The election will be held Thursday, March 11th

Burnaby Campus 11:00 am -3:00 pm

Surrey Campus 11:00 am-3:00 pm

Friday, March 12th

Burnaby Campus 11:00 am-3:00 pm

Harbour Centre 11:00 am-3:00 pm

Please take a minute to read the candidate statements below.

Chief Steward: Scott Drake

I am very excited about running for re-election the Chief Steward position.  As Chief Steward, I would continue to work to ensure that the terms and conditions of the Collective Agreement are front and center in the minds of those who make decisions that affect TAs, T/Ms, Sessionals and ELC/ITP instructors.  I believe in members’ asserting their rights under the Collective Agreement.  I will make sure that members know their rights and support their ability to assert them, including advocating at all levels of the university to make this a reality.  Having said this and being a member myself, I recognize our unique situation, in that we have no seniority rights and are often dependent on our employers in ways that exceed the Collective Agreement.  I believe that our union should advocate for members through the assertion of collective rights embedded in the Collective Agreement, and in my capacity as Chief Steward I will continue to take up this challenge.  I will continue to develop and maintain a strong stewards’ network as a means of communication because the source of the TSSU’s knowledge and strength comes from members telling their stories.  Having been involved in contract committee work since 2008, I look forward to being able to fight for us at the bargaining table. In addition, as an executive member I would be (and have been) committed to our union as a non-hierarchical collective based on feminist principles of solidarity and equality with a role to play in larger struggles for social justice, including the increased commodification of post-secondary education under neo-liberal policies.  As a union, we are on the front line of these struggles and even if the university appears to have given in to the “reality” of impending cuts, we should not.  Our union is only as strong as its workers and in the role of Chief Steward I will help bring our many strengths together.

I am hoping to finish my PhD in English this summer, having completed my MA studies at SFU.  During my time at SFU I have been active within the TSSU in a number of different roles, all of which have helped me gain an appreciation and understanding of the diversity of issues which we face.  Having worked as a Teaching Assistant and Sessional Instructor, I have a strong awareness of a variety of concerns from different aspects of our membership.  Within the TSSU I have occupied two Salaried Officer positions—Chief Steward (March 2009-present) and Coordinator (July 2008-March 2009)—and been an executive member as since 2007 (Chair, August 2007-July 2008).  In different capacities I have participated in numerous committees, including Executive, Contract, Grievance, Contract Research, Finance, Internal Relations, Communications and Staff Restructuring.  I began my activism with the TSSU in 2005-2006 as a Steward for the English department.  We have accomplished a lot of work in the past two years, but there remains much to be done to ensure that our membership gets the respect that it deserves.  I look forward to the privilege of being able to be a part of making this happens.

Secretary: Kevin Partridge
I am a first year MA student in the department of Sociology and Anthropology. I did a previous BA in history in the 1980s at SFU and a Post Baccalaureate in the two years prior to starting my grad studies. I was initially involved in the TSSU social justice committee before becoming a grad student. I am currently representing the general membership on the bargaining committee. I am still involved in the SA student union as a grad liaison and actively involved in a number of projects through the grad caucus of our department.
Having spent many years out of school before returning, I would bring much experience working within numerous organisations to the job of secretary. I am articulate, a good listener and have already proven my ability to work with many of the people already involved in the union. I am very much aware that this year the union may be under significant pressure due to the expiration of our current contract and the current pressures from the provincial government and the university administration. I have a strong commitment to the progressive, feminist politics that the TSSU endorses. I am very much interested in not only defending and expanding our rights as workers but also our rights as students and people. I would be pleased to fulfill part of the organisational requirements of the union by working as the secretary.

In solidarity,
Kevin

Treasurer: Carina Nilsson

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Treasurer

The Treasurer shall be responsible for the maintenance of an accurate and proper internal bookkeeping system and for coordination with the external bookkeeper.  This bookkeeping system shall be set up under the instruction of the Executive. She/he shall present financial statements to the first GM of each semester and shall circulate an audited financial report to the TSSU in September of each year. This report shall be read at the September GM.  The Treasurer shall be responsible for creating and submitting the Union’s annual budget to the February GM of each year. The Treasurer will work in consultation with the Coordinator in carrying out these duties. The Treasurer shall be a member of the Finance Committee.

