Below are the candidate statements for the Fall 2018 election cycle.  You will receive a token to vote by email -- if you do not receive a token, or you believe you were sent one in error, please contact trustee2@tssu.ca. Click here for a more detailed description of the executive committee.

Kiera J Anderson - MMC Commissioner

Hi TSSU, Kiera Anderson here. I’m running for the Member Mobilization Committee Commissioner post. I’m a sessional instructor at SFU, in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. I was the Commissioner in spring 2018, but had to resign to finish my thesis. I’m going to keep this short because my PhD thesis is due to be submitted in a week! Together with the Committee, we set up the MMC blog, helped organise TSSU socials and trainings, updated or created new pamphlets and posters, and recruited more people into MMC. As your commissioner, I will continue these activities and support ongoing bargaining efforts for the 2019-2024 Collective Agreement.

Allicia Massie - Coordinator

Hello comrades!

I’m Alli, your former/current Chair, and I am now running for the Coordinator position. I’ve been a TSSU member for 3 years now and have been a member of the executive for the past year. Being an active member with the TSSU has been a truly amazing experience -- it has changed so many aspects of my life (including my PhD research).

In addition to serving as the Chair and reminding everyone we’re behind schedule, I’ve recently joined the Contract Committee and am helping to organize the union’s 40th Anniversary Party in December this year. I’m also a member of the Grievance, Internal Relations, SSJC, Anti-Harassment, and MMC committees. Through all the different committees I sit on, I have been fortunate to be able to develop a broad understanding of how the TSSU works. I deeply appreciate our feminist, non-hierarchical, and directly democratic structure. I also realize this structure means our union is faced with unique challenges.

I am really excited to be running for Coordinator, as honestly, I would love to have the extra work hours. There are so many projects and ideas I have for the union, and it would be fantastic to be in a position to be able to put them into action. First of all, I think our union has a fantastic network of stewards, active members, and potential organizers. We also are really lucky to have access to amazing organizers outside our organization – I would love to bring all of these people together to hold training sessions to remind us all how to be better and more active organizers. I think we can, and should, harness our enthusiasm and knowledge and focus it on specific goals, campaigns, and building collective power. Moving into bargaining, I know we need to kickstart ourselves and our members, and I am excited to focus on how we can expand our skills, confidence, and authority to do that. Second, I want to look at our internal practices and how we can make our meetings more welcoming and useful. It is easy to be comfortable in the status quo, and TSSU already does a pretty great job, but I think there are some places we could improve. I think reviewing how we run things could be a great way to continue to make our union a participatory and democratic space. Finally, I would be excited to work with the Organizer to focus on strengthening our steward network and linking up with allies to publicize not only our current fights, but all of the inevitable issues we will face during bargaining. TSSU is an inspirational union, they’ve been fighting for our rights for 40 years now – I want to continue this legacy not only through publicizing the things we have already won, but also mobilizing members around the things we still need to win.

Thank you for your consideration and taking the time to read this.

Solidarity forever,

Alli Massie

Scott Yano - Chief Steward I

I am Scott Yano, and running for re-election to a second term as Chief Steward. I have worked on a number of grievances in the past year, at the informal, Step I, and Step II stages, and have become familiar with the process, the employer’s tactics, and possible ways to overcome its general process of denial. I have sat on the Executive, Stewards, Grievance, and Contract Committees, and attended both the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labour (COCAL), and the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) conferences, and am in the middle of helping to formulate strategies and proposals for the next round of bargaining; I was on the Contract Committees for the 2004, 2010 and 2014 agreements, and the Strike Committee leading to the 2010 agreement. I would like to be elected to a second term to complete the work I have begun, and to establish a strong start, if not finish, to bargaining our next Collective Agreement for 2019 forward.

Joseph Egan - OH&S Commissioner 

My name is Joseph Egan, and I’m running for the position of OH&S Commissioner. After spending a year on a local safety committee in the faculty of science as a TSSU representative, I have been involved in the policy construction, incident investigations and inspections in our faculty; this provides me with a very clear understanding of what some of the major risks are for individuals working in higher risk environments, such as teaching and research labs. It is my hope that I may leverage this expertise and experience to provide a guiding hand for policy for the university with regards to safe day to day operation. In addition, safety is a coordinated and cumulative effort, which requires participation and feedback from multiple viewpoints and perspectives, which change throughout our very dynamic university. For this reason, I will strive to improve the communication between the TSSU safety representatives about concerns and initiatives from local committees.

Kelli Finney - Trustee 1

Thank you for considering me for the position of Trustee. I’m a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics and have been involved with TSSU in various capacities since beginning my graduate career at SFU. My involvement began as an attendee to General Membership Meetings and grew into the roles of departmental steward, committee member (Membership Mobilization Committee and Internal Relations Committee), and Executive member. As an Executive member I first served two terms as Coordinator and then most recently a partial term as Trustee (elected during a by-election). In my current role as Trustee, I’ve been working with the Internal Relations Committee to update the organization of the TSSU By Laws and Policies to make them clearer and more accessible to all members. I’m looking forward to serving a second term as Trustee and continuing this work of making the By Laws the most useful document possible.

In Solidarity,

Kelli

Zora Feren - Chair

Greetings TSSU members,

My name is Zora and I am running for the position of Chair at TSSU.  I am a MA student in the school of Communication beginning my second year, and TAing for my 4th semester.

Though I am still (relatively) new to SFU I have already experienced a wide variety of its structures, systems, groups, committees, caucuses, networking events, meetings, meetups, social events, apps and mass emails.

I hope through my position as Chair I will be able to facilitate the important work TSSU does in distinguishing itself from the crowd: offering a non-hierarchical means of face to face discussion and decision making.

Thank you for your time,

Zora