Robert Ramsay, Chair (acclaimed)

First, I want to thank the membership for entrusting me with this important role.  I will strive to ensure throughout my term that the membership is central to all of the union’s pursuits.  But how will I do this?  We are a unique group, in that we have such varied expertise, but are united by a commitment to education, and the quality and freedom of the academic experience.  This commitment to education, however, does not translate very effectively into our union work.  When I became involved in the local three years ago, the onus was on me to become educated in my workplace rights and privileges.  While the local has made some progress in removing the onus from members and placing it on the union itself, we are still not as good as we could be at fostering an aware and participatory member base.  The union needs new and more voices, new and more ideas, new and more perspectives, and it is our responsibility to make space for these.  In the upcoming bargaining year, our success will be determined by a powerful and knowledgeable membership.  This calls for constant and comprehensive member training and outreach, seeking the involvement and consultation of members, and being always accountable to the standards set by the people we serve.  The alliances that we have built with on- and off-campus allies over the last few years, the networks of social justice and equity activists that we have nurtured, and the leadership we have shown within CUPE itself are all vitally important, and work that we will continue to do.  But it is work right here within our own local that must be brought up to the same level as the work we do externally.  This is my goal, and I invite and look forward to your involvement.

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Melanie Brunet, Secretary-Treasurer (acclaimed)

I have a Ph.D. in Canadian history from the UofT and am a Sessional Lecturer in History. I have been actively involved in the union since 2003 as Steward for the History Department. I have taken on more responsibilities since 2006 as member of the Grievance Committee, Trustee and member of the Unit 3 Bargaining Committee. This year, I was also UTM Campus Steward.

As Secretary of the Grievance Committee and a Trustee, I have extensive experience in keeping minutes of meetings and I am familiar with the union's financial activities. As Secretary-Treasurer of CUPE 3902, I will strive to maintain the financial health of our local while promoting justice, equality and fairness for our members and our staff. I will work to implement the recommendations made by my fellow Trustees and I over the past two years and increase the transparency of the local's activities and decisions.

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Vice-Chair (Communications):

Tim Capes (Unit 1, Mathematics)

Goals as an Executive Member:

- Improving member involvement and mobilization.

- Improving relations between executive, members, and staff.

- Consulting, and accepting, the will of the membership – I oppose executive non-concurrence statements.

- Trusting my fellow members to do their work – but gladly helping when asked.

- Increasing communication with the membership, and improving the methods we use to do so. 

Experience and Qualifications:

- Have worked on ensuring our members our treated fairly by the employer in my service on the Grievance Committee (2006 to present).

- Worked to ensure the union is run properly as a trustee (2007 to present).

- Working to bring membership into our union as Div 3 Steward (2007 to present).

- Working to get a better deal for our members on the bargaining team

(2008)

- Actively involved in MobComm, Finance Committee and Quality of Education Committees (Mostly 2008)

- Worked to ensure full maternity leave was given to our staff members in accordance with progressive labour principles. (2008)

- Worked on reaching a compromise that tried to minimize division in our local over a position taken by CUPE Ontario.  Members who threatened to tear up their union cards over this position are currently active in our local including department stewards, and an incoming trustee.

Position Specific Goals:

- I intend to work hard on the Guardian under the guidance of Chantal and continue to produce the quality product that we have received recently.

-  Will organize a Technology & Communications Committee (TechComm) that will discuss ways to increase our ability to reach out to the membership using technology.  This includes discussing adding additional features to our existing facebook group, work on adding forums to our webpage, looking at implementing video conferencing, teleconferencing and other ways to ensure that accessibility does not become a barrier to communicating ideas.

- I am eager to take an active role in organizing communications with the media (particularly campus media) to get CUPE 3902's message out to the student body and improve our ability to bargain effectively.

Paul Gorczynski (Unit 1, Physical Education and Health)

We need a strong union, especially in a bargaining year, and I believe that members who are aware of their rights and privileges and are active agents in their workplaces are the foundation of the union's strength.