Chief Steward

The Chief Steward, in conjunction with the Grievance Officer, shall be responsible for the knowledge and application of the Collective Agreement.  She/he shall also be responsible for the Grievance Procedure including meetings, research and legal activities.  The Chief Steward shall be the Management Contact and shall chair the Labour/Management meetings. The Chief Steward shall, when possible, attend Employee Council meetings. The Chief Steward shall be responsible for maintaining the steward system with assistance from the Organizer.  She/he shall coordinate and chair Steward Meetings.  The Chief Steward shall ensure, through assistance from the Organizer, the orientation and education of the Stewards.  She/he shall chair Grievance Committee Meetings and Grievance Meetings, and shall sit on and be the resource person for the Contract Committee. The Chief Steward shall work with the Grievance Officer in reviewing and maintaining contracts of TSSU members. The Chief Steward shall act as the TSSU Executive’s principal point of contact with the Union’s Grievance Officer; in this capacity, the Chief Steward must act in accordance with the Bylaws and policies, and in consultation with the full Executive.

Trustee

The two Trustees shall ensure that the TSSU By-Laws are adhered to and be responsible for keeping these same By-Laws up-to-date. They shall also ensure that proper procedures are adhered to at GMs in accordance with Bourinot’s rules and that membership lists are kept up-to-date and members are informed about their membership status. They shall oversee the work done by Executive Members and report any atypical decisions to the General Membership of the Union. They shall schedule and ensure the publication of GMs; and schedule and oversee all elections/referenda. The Trustees shall be responsible for inspecting the financial records of the TSSU on a monthly basis in consultation with the Coordinator.  The two Trustees shall also act as TSSU Privacy Officers, as outlined in the TSSU Personal Information Operation Policy.  One Trustee shall be a member of the Internal Relations Committee and the other shall be a member of the Finance Committee.

Secretary

The Secretary shall be responsible for ensuring that accurate minutes for GM and Executive meetings are taken and distributed at subsequent meetings.  The duty of taking minutes shall be shared between the Salaried Officers of the TSSU and the Secretary.  The Secretary shall maintain a current file of all GM and Executive Minutes in the TSSU office, as well as keep a record of, and remind the Executive of, resolutions passed at these meetings. The Secretary shall facilitate access to information of past precedent and resolutions on previous meetings, and thereby assist the Ex-Officio in maintaining institutional memory.

The SFSS Board of Directors are meeting Wednesday, December 2 at 5:30. There is a motion to strike a hiring committee to fill this vacant position. Strong visible support would help let them know that there is across campus support for this motion which would ensure the maintenance of the position. Meet in front of the SFSS Organizing Office (MBC 2234).

Out on Campus is Simon Fraser University’s centre for lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual people and their allies. Throughout the semester we offer a wide range of events and activities, ranging from socials to workshops to discussion groups. We also offer references to counselling and support for students, staff and faculty of Simon Fraser.

The elections for the following positions will be held on November 10th and 12th: Trustee I, Organizer, Coordinator, Secretary, Communications Commissioner, and Education Commissioner. The following nominations have been recieived

Lin Yao, Trustee I
Amalia Dray, Trustee I
Karina Nilsoon, Trustee I
Jen Scott, Organizer
Soizic Wadge, Coordinator
Rachel Elfenbein, Chair
Emily Gordon, Secretary
Jordan Barnes, Communications Commissioner
Wyatt Skovron, Education Commissioner

The candidates below have supplied the following statements:

TRUSTEE I, LIN YAO: I am second-year Ph.D. student from School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. I am writing to apply for the position in the TSSU. I wish to contribute to the TSSU and the SFU community with my passion and skills.
My motivations to apply for this position are two-fold. First, being a member of TSSU and enjoying the benefits from the union, I also wish to make my contributions. Since, I joined in TSSU last year, I have been extremely grateful to it for helping securing TA’s wages and healthcare benefits. This is ezpecially true after a financial crisis when the university has experienced budget cuts. I wish to assist to the TSSU to protect the teaching assistants’ interests and improve their working conditions. Second, as a communications major, I also wish to help improve the mutual communication between TSSU and it’s members. On the one hand, I beleive it is important for the members to be aware of the TSSU’s efforts in improving their working conditions. On the other hand, it is also important for TSSY to engage its members in a larger sense in order to know to improve their services. This year, I notice that several surveys have been sent out to collect the opinions of its members for ways to improve the service. For work like this, I sincerely wish to contribute my knowledge.
Apart from my passions, I also consider myself as a qualified candidate, My past working experience in a consulting agency in CHina prepared me the necessary skills to collaborate with members in the team. The nature of solution-oriented deadline-driven consulting work also helped me gain the ability to deal with complex issues and work under pressure. In addition, my master studies at Ohio University also helped me gain experiences in multicultural contexts. The relevant experience in Ohio include assisting the school’s Associate Director on developing strategies to retain undergraduate students; conducting surveys to collect the opinions for ways to improve the gradute program; helping prepare regional academic conference. Those community services not only equipped me with a sense of responsibility, but also enhances my ability to socialize with a range of people from different backgrounds.
In shot, I believe I can do a good job with my sense of responsibility, enthusiasm and skills. I would like to work for TSSU and make my contributions to all TSSU members. Thanks for considering my application. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

