As you know, the AMURE bargaining team has been negotiating with McGill since last year. On September 9^th 2022, a bargaining meeting was held in which AMURE members voted on the initial monetary offer to make to McGill. On November 18^th 2022, we presented this offer to McGill and started negotiating monetary issues and have met several times since then.

Unfortunately, McGill’s offer for salaries and raises has been insulting, and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for research assistants and associates. McGill’s offer contains no economic or step increases to the salaries of research assistants and associates until June 2023, even though employees have been without a raise since June 2020. Their offer for future annual raises is well below what other employees at McGill and research staff at other universities are receiving (2-4% economic increases, 2-3% step increases per year).

A summary of McGill’s current offer for salaries and raises is available here (LINK).

Due to the lack of realistic offers from McGill, AMURE has filed for conciliation with the Quebec government. This process assigns a conciliator to oversee and aid in negotiation sessions. A government conciliator has been assigned and our first meeting with McGill and the conciliator is scheduled for March 17^th.

We will hold an information session before this conciliation session (date TBD). After the bargaining session on March 17th, we will hold another meeting with members to discuss the response to McGill’s offer.

AMURE bargaining team

Support Postdocs
We ask AMURE members to support our postdoc bargaining team at this critical time and to sign and distribute a petition in support of our bargaining demands. Please visit the petition here. This petition is important as it will spread news of our bargaining issues and display the support of the McGill community for our bargaining demands. Please share this petition with your friends, family, and anyone else you feel would support a better working environment for postdocs.

Bargaining Updates
The next bargaining meeting between McGill and AMURE for post-docs is scheduled for December 7. AMURE will present a counter-offer to McGill’s latest proposal, in an attempt to secure a higher minimum salary for post-docs at McGill.

For research assistants and associates, bargaining with McGill for monetary issues has officially begun. The bargaining committee met with McGill on November 18 and presented AMURE’s monetary proposal. The proposal includes a salary increase that accounts for high inflation, as well as other monetary requests, such as McGill’s participation in the OPUS+ Entreprise program to subsidize public transit monthly passes, summer Fridays, and more.

Holiday Vacation Days
As the holiday season approaches, a reminder to all regular AMURE members that you are entitled to paid leave for 3 paid statutory holidays (Dec 25, 26, and Jan 1), an additional 3 days between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and to a sixth floating day to be taken during the University’s Christmas break. Since Christmas day falls on a Sunday this year, you are entitled to paid leave on Dec 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and Jan 2.

AMURE Tip of the Month
McGill research employees are entitled to benefits and discounts through their affiliation to the University and as members of AMURE. These include: 
* A 15% discount for VIA Rail Canada leisure trips for McGill staff members and up to 3 additional people traveling with the staff member. 
* Union Savings discounts in various categories, including insurance, entertainment, travel, home, sports and leisure, fashion, services, electronics, and beauty products. Please note that to benefit from Union Savings you will need to create an account, indicating PSAC as your affiliated union. 
* PSAC-Quebec member benefits, including discounts at certain hotels. 
* Free $10,000 life insurance from PSAC.

Bellow is some statistics about the salary information of McGill Postdocs. This is a snapshot of postdocs that were working at McGill in November 2022.

McGill divides it’s postdocs into several groups (See here). This data is based from McGill’s “Postdoctoral researchers – group C”. These are postdocs who are paid from grants that their supervisors secured. As opposed to postdocs who receive their own external scholarships (mostly tr-agency postdoctoral fellowships), or paid from another insutition, such as the RI-MUHC (not Mcgill).

Tri-agency postdoctoral fellowships are between 40,000 and 45,000$ per year. However, these fellowships are not subject to the same taxes and government deductions and results in a larged take home pay. The take home pay of a tri-agency postdoc is equivant to a group C postdoc earning between 52,000 and 57,000. Many tri-agency postdocs also receive a top-up amount from their supervisors grants.

For Postoctoral Researchers (Group C) (About 400 postdocs)
The minimum salary is $34,611 / year
The median salary is $47,993 / year
The average salary is 50,088 / year

Breakdown by faculty:

FACULTY	MEDIAN	AVERAGE
Faculty of Agric Environ Sci	45500.00	49070.23
Faculty of Arts	45172.40	46453.11
Faculty of Engineering	45500.00	49157.61
Faculty of Medicine & Hlth Sci	50000.00	50970.89
Faculty of Science	50000.00	50159.64

Yearly Salary	By hour (35 hours a week)	PERENTILE ( percentage of postdocs that a yearly salary <= x)
34611 (Absolute min)	19.02	0.04
35000	19.23	0.08
36000	19.78	0.11
37000	20.33	0.12
38000	20.88	0.13
39000	21.43	0.14
40000	21.98	0.22
41000	22.53	0.22
42000	23.08	0.25
43000	23.63	0.28
44000	24.18	0.31
45000	24.73	0.41
46000	25.27	0.45
47000	25.82	0.48
48000	26.37	0.51
49000	26.92	0.52
50000	27.47	0.64
51000	28.02	0.65
52000	28.57	0.68
53000	29.12	0.69
54000	29.67	0.70
55000	30.22	0.74
56000	30.77	0.75
57000	31.32	0.76
58000	31.87	0.78
59000	32.42	0.79
60000	32.97	0.86
61000	33.52	0.87
62000	34.07	0.88
63000	34.62	0.89
64000	35.16	0.89
65000	35.71	0.91

AMURE’s postdoc bargaining team needs your support. The University is refusing to address our most important issues:

• Fair wages
• Professional development
• Paid parental leave
• Sick days

MCGill’s offer of a minimum salary of $37,500 and 39,000 in 2023 would mean that postdocs would have the lowest Minimum salary out of all full-time McGill positions. Every single other McGill position has a higher minimum salary.

The median salary for postdocs is $48,000, but for comparison, laboratory technicians, research assistants and research associates have a minimum salary above $50,000 a year. While our offer is even below this amount, we feel that this agreement will be the first step for fair salaries of postdocs.

Please support the bargaining demands of postdocs by signing this petition. SIGN THE PETITION -> LINK

Below is a summary of the offers that have been made by the union and the offer that has been made by McGill.

	UNION OFFER	MCGILL OFFER
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT	A similar program to what is offered to professors. A spending account of approximately 600$ per postdoc per year.	Training and development funds of only $62 / postdoc / year.
SICK LEAVE	The same as other McGill employees (9 sick days)	The minimum amount by law (2 days /year)
PARENTAL LEAVE LEAVE	The same leave for everyone. 100% paid leave for one year.	Different leave depending on your funding source. Parental leave indemnities would be below the poverty line for most postdocs who are not paid from tri-agency grants.
RAISES	June 1st 2021: 4% (retroactive) June 1st 2022: 5% (retroactive) June 1st 2023: 5% June 1st 2024: 5%	June 1st 2021: nothing June 1st 2022: nothing On Signing: 2% + 1% lump sum. June 1st 2023: 2.5% June 1st 2024: 2.5% June 1st 2025: 2.5% June 1st 2026: 2.5%
MINIMUM SALARY	On Ratification: $38,000 June 1st, 2023: $42,000 June 1st, 2024: $46,000	On Ratification: 37,500 June 1st, 2023: $39,000 June 1st, 2024: $40,500 June 1st, 2025: $41,500 June 1st, 2026: $43,000