Consistent and thorough member education and consultation -- on benefits, working conditions, workload, and other aspects of the Collective Agreement -- is the core of my platform. As Vice-Chair (Communications) my goal is to have more members become active in and knowledgeable about our union. By facilitating information sessions across the three campuses on a regular basis, I plan to reach out to members in all faculties and departments and seek their input on crucial union matters, something that has not been done enough.  By using the Guardian newsletter and the website as communication tools, I will work to engage members rather than simply inform them.  I am currently a PhD student in the faculty of Physical Education and Health, with extensive experience in occupational safety issues.  I have undergone Workplace Safety Insurance Board training, and I understand the importance and value of providing members with adequate health and safety training so that individuals feel safe in their workplaces. Throughout my career I have been involved with various community initiatives and campaigns, municipal affairs, and advocacy matters, and have become a firm believer in community involvement, membership\ participation, and giving voice to those left out of the decision making process.  As Vice-Chair (Communications) I intend to uphold the integrity of this executive position by providing good governance, establishing robust communication practices, reinforcing key community alliances, and ensuring that a greater portion of the membership is involved in all union decisions.

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Liaison Officer:

Paula Ehlers (Unit 1, UTSC Phsyical and Environmental Sciences)

CUPE 3902 is a great union! As Steward for the Astronomy Department, then as Division 5 (UTSC) Steward, then as UTSC Campus Steward, I have seen first hand what a great union can do, and I am proud to have played a part in doing it. I have been involved in organizing meetings and mobilizing the membership, collecting signatures for the formation of Unit 3, and advocacy (e.g., ensuring that TA's get paid on time and get hiring preference over outside invigilators, opposing cutbacks and the cancellation of tutorials, etc.). I have worked to improve accessibility to the local at UTSC, both through staffing the CUPE 3902 office and by searching out TA's and sessionals, wherever they are found. I am a member of the Mobilization Committee. I am also very concerned with Health and Safety issues (asbestos, and others), and attend most meetings of the UTSC Joint Health and Safety Committee, as liaison for CUPE 3902.

I have 7 years experience as Steward in CUPE 3902, and I am convinced, based on this experience, that the best way to benefit our members, and the University community overall, is by maintaining a strong union presence on all 3 campuses. I believe that we as a union, both the membership and the executive, should be strong, mobilized, united, and informed. I am committed to a proactive and activist stance, to advocacy, to transparency and good communication with the membership. I believe that CUPE 3902 should be a progressive employer in our relations with our staff.

I am also committed to quality of education, and I am strongly opposed to any form of systemic discrimination or trends that lead to a 2-tier education system, whether or not they may be disguised as differences between campuses. I will actively promote a system of collecting information and documenting evidence of any instances of discrimination (e.g., implicit assumptions that students at suburban campuses – or new Canadians, or any other identifiable group – are less able or motivated).

In addition to being intrinsically objectionable, such attitudes threaten the quality of education, and threaten universal accessibility to a quality education within the U of T, and we as a union must become proactive in opposing these trends.

I believe that CUPE 3902 needs to promote public awareness of the vitally important role that TA's and sessionals play in providing students with a quality education, and that we should oppose any schemes that threaten to replace the TA's or Instructors' roles by peer tutoring, peer grading, or heavy reliance on multiple choice testing. Such schemes harm our members, they harm our students' quality of education, and they favour a profit maximizing paradigm whose benefits to the university community are not at all clear.

As liaison officer, I will be committed to working with other groups on campus, with labour organizations, with the GSU and all student organizations, to find our common ground and to strengthen our voice. We must continue to oppose spending cutbacks and tuition fee increases; we must try to get a better deal for international students. I believe that we need to be a persistent reminder, both to the UofT administration, and to the society around us, that the University is not about profits, it's about education. Education is a vitally important part of a healthy and enlightened society, and the Teaching Assistants and Sessional Instructors of CUPE 3902 are a vitally important part of a quality education at the University of Toronto. We are irreplaceable. For CUPE 3902, this is a bargaining year, and as Liaison Officer I will be actively seeking solidarity and expressions of support from students, faculty, and all those sectors of the university community that share the view that the work which our members do is vital, and valuable, to the university overall.

I look forward to working with all of you throughout the coming year.

Lisa Freeman (Unit 1, Geography)

As an executive member of CUPE Local 3902 I will encourage active member participation, build popular education and union awareness campaigns and dedicate my time to collectively fostering a bargaining strategy that reflects member's needs and concerns. If elected as Liaison Officer I will put a concerted effort into building communication, collaboration and solidarity amongst local unions, course unions and student organizations at U of T.

My familiarity with graduate student work conditions, concerns over graduate expansion and on-campus organizing efforts stems from my experience with Local 3902 and the Geography and Planning Student Society (GGAPSS).  As a departmental steward I was actively engaged in stewards'

council, participated in conferences and wrote for the union newsletter.

