Open Letter from Queen’s Faculty on PSAC 901 Strike

[This letter is still open for signatures here. Please circulate among faculty, librarian and archivist colleagues.]

Dear Principal Deane, Provost Evans, and the Board of Trustees,

We are writing to you as concerned Queen’s faculty, librarians, and archivists to urge you to resume negotiations with PSAC 901 workers immediately. We are dismayed that the university has opted to sacrifice our students’ education rather than bargaining in good faith for a fair agreement with the graduate workers who keep the university running. 

You must be receiving reports of the disruptions to teaching, learning, and research on campus. Dozens of courses taught by teaching fellows and hundreds of labs and tutorials are now on hold. Midterms are being cancelled, papers are being left ungraded, and students in practicums and accredited programs are failing to achieve the requisite hours. It is clear to us that there is no contingency that can be planned to fill the void left by PSAC members’ labour. Many of us have invoked our Collective Agreement right to refuse to cross the picket line. Others have had to halt our research, shut down our labs, and cease our assessments in the classroom. To support graduate students and undergraduate students, we need you to work on ending the strike before the end of the term. We want our graders, tutorial leaders, and lab assistants back to work with a decent wage increase and adequate support. We want our undergraduate students to complete their term (or their degree) with fair and accurate assessment of their hard work. 

TFs, TAs, and RAs are crucial to the teaching and research mission of the university. They are highly qualified personnel who are at the cutting edge of research and a vital part of our intellectual community. They bring this expertise to labs, classrooms, research consortiums, and communities. Their excitement to share their knowledge and build strong and current pedagogy is evident to us every day. They are important collaborators and contributors to our research projects. Some of these essential qualities may not be visible to you because you are not on the ground with us and teaching in the classroom. 

As professors, we are grateful for the exceptional intellectual, pedagogical, and care work that the Teaching Assistants and Teaching Fellows provide. While they were in the midst of their own studies as graduate students, they continued to be diligent in attending to the needs of undergraduate students even when negotiations were calling on their attention. Now that the strike is on, they continue to express concern for their students’ learning journey.  

Despite their critical role for the university, especially the quality of teaching, many of our graduate students live at the poverty line because their funding packages are grossly inadequate. This means they experience food and housing insecurity. The knock-on effect of this is that they need to find additional work outside of Queen’s, which then affects their ability to attend to their studies and their students, leading to burnout and other mental health challenges. You have proposed below-inflation wage increases in a context where PSAC wages have been held at a 1%/year increase during the unconstitutional wage restraint of the provincial government. This means that PSAC workers’ real wages have in fact fallen, while you have given yourselves salary increases of up to 4.75%. This violates a basic sense of dignity and fairness.

We have heard concerning things which suggest that your bargaining team has refused to engage in respectful negotiations. The lump sum payment of $200 to address the aforementioned unconstitutional wage suppression is one example. Not responding to PSAC proposals or making PSAC’s bargaining team wait for nine hours in one of the last bargaining days before the strike deadline is another. Why should there be no childcare subsidies for PSAC workers like any other worker on campus? Why would PSAC – or any union for that matter – agree to $23 per member per year for urgently needed funds to support mental health, food security, professional expense and economic hardship? This apparent lack of respect for the PSAC Bargaining Team fuels our worries that your administration is using negotiations with PSAC to gut graduate student funding in a vein similar to your attempt earlier this year to cut QGA funding.     

Gutting graduate funding packages is risking our ability to attract excellent graduate students and is jeopardizing Queen’s reputation as a place of excellence for teaching and research. Grad chairs have noted that the strike is already affecting efforts to recruit graduate students, and without adequate funding, we will not be able to attract graduate students to our programs. The implications are enormous: from an impoverished intellectual community due to a lack of brilliant emerging scholars, to a lack of support for teaching which takes away from faculty’s research time, to the inevitably ensuing diminished reputation of Queen’s University: your course of action is shortsighted and is hurting students and faculty alike. Our research depends on these graduate students and the communities and networks they themselves build. None of us want Queen’s to fall even lower in the rankings, but we will not be able to compete with other universities for the best graduate students – the scholars and leaders of tomorrow – without adequate funding packages. Certainly, this is not the way to fulfill the Principal’s Bicentennial Vision for research excellence.

