Abe Nasirzadeh, lead organizer of the strike committee for the University of Toronto&#x27;s teaching assistant and contract faculty union. A tentative deal between the two sides was reached early Friday morning but then rejected by members. The union had been seeking a wage hike to bring the members&#x27; $15,000 stipend closer to the $23,000 low-income cut-off amount that Statistics Canada sets as a living wage for single workers in big cities.