As a member of the Liaison Committee (2007/08), I have developed relationships with several campus unions, student organizations and social justice groups. I supported the Steelworker's "Save the Archives"

campaign, and worked with members of Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), Unite Here, Steelworkers, several on-campus CUPE locals, and the Graduate Students Union on numerous issues. My relationships with these groups -- the core of the Liaison portfolio -- are already in place and are strong.

In addition to my liaison work, I helped to organize the first UTEAU (UofT Employee Associations and Unions) meeting in several years, in an effort to build solidarity and coordinated bargaining strategies amongst University of Toronto locals.

In my current executive position as Vice-President Academic with GGAPSS, I have been actively organizing around issues of graduate expansion, regular collaboration with faculty and students and have led the drafting of a graduate student employment equity statement, the first of its kind at this University. I have a strong history of community-based social justice work and am excited to bring my experience, determination and political commitment to non-hierarchical organizing and member-based union activism to our local.

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External Representative:

Maria Casas (Unit 3, UTM English and Drama)

I have a PhD from the University of London in English/Social Semiotics. I did a Postdoctoral Fellowship here at U of T, with four years of full-time contract teaching before and afterwards. The University of Toronto is a toxically hierarchical environment in which to study and work, and nowhere is it felt more and more pervasively than amongst the sessionals, who are, in labour terms, at the bottom of the heap. I am running for External Officer on several issues that have been of concern to me since I first got actively involved with the union in 2003.

First, the status of sessionals concerns me. This is a group small in numbers but large in woes, and the union has been tireless in fighting for and supporting sessionals in their grievances. But we need more than one executive officer working for sessionals, with the experience and needs of sessionals in mind. If I am elected as External Officer, I plan to add my energies to those of the Unit Three rep in mobilizing sessionals, in preparing for the next round of Unit Three negotiations, and in fighting back against an administration that continues to treat sessionals like denizens of the university sewers. My specific concerns are the ongoing attacks against sessional research, and the laughable attacks on sessionals as bona fide members of the teaching staff. We are a research community, and having a class of teachers among us who are unilaterally excluded from the university's support of their research is not in any way justifiable.

Second, I am concerned to build connections with organizations of contingent academic workers in Canada and North America. This is a different community than the labour community with which my esteemed opponent has for so long been connected, and although I plan to keep up those connections, the urgency of the need of sessionals, as victims on the front lines of a continuing corporatization of the universities and the dismantling of basic labour rights in Canada in the universities and colleges makes it imperative that we build connections with those who are organizing to fight back on THAT front. Organized contingent academic workers won huge gains in the University Colleges system in BC, when the BC government recently moved to expand the number of university places by accrediting University Colleges to grant BA's; in Quebec, all university and CEGEP teachers have organized and negotiate their contract with the provincial government at the same time. This is what building large-scale connections can accomplish. Not the least of my priorities as External Liaison officer would be to cement our new relationship with the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and exploit this relationship to the fullest advantage. We do not need an External Representative to attend labour conventions as usual; we need an External Representative who is aware and in touch with the problems of the workers of THIS local and of the special position of academics as workers across North America.

Finally, I am concerned with the factionalization that I see happening in our union executive at this time. I see our elected representatives caught up in a power struggle that merely diverts energy away from where it needs to go. I am concerned about the leadership abilities of a chair that has allowed this to happen. All I really want to do is to get our executive back on track. I have been actively involved in the union since 2003 as Steward for the English Department, as a member of the Grievance Committee, and as a delegate to the tri-annual international conference of sessionals in Vancouver in 2006. At that conference, I pressured some of our executive and staff members to meet with a representative of CAUT, whom I had previously met at a CAUT conference on sessional labour, hoping to bring about the liaison that we now have. I was also the first to fight back against the university's decision to stop co-signing sessional SSHRC applications in 2006, alerting the union and beginning an international email and letter-writing campaign that was then parlayed into the very successful online petition system. This past year many of you will not have seen me at meetings; I took an unofficial leave of absence from union involvement, but found myself very much in touch with contract faculty in my department, where we teach three-quarters of the courses, on issues that concern us. In these more local efforts, I have successfully raised the matter of access to SIG (research) funds, gained access to the online venue of faculty research publications, discussed ways and means of getting sessional representation on department and college-level committees, and. . . the list goes on. So does my concern for what's happening to our teaching and research environment and my concern to work with others to prevent a continuing erosion of dignity and justice for contract faculty at this university.