We urge you to get back to the bargaining table immediately, prepared to negotiate with PSAC 901 workers in good faith and with the respect they deserve. We will keep standing in solidarity with them until you do so. 

Sincerely,

1. Ayca Tomac, Assistant Professor, Cultural Studies and Global Development Studies
2. Kyla Tienhaara, Associate Professor, Environmental Studies and Global Development Studies
3. Mary Louise Adams, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
4. Melissa Houghtaling, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies
5. Wayne Snedden, Professor, Biology
6. Adnan Husain, Associate Professor, History
7. Thashika Pillay, Assistant Professor, Education 
8. jennifer s. leath, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Gender Studies, and Black Studies
9. Shobhana Xavier, Associate Professor, Religion
10. Patty Douglas, Associate Professor, Education
11. Amarnath Amarasingam, Associate Professor, Religion
12. David McLagan, Assistant Professor, Geology and Environmental Studies
13. Fauzia Husain, Assistant Professor, Sociology. 
14. Trish Salah, Associate Professor, Gender Studies
15. Sarah Yakimowski, Assistant Professor, Biology
16. Sharday Mosurinjohn, Associate Professor, Religion 
17. Vicki Friesen, Professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies, Biology
18. Ishita Pande, Professor, History
19. Lisa Guenther, Professor, Philosophy and Cultural Studies
20. Christine Grossutti, Assistant Professor, Geography and Planning
21. Norma Möllers, Associate Professor, Sociology
22. Elizabeth Brule, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies 
23. Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, Associate Professor, Gender Studies and Geography & Planning 
24. Dan Cohen, Assistant Professor, Geography and Planning
25. Samantha King, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
26. Laura Murray, Professor, English
27. Scott Rutherford, Associate Professor, Global Development Studies
28. Eleanor MacDonald, Associate Professor, Political Studies
29. Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, Professor and Graduate Chair, Political Studies
30. Christian Seiler, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Studies
31. Yolande Bouka, Assistant Professor, Political Studies 
32. Stéphanie Martel, Associate Professor, Political Studies
33. Paul Gardner, Assistant Professor, Political Studies
34. Paul Nesbitt-Larking, Adjunct Professor, Political Studies
35. Stephen Larin, Assistant Professor, Political Studies 
36. Margaret Little, Professor, Political Studies and Gender Studies
37. Susan Lord, Professor, Film and Media and Gender Studies
38. Carolyn Prouse, Associate Professor, Geography and Planning
39. Mary C. Olmstead Professor, Psychology and Neuroscience
40. Paritosh Kumar, Assistant Professor, Global Development Studies
41. Reena Kukreja, Associate Professor, Global Development Studies 
42. Imaan Bayoumi, Associate Professor, Family Medicine
43. Gabriel Menotti, Associate Professor, Film and Media
44. Kesha Fevrier, Assistant Professor, Geography and Planning
45. Monika Holzschuh, Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
46. Chloé Savoie-Bernard, Assistant Professor, French Studies
47. Karen Rudie, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
48. Elaine Power, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
49. Matt Rogalsky, Professor, Dan School of Music and Drama
50. Pinar Tuzcu, Assistant Professor, Sociology 
51. Jen Kennedy, Associate Professor, Art History
52. Philippe Gauthier, Continuing Adjunct, Film and Media
53. Allison Goebel, Professor, Environmental Studies
54. Lisa M. Kelly, Associate Professor, Law 
55. Ariel Salzmann, Associate Professor, History
56. Francine Berish, Library/ Faculty
57. Scott Morgensen, Associate Professor, Gender Studies
58. Paul Grogan, Professor, Biology
59. Juliane Okot Bitek, Assistant Professor, English/Gender Studies
60. Alicia Cappello, Engineering & Science Librarian, Queen’s University Library
61. Stevenson Fergus, Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
62. Lisa Pasolli, Associate Professor, History
63. Diane Beauchemin, Professor, Chemistry