TRUSTEE I, AMALIA DRAY: My name is Amalia Dray and I am running for the position of Trustee. I show up at the GMs as “Mali from Linguistics” or “the Other Molly”. I’ve been a TA and an active member of the TSSU in every semester since I arrived at SFU in 2007. This is my 4th semester as Steward for the Linguistics Department, and my first semester as Steward for the Language Training Institute. I was an inaugural member of the TSSU’s Social Justice Committee, and this semester I’m acting as its Chair.
So why will I be an excellent Trustee? Well, I’m a language nerd by instinct and by training. I have an eye for clarity in the written word, and an ear for ambiguity – distilling clarity from ambiguity is what interpreting our Collective Agreement is all about, and it’s what I do best. Before I arrived at SFU I was the Data Integrity Coordinator for the Shoah Foundation archive, so I’ve had a lot of experience in imposing order onto chaos, and overseeing the complex workings of an organization that needs to run smoothly and fairly in order to improve the lives of its members.
There you have it: dedication to the Union and its mission, and the neatly matching skill sets to help us further our mission in my role as Trustee. Coming into a bargaining year, communication between members is crucial, and the language of our Collective Agreement must be exquisitely clear. Vote for the language nerd!

TRUSTEE I, CARINA NILSSON: I believe that I, Carina Nilsson, would be very successful at holding the position of TSSU Trustee I. Currently I am an M.A. Student within the Department of History; I hold the HGSA Chair position; work as a TSSU member as a Teaching Assistant; work as a Research Assistant within the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures; and I am also raising my three and a half year old daughter, and my five month old son.
There is no doubt that a great deal of organization, focus, and determination is needed in order to achieve the goals I have set for myself, and to accomplish the jobs that I have taken on. Being an informed member of the TSSU is important to me, as well as the assurance that proper procedures are being followed at the GM’s (and in other particulars) I will be expected to attend, participate in, and report on.
I do hope that I will be able to sit as the TSSU’s Trustee I. I appreciate your time and consideration.

ORGANIZER, JEN SCOTT: I am 4th-year PhD student working in the Department of English. I have been involved with the TSSU since arriving as a master’s student in the Fall of 2005, when the last round of bargaining was in its final stages.
I was one of two departmental stewards in the English department for 2 years; I was the secretary on the Executive committee for nearly two years; and I have, at various times, sat on the communications, internal relations, education, and social justice committees.I am currently on the social justice and communications committees.
Prior to arriving at SFU and becoming a TSSU member, I was actively involved with the Canadian Auto Worker’s Union (CAW) local 2002 for eight years, where I acted as a department vice-chair (the equivalent of a steward), the health and safety representative, as well as the Western Region Women’s Committee representative. With the CAW, I have had experience participating in national and local campaigns, as well as having received formal grievance handling training, stewardship training, and participated in national and local bargaining campaigns.
I will bring a breadth of experience to the position of organizer as well as a deep commitment to union activism and the knowledge that this year, a bargaining year, will be a crucial one for the TSSU. I am committed to representing our membership throughout the bargaining process.

COORDINATOR, SOIZIC WADGE: Since arriving at SFU in the Fall of 2006 I have been involved with the TSSU as a departmental steward, sat on various committees, and was the communications commissioner in the fall of 2008.
Most recently I was elected coordinator in the Spring of 2009, and have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the TSSU and I look forward to continuing my position through the coming year. In my time as coordinator I have gained invaluable experience that will be of great use for the upcoming bargaining year. I am committed to representing the interests of TSSU members to the university and the greater community. The coming year will poses many challenges not only to the TSSU but the public sector at large and I look forward to taking on this challenge.

