The McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), a union with a staff of roughly 1,700 people, represents McGill’s administrative, clerical, and technical support staff, as well as nurses and health professionals. On August 31, after months of negotiation with McGill, MUNACA launched the “Facts are Facts, McGill” campaign in response to the inequitably distributed wage growth across staff positions.
According to the campaign website, salaries of MUNACA staff have increased by 6.1 per cent since the 2021-2022 fiscal year while those of the top 10 highest paid McGill positions have increased by 13.1 per cent. In 2024, MUNACA and McGill’s collective agreement expired; since then, MUNACA has been bargaining with McGill for fairer conditions and pay to no avail.
On May 22, Diana Dutton, Associate Vice President of McGill Human Resources, acknowledged a letter from a coalition of McGill union presidents linked on the MUNACA website, stating, “We remain confident and committed to reaching a negotiated agreement.” In this acknowledgement, she disputed “the erroneous information it contains.”
Demands from MUNACA include freezing layoffs, cutting executive pay, and suspending administrative hiring. Additionally, the union has asked McGill to publicize the actions of NOUS Group — the consulting firm that produced Horizon McGill — and provide MUNACA a place in all discussions.
They are not the first members of McGill staff to request collaboration on fiscal matters with the university. Professor Derek Nystrom, Secretary for the Association of McGill Professors of the Faculty of Arts (AMPFA) and Associate Professor of English, told the Daily last year that the “real solution to [budget] dilemmas is not to hire outside consultants with a track record of taking a wrecking ball through other universities, but in working with faculty, staff, and students here to determine how best to address these challenges.” Largely, the Horizon Plan has been shared with McGill employees through press releases, unilateral town hall presentations, and the occasional Q&A session.
The staff we engage with on a daily basis, who help shape our experiences as students, make up MUNACA. This includes lab technicians as well as employees who manage the university’s athletic facilities, central information system (Minerva), and student services. Some examples of these student services are scheduling, academic advisors, and financial services.
Many McGill staff unions stand in solidarity with MUNACA, including AMPFA, the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE), Association of McGill Professors of Education (AMPE), Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE), Association of McGill Libraries Academic Staff (AMLAS), Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCLIU), Association of McGill Professors of Science (AMPS), Association of McGill Academic Staff of the School of Continuing Studies (AMASCS), Association of McGill Library Academic Staff (AMLAS), and Teaching Support Union at McGill (TSUM) — formerly known as the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM).
On February 7, 2025, President and Vice Chancellor Deep Saini, Provost and Executive Vice President Academic Christoper Manfredi, and Vice President Administration and Finance Fabrice Labeau presented McGill’s Horizon Plan. The plan aims to eliminate a total operating deficit of 75 million dollars over three years, ending in the 2027-28 fiscal year. According to McGill’s 2024-25 financial report, the base salaries and taxable income of each of these executives were as follows: $682,267 (Saini), $410,375 (Manfredi), and $322,429 (Labeau). As of 2023, MUNACA staff members were paid between 21.99 and 48.65 dollars per hour. From 2024 to 2025, the two highest paid senior administrators earned more than 23 MUNACA members combined.
The first phase of the Horizon plan had a bullet point for “reducing salary mass,” which Manfredi suggested that McGill might: “delay the filling of vacancies, eliminate overtime, reduce working hours, [the reduction of ] pay … [and] attrition and not replacing staff who leave the university.” He continued, “but we also know… that’s not likely to be enough … Positions will have to be abolished.”
They told students, “Offering the best education to you with minimum disruptions and at the highest quality is an utmost priority for all of us.” Yet as students, the Daily’s editorial board finds that the best education is fostered in a university environment where staff and professors feel that their labor is valued and fairly compensated.
With a goal to “protect McGill’s long-term sustainability,” Saini, Manfredi, and Labeau presented a plan that included cutting 350-500 jobs and pressuring faculties to increase enrolments without adding faculty and teaching assistant support. Retired faculty have gone unreplaced, diminishing course offerings and overworking those who remain.
According to MUNACA, while student enrolment declined by 1 per cent in 2019-20 and 2022-23, management staff grew by 28 per cent. In deliberately allocating funding to executive expansion, McGill has sacrificed the needs of its support and non-academic staff.
With McGill professors and support staff stretched thin, students are suffering too. The Faculty of Arts has already increased course enrollment caps without increasing the number of TAs. This adversely impacts the extent to which students can receive individualized feedback and learning in addition to blatantly overworking TAs. The No More Free Hours campaign launched by TSUM in 2023 stated that, “In some departments, TAs with 45-hour contracts are regularly working twice their hours.” Moreover, the diminution of class assessments means that students have less opportunities to exercise theoretical learning. In GSFS 250, for example, the instructor stated that he has had to eliminate an essay assignment just to keep TAs within their contractual hours.
Head to mcgillfacts.ca to take action in solidarity with McGill’s support workers. There you will find both the emails of several university figureheads and email templates that you can customize based on your priorities as a student. Facts are facts, McGill.