64. Katherine McKittrick, Professor, Gender Studies
65. Bronwyn Bjorkman, Associate Professor and Head, LLCU
66. Heather Evans, Department of English
67. Claire Ahn, Associate Professor, Education
68. Emily Hill. Associate Professor, History  
69. Jordan Shurr, Associate Professor, Education 
70. Allison Morehead, Professor, Art History and Art Conservation
71. Karine Bertrand, Associate Professor, Film and Media
72. Annette Burfoot, Professor, Sociology
73. Nasser Saleh, Librarian, Queen’s Library
74. Ian Janssen, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
75. Courtney Szto, Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
76. Meena Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor, Philosophy
77. Brendan Edwards, Assistant Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections
78. Dorit Naaman, Professor, Film and Media
79. Meghan Burke, Assistant Librarian, University Library
80. Jacqueline Davies, Associate Professor, Philosophy
81. Saeid Mobini, Adj. Prof. Biology
82. Zsuzsa Csergő, Professor, Political Studies
83. Laura Jean Cameron, Professor, Geography and Planning 
84. Gabor Fichtinger, Professor, School of Computing
85. Boyoon Lee, Assistant Professor, Political Studies
86. Petra Fachinger, Professor, English Literature & Creative Writing
87. Kip Pegley, Professor, Dan School of Drama and Music 
88. Leslie Ritchie, Associate Professor, English Literature & Creative Writing 
89. Catherine Stinson, Queen’s National Scholar and Assistant Professor, Computing and Philosophy
90. Christian Muise, Assistant Professor, Computing
91. Scott-Morgan Straker, Associate Professor, English
92. Marshall Hill, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies and English
93. Daniela Maldonado Castañeda, Lecturer, LLCU
94. Karen Dubinsky, Professor, Global Development Studies and History
95. Adonay Guerrero Cortes, Adjunct Lecturer, Film and Media
96. Elliot Paul, Associate Professor, Philosophy
97. Constance Adamson, Associate Librarian, Stauffer Library
98. Brooke Cameron, Associate Professor, English
99. Jana Dunfield, Assistant Professor, School of Computing
100. Sergio Sismondo, Professor, Philosophy
101. Michael Tschakovsky, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
102. Kyle Hanniman, Associate Professor, Political Studies
103. Brad Rodgers, Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics
104. Margaret Pappano, Associate Professor, English
105. Ruth Wehlau, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of English Literature and Creative Writing
106. Gema Olivo, Professor, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering.
107. Jodi John, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
108. Effie Pereira, Assistant Professor, Psychology
109. Steven Maynard, Adjunct Associate Professor, History
110. Bernadette Resurrección, Professor, Global Development Studies
111. Corinne Laverty, Librarian
112. Nancy Butler, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies
113. Amy Latimer, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
114. Jennifer Hosek, Professor, LLCU
115. Rebecca Hall, Associate Professor, Global Development Studies
116. C. Fanning, Associate Professor, Department of English
117. Una D’Elia, Professor and Graduate Chair, Art History and Art Conservation
118. Rebecca Anweiler, BFA Program
119. Ian Fanning, Continuing Adjunct, Global Development Studies and LLCU
120. Danielle LaGrone, Religion
121. Jane Tolmie, Gender Studies
122. Gabrielle McIntire, English 
123. Carolyn Lamb, Assistant Professor, Computing
124. Tamara de Szegheo Lang, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Film and Media
125. Nicole Myers, Associate Professor, Sociology
126. h. burcu baba. Assistant Professor, Gender Studies
127. Dan Vena, Continuing Adjunct Associate Professor, Film and Media
128. Jeremy Heil, Archivist, Queen’s University Archives
129. Sunny Kerr, Adjunct Professor, Film and Media Studies
130. Alana Butler, Associate Professor, Education
131. Christine Sypnowich, Professor, Philosophy
132. Ryan Martin, Associate Professor, Physics
133. Amanda Ross-White, Interim Head, Bracken Health Sciences Library
134. Kristen Harrington, Term Adjunct, Chemistry