RACHEL ELFENBEIN, CHAIR:While an undergraduate student in Hispanic Studies and Women’s Studies in the United States and Argentina, I began working on issues of socio-economic justice as a counsellor in my community for people affected by gender violence. These early experiences inspired me to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the social and structural determinants of gender violence. My academic and professional work in southern Africa and the Americas since then has focused on conducting research and building organizations to transform the social conditions that lead to the perpetration of interpersonal and structural violence and inequalities. My experiences during my undergraduate years inspired me to pursue a career in social justice and enter an Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management Masters program in order to gain the skills in adult education and praxis– in the dialectic sparked between theory and practice in order to build collective understanding and take collective action on social problems– necessary to realize the work I chose to undertake. I spent 2.5 years carrying out organizational development, counselling, popular education, and research work with civil society organizations in under-resourced areas of South Africa around issues of gender violence, HIV/AIDS, and children’s rights for my professional practicum and Master’s thesis. Since completing my Master’s degree, I have been working with various civil society organizations in southern Africa and North America for 4 years, where my research and education programs have generally focused on gender violence, HIV/AIDS, workplace health and safety and human rights and the how these issues are interconnected and exacerbated by neoliberal restructuring of the state and the economy. I have spent 2.5 years working with mining and public health sector trade unions in southern Africa as a popular educator, researcher, and programme coordinator, wherein I have designed and delivered participatory research and training programmes with unions and coordinated local, national, and regional meetings and conferences for unions.
In the fall of 2008, I entered the PhD programme in Sociology at SFU in order to enhance my knowledge and skills so I could expand my work with trade unions and social movements. I am especially interested in using feminist, participatory action research methods as a tool for developing political organizations and new strategies for union organizing beyond traditional conceptions of workers and workplaces. In 2008, I began my work as a TA and I was elected by my graduate caucus to serve as TSSU steward for the Sociology and Anthropology department. Within my department, I have handled case investigations, organized workshops, and educated support staff about their rights. With my fellow steward, we are currently strategizing a plan to negotiate minimum standards of employment for research assistants because of uneven and unfair employment practices within our department. In the summer of 2009, I was elected Chair of TSSU, and since then, I have been facilitating General Membership and Executive meetings, as well as participating in the union’s Internal Relations and Communications Committees.
I am running for re-election because I believe that my education, research, organizing, and facilitation experience can benefit the ongoing development of our union. I have worked with a wide range of people and social justice organizations for more than 10 years. I have therefore developed strong communication and facilitation skills, which promote diversity not only of backgrounds but also of experiences and opinions and while advancing collective understanding and action. During times like these, in which our ability to access and complete our education is under threat by government cutbacks, I also think that the TSSU is a crucial site for student-workers to develop the tools to challenge neoliberal state retrenchments. I believe that the only effective way to combat these threats is by building our organization and collective resistance. This is a crucial time to develop student and worker activism, and I believe my experience with political education and organizational development makes a strong contribution to our union’s struggles.

SECRETARY, EMILY GORDON: I have been the secretary since April and am enjoying both the organizational work and being involved in the larger decisions of the TSSU. Since I began, I have been realizing several things. First, that I really enjoy taking minutes and organizing, and second, that the secretary position can be much more than simply taking and filing minutes. The secretary position is much more about keeping the union accountable and ensuring that we know what we have discussed that we can talk about new topics of importance, rather than reiterating a topic we have already made a decision on. Past minutes also useful for learning our union’s past precedent and regaining wonderful ideas past executive members had. In the future, my intention is to keep ensuring that our union is accountable and that we work effectively.

JORDAN BARNES, COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSIONER: I started working as the communications commissioner just prior to the Summer semester. It was a bit difficult getting into the role at first, but I believe it started to come together pretty quickly. I’ve enjoyed working with the other committee members and feel like I make appropriate contributions to both the strategies and mediums of the committee. I have a significant amount of experience managing websites and appropriately, I believe I have good communication skills. In the final analysis, I have confidence in my ability to organize the affairs of the communications committee and I trust that my record serves as evidence to this effect.

WYATT SKOVRON, EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: As an active member of the TSSU since I arrived at SFU in September of 2008, I have gained an understanding and appreciation of the importance of the Union in representing TAs, TMs, and Sessional Instructors within an academic environment where their professional contributions and dedication is often under appreciated. I was lucky enough to serve as the Steward for the History Department from September 2008 to September 2009. This position led to my regular involvement in Union events and decision-making processes. In addition to regularly attending General and Stewards’ Meetings, I also volunteered to serve on the Education Committee starting in early 2009. In the early Summer of 2009, I volunteered to take on the vacant commissioner’s position for the Education Committee, and since taking over, the Committee has grown in size to approximately ten members and had met regularly throughout the summer semester, with the meetings culminating in the production of a pamphlet designed especially for science students that explained the importance of the TSSU from a discipline-specific perspective.
The Education committee can play a part in bargaining by making members more aware of the purposes served by the TSSU. This is especially important in Sciences, where participation in the TSSU is traditionally lower, as well as the Surrey and Harbour Centre campuses, where TSSU members may feel less represented due to the distance between them and the main TSSU offices. The Education Committee has already acknowledged the importance of appealing to these groups, and has already designed the Science Pamphlet. We are also in the process of devising strategies to increase the visibility of the TSSU at Surrey and Harbour Centre.
I look forward to continuing my service as commissioner, as the Education Committee can potentially play a large role in mobilizing TSSU members and the campus in general in preparation of bargaining. The key to successfully bargaining is to raise awareness and participation from normally non-active or apathetic members, and the Education Committee can play a central role in that mobilization. I am excited at the prospect of being a part of an important and exciting period both for TSSU members and SFU.