Judy Pocock (Unit 1, UTSC Humanities)

The local's External Representative builds connections between CUPE 3902 and the larger community, in our city, our province, and across the nation. If elected as External Representative I will bring not only my experience in CUPE 3902 but also my years of experience in the trade union movement and other progressive organizations.

I am a PhD English student and have TAed and held instructorships in English.  Over the past four years I have been involved with 3902 as External and most recently as Chair of the Local.  During my term as Chair I have worked to prepare the local for the bargaining struggle ahead, to involve more of the rank and file in the union, and to strengthen the internal governance of our local.  I played an instrumental role in the successful negotiations to affiliate our Unit 3 members with Canadian Association of University Teachers and initiated a campaign being launched in the fall to improve library services.

  This year, as we move into bargaining, strengthening out ties with our allies outside the University is all important.  As an activist since the 1960’s with a history in the trade union, women’s, peace, and social justice movements, I can bring unique strengths to this work.  During the time I spent as External Representative I made a priority of our ties with the labour movement without neglecting our relationships with other progressive organization and worked to involve rank and file members in that process.  As Chair I continued to make this work a priority and recently I was nominated by the CUPE University sector to sit on the resolutions committee at the next Ontario Division Conventions, the committee that determines all the resolutions that reach the convention floor.

If elected, I will see my role on the executive as one that seeks out and supports member participation and stresses union education. I will work with others to investigate ways to facilitate stewards and rank and file members becoming more involved in the work of the union including in decision making roles.  Creative ways must be developed to train and involve stewards and rank and file members in the life of the union.  We should be striving to develop a truly participatory union and transform bureaucratic structures into more democratic ones.

As we enter this bargaining year, a strong union with firm ties to our allies from the community at large can make a huge difference in our ability to win our struggle.  I hope you will support efforts to do that by voting for Judy Pocock for External Representative.

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Grievance Officer:

Iain Martel (Unit 3, Philosophy)

As your current Grievance Officer, I have served CUPE 3902 in a number of capacities for the last four years. I have served on both bargaining teams for Unit 3, and was the inaugural Unit 3 Representative on your Executive Committee, before serving as Grievance Officer for the last two years. In that time, I have fought consistently to expand and protect your rights and benefits as employees at the University of Toronto.

The Grievance Officer is the guardian of the Collective Agreements between the Union and the University. In this role, I have worked closely with our highly-capable staff, the Grievance Committee, and Departmental Stewards.

My experience has given me an unsurpassed knowledge of the Collective Agreements and their interpretation, which allows me to expertly advise and defend our members, empowering them to stand up for their rights.

Members who come to me with problems in their workplace know that they will receive the best possible advice, and that I will work tirelessly to defend their rights.

Through work with the Grievance Committee, I have also pursued an aggressive strategy of policing the University's treatment of its workers through numerous policy grievances. I have spearheaded challenges to the expansion of "peer education" at the University, demanding that every student has the right to knowledgeable instructors and TAs. I have actively sought out and pursued grievances opposing the unfair funding of graduate expansion on the backs of senior PhD and Master's students. And I have worked hard to raise many other, less "glamorous" issues that nonetheless have significant impact on the life of our members: from ensuring that hundreds of members were paid in September instead of having to wait until October, to pushing for all new members to be properly oriented by the Union, to ensuring that no-one is overworked.

In all of this, I have not forgotten my sessional colleagues, who I am proud to report have greater job security and respect than ever before - though much remains to be done. It has been a long, hard fight to overcome the ingrained attitudes of disrespect to sessionals, who are still too often regarded as disposable and without rights. But we have won a number of important victories in the last four years, and our firm stance in fighting for sessionals' rights, even through several years of arbitration, has paid off in ever-increasing acknowledgement of the rights we won in two hard rounds of collective bargaining.

In addition to my work as Grievance Officer, I have played a strong role in many other aspects of the work of the Union. I helped start our campaign against UHIP, the discriminatory health programme for international students, and have served on many committees and campaigns.

I redesigned the Union's website to make it more useful to members. Last, but certainly not least, as a long-time environmentalist and a "Philosopher for Peace," I have been a strong supporter of the progressive agenda of our Union, in its role as part of the global movement for peace, social justice, and equity.