135. Emily Pelstring, Associate Professor, Film and Media Studies
136. Diana Cordoba, Assistant Professor – Global Development Studies
137. Dolleen Manning, Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Cultural Studies
138. Adèle Mercier, Professor
139. Joseph Bramante, Associate Professor, Physics
140. Alexander Braun, Professor, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering 
141. Alexandra Pedersen, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering (Adjunct Assistant Professor)
142. David McDonald, Professor, Global Development Studies
143. Rob Harrap, CAdj., Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
144. Chris Bongie, Full Professor, English
145. Ashwini Vasanthakumar, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
146. Victoria Sytsma, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
147. Élise Devoie, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
148. Udo Schuklenk, Professor, Philosophy
149. Harriet Richardson, Associate Professor, Public Health Sciences
150. Stephanie Wright, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
151. Kristine Spekkens, Professor, Physics, Eng Phys and Astronomy
152. Monica Castelhano, Professor, Psychology
153. Heather McGregor, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education
154. Andrew Russell, Adjunct (SROR), Master of Earth and Energy Resources Leadership
155. Hom Nath Gharti, Prof., Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
156. Juliane Okot Bitek, Assistant Professor, English/Gender Studies
157. Cory Laverty, Library
158. Benjamin Bolden, Professor, Education
159. Rosa Bruno-Jofre, Professor, FRSC
160. Pamela Serff, Continuing Adjunct Faculty of Education
161. Sailaja Krishnamurti, Associate Professor, Gender Studies
162. Sarah Shulist, Associate Professor, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
163. Ian Matheson, Associate Professor, Education
164. Richard Greenfield, Professor, History
165. Christine Overall, Professor Emerita, Department of Philosophy
166. John Holmes, Professor Emeritus, Geography and Planning
167. Sean Whitehall, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
168. Helen Humphreys, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of English and Creative Writing
169. Zabe MacEachren, Associate Faculty
170. Laila Haidarali, Associate Professor, History
171. Tiina Kukkonen, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education
172. Jean Côté, Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
173. Fabio Colivicchi, Classics and Archaeology
174. Pamela Serff, Faculty of Education Continuing Adjunct
175. Kristen Lowitt, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Studies
176. Giselle Valarezo, Adjunct Assistant Professor, DBMS
177. Elisabeth Steel, Assistant Professor, Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
178. Quinn Albaugh, Assistant Professor, Political Studies
179. sylvat aziz, assoc prof, art
180. Heather Home, Archivist, Queen’s University Archives
181. S. Skaltsa, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Classics & Archaeology
182. Gerome Manson, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
183. H Macfarlane, Associate Prof, English Lit and Creative Writing
184. Jeff Wammes, Assistant Professor, Psychology
185. Asha Varadharajan, Associate Professor, English
186. Elijah Bisung, Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Health Studies
187. Thomas Dean, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
188. Nancy Salay, Associate Professor, Philosophy
189. Rebecca Anweiler, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Conservation
190. Matthew Pan, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
191. Jonathan Gammell, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
192. Cathleen Crudden, Professor, Chemistry
193. Amanda Bongers, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
194. Jean-Michel Nunzi, Professor, Physics, Eng Phys and Astronomy, Chemistry
195. Natasa Krsmanovic, Conservator (Assistant Archivist), Archives and Special Collections
196. Graeme Howe, Assistant Professor, Chemistry
197. Tom Russell, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education
198. Paul Duchesne, Assistant Professor, Chemistry