More than 90% [of faculty surveyed] did not believe graduate student collective bargaining inhibited their own ability to advise or instruct their graduate students, and 88% felt that collective bargaining did not negatively impact the mentoring relationships between them and their graduate students.
Rogers, Eaton, and Voos (2014)

– RAs are committed to engaging faculty during the unionization process. By creating an open line of communication we will be able to improve our working conditions and our research in conjunction with our supervisors.

– SFU’s current RA policy requires grant holders take on the responsibility of “the Employer” when supervising Research Assistants. This means that supervisors administer the bureaucratic tasks that SFU currently provides for professors, teaching assistants and other university workers. SFU also expects grant holders to assume liability for their RA’s Health and Safety.

– RA unionization would make SFU the Employer of RAs, transferring liability and responsibility to where it belongs.

– When RA unionization is studied, the results overwhelmingly indicate mutually beneficial outcomes for both supervisors and RAs, including increased job stability, enhanced levels of personal and professional support, and a simplified supervisory relationship.

– Unionization leads to better research because a wider range of researchers will be attracted to the increased compensation, regular employment will existing researchers to scale back off-campus work, and supervisors can focus more exclusively on the research itself.