If re-elected to the position of Grievance Officer, I vow to continue my commitment to working full-time to defend the rights of our members and make our Union stronger. Thank you for you support.

James Nugent (Unit 1, UTSC Social Sciences)

Hi! I'm honoured to have the chance of bringing some new energy and creativity to the executive next year. Like the students and staff in all our universities today, our union is at a cross-roads. Funding levels continue to plummet in real terms threatening not only the quality of education and jobs, but also inviting a dangerous trend towards the corporatization and privatization of our university. Public institutions were born through collective struggles led in part by unions, and it is only through collective action that they can truly be made accessible and put to the service of all.

While the grievance procedure is often thought of in legal terms, we must realize that all agreements and negotiations are made and carried out within a political context. A 'political union' is therefore not something to shy from, but a necessity to be embraced. Nevertheless, this approach will fail to successfully strengthen our union unless we can better generate an atmosphere conducive to respectful debate and discussion around the many issues we face. Drawing on my experience working in a plurality of environmental and social justice groups, I'm committed to creatively fostering this productive dialogue.

In terms of the grievance procedure, it's obviously important that as Grievance Officer I can confidently lead our union's staff and lawyers in winning arbitrations. But I also see a great potential for grievances—especially group and policy grievances—to become a central force in the education and mobilization of our membership. A membership that is informed about, and involved with, the grievance procedure is one that is better protected by it. To this end, I support the proposed by-law amendments that seek to widen the number of members trained in conducting grievances; and I am hoping to take this one step further next year by facilitating grievance awareness sessions in each department or school.

This will familiarize members with the collective agreement so they can readily identify when they are being over-worked, facing hiring discrimination, etc., and can know how to access benefits.

A union is only as strong as its membership. A strong membership is built through consciousness-raising of our rights as workers, and by demonstrating through concrete actions that our union cares about the communities in which our members live. Moreover, this internal integrity and broader solidarity will determine the fate of our contract negotiations next year.

As for our internal integrity, one of the major failings as a union has been our lack of engagement with the sub-urban campuses. Together, Scarborough and UTM now have over 20,000 students! But while these sub-urban campuses have been the primary sites of expansion for U of T over the past six years, our union has not kept pace. Awareness of the union is low, and a high number of grievances are left unreported. Having been a undergraduate and union steward at Scarborough, I feel particularly well-positioned to offering a stronger voice on behalf of our neglected sub-urban campuses. In terms of community solidarity, I've worked hard this past year with some members to draft our Local's first environmental policy—a Climate Change Policy that will be debated and voted on at the next general meeting (May 5th). Moreover, through various activities I have helped build-up alliances with the United Steel Workers—another major union on campus who are also entering negotiations next year.

So, I encourage you to contact me directly to discuss how we should move ahead next year to put back the 'U' in union!

james.nugent@utoronto.ca

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Chief Steward:

Melana Heinss Martel (Unit 1, Philosophy)

Since 2004, I’ve proudly served the Union as a department Steward, a Trustee, a member of the Grievance Committee and as Division 1 Steward.

Last year was my first year on the Exec as Chief Steward. My passion is mobilization: I believe that a strong Union is built by involving and inspiring our members. I am also firmly committed to the principle, enshrined in our bylaws, that CUPE 3902 is a member-driven union. If re-elected I will be vigilant in ensuring that your Local is governed democratically, equitably, and inclusively.

As Chief Steward, I have worked hard to prepare the ground for our next round of Unit 1 bargaining.  I have coordinated with staff and stewards to educate our membership at orientations across all 3 campuses, which has allowed us to make recruitment inroads into many previously unmobilized departments. I have also worked to galvanize the local’s growing ranks of stewards by expanding stewards’ training, consulting with stewards one-on-one and in small groups to find new and better mobilization and communications strategies, and by encouraging Stewards’ Council to take on its proper leadership role as the policy-making body of the Local. I have also encouraged increased member activism by creating a process for member-initiated micro-campaigns, thus empowering rank-and-file members to draw on the resources of their union to address the issues they care deeply about.

Two other projects I took on this year have increased member involvement by targeting specific issues of concern not only to our members, but to our campus allies: the UHIP campaign and the Quality of Education campaign. Our campaign to end UHIP, the discriminatory health plan for international students, has become a province-wide coalition of student and university workers unions. The Quality of Education campaign has worked to research and educate the university community about issues of common concern which will be important in bargaining, such as increased tutorial sizes and the ramifications of graduate expansion.

