same opportunity to advocate for themselves?

Juan Pablo Alperin
Assistant Professor, Publishing
Associate Director, Public Knowledge Project
Director, Scholarly Communications Lab
Simon Fraser University

On Fri, 1 Nov 2019 at 09:48, Behraad Bahreyni <bba19@sfu.ca> wrote:

Dear Enda,

I think this is a terrible development. I am certain all of our faculty members want the best situation for our RAs. However, when a faculty member has a large group of RAs (many have more than 10) that they are supporting through grants whose success rates are around 5-20% that you plan for years to get and had to talk to 10 companies so that maybe one goes along with you, you need to be able to stay on the agenda for your research. You cannot lose momentum in research in many fields as there is global competition. Many certainly do not want their research to be disrupted because of the problems at other units. In many other cases, spending 20 hours a week on research for an RA is not even close to enough to get them to a level that they can publish results. If it goes through, this unionization will severely harm the research competitiveness of SFU. We will soon after lose our faculty members, will be unable to bring in the ones with potential, and the quality of our applicants will go down hill after that.

Thank you.

From: Enda Brophy <ebrophy@sfu.ca>
Sent: Friday, November 1, 2019 9:18 AM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Faculty Letter of Support for TSSU RA Union Drive

Dear colleagues,

As you may have heard, RAs here at SFU are seeking to unionize with the TSSU. I support this decision and hope that they are successful in this drive. I’m also hoping that as SFUFA members we can support their effort.

A public letter of support from faculty for the union drive was published earlier this week. You can read it here.

Please do consider signing the letter (there’s a form at the bottom to fill out if you want to sign) and circulating it to other members of faculty and/or librarians across the university who you think are likely to sign.

All the best,

Enda

Enda Brophy

Associate Professor | School of Communication

Associate | Labour Studies
Simon Fraser University | K9662
8888 University Dr., Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6

E: ebrophy@sfu.ca | T: 778-782-8085 | www.cmns.sfu.ca

Simon Fraser University lies on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations and Kwikwetlem (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm) Nations.