If re-elected, I hope to continue with each of these campaigns and initiatives, and to create yet more opportunities for member involvement.

I will work tirelessly to ensure that we have well-trained, dedicated Stewards in every department, and a mobilized, member-driven local standing behind our bargaining team this Fall. I hope you will give me the opportunity to continue to serve you in 2008-2009.

Mohan Mishra (Unit 1, Civil Engineering)

I have been an active member of CUPE 3902 for the past two years as a graduate student and TA in Civil Engineering, as well as a steward in my department. In my time at U of T, I have been very active in working with many different campus groups and organizations. Off campus, I have worked with immigrant rights groups to fight for better access to services for people without full immigration status, and have worked with many different union locals to fight against workplace abuses, and for better working conditions.

Going into a bargaining year, where we will be negotiating wages, benefits and working conditions for all of our members, it is more important that ever to have a strong and engaged membership. This means actively working with stewards, and all of our members to educate ourselves about the bargaining process, and to work with all of our allies on campus so that we can negotiate from a position of strength, to get the best possible deal for all of our members. I strongly believe that I can draw on my experience to bring a fresh, new approach to the position of Chief Steward. An approach where we involve all of our members, and work together to present a clear, united voice in bargaining, and in working to build a stronger, more effective union.

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Unit 3 Representative:

Mark Crimmins (Unit 3, UTM English and Drama)

In my two years as the Unit 3 Representative, I have fought tirelessly against the administration’s prejudicial policies with relation to sessionals and worked very hard to improve the status of sessionals within the university community. Four efforts in particular have had lasting concrete results: first, my refusal to accept the university’s decision to cut SSHRC funding from sessionals and my idea of an online petition to protest this was largely responsible for the administration’s change in policy; second, I have worked very hard this last year to ensure that the faculty association endorsed or supported our application to join the Canadian Association of University Teachers, an effort that has recently resulted in our bid being supported by the Faculty Association—CAUT affiliation hugely increases sessional support, status, and resources; third, I have worked tirelessly (with the grievance officer and the staff

representative) to assist sessional members with their grievances against the employer, working with grievors at all stages of the process, up to and including many arduous sessions assisting union lawyers with preparation for cases and supporting grievors in person at the courts of arbitration; finally, I played an active and crucial role in the round of bargaining that resulted in the current collective agreement, another massively time consuming piece of work that yielded very considerable benefits to all the sessionals I represent. I strongly believe that those who supported the last agreement can trust me to continue bargaining with the employer in a way that brings dramatic results. I think my greatest strength as the Unit 3 Representative has been the force and commitment I bring to the table when facing the administration over sessional rights, and I believe I have built a reputation for this with the employer. We have made many gains since sessionals risked their jobs to unionize, and I am for the continuance of those gains. Finally, I believe that a dramatic change to the way the union sees its mission and how it effects progressive change with relation to the employer would be disastrous for the local. I strongly believe the local should represent the members and thus I am endorsing the principled, hard working, and responsible team of dedicated unionists with whom I am running for office.

Ronda Ward (Unit 3, Historical Studies)

I have been a member of this local since the fall of 1991 when I arrived at the U of T to begin a Masters’ Program in Latin American History and was hired to TA at the Mississauga campus. In the intervening years, I have served as a department steward, as Chief Steward, as Chief Spokesperson for Bargaining [Unit 3], and most recently as Vice Chair/ Communications and editor of our newsletter, The Guardian. My experience in our local, both as a TA and a Sessional Lecturer for the past 7 years, has brought me into contact with members on all three campuses. I learned early on, when coordinating the first 1995 Day of Action which shut down the St. George Campus to protest the cutbacks of the Harris Tories, to trust in the intelligence and commitment of our membership. The students who came in droves to challenge the government that day demonstrated that this local was their instrument, a vehicle by which they voiced their defiance of an anti-education platform at Queen’s Park.

We need to constantly re-build those kinds of connections between new generations of members, and nowhere is this more difficult than between the people in Unit Three.  Scattered across massive campuses and seldom meeting each other even in the workplace, the contingent academics employed as sessional lecturers, music professionals, writing centre instructors, and sessional instructional assistants too often feel alone in their departments, and wary of raising concerns with administrations that control hiring. We need one another’s support, yet we don’t know each other! This local must become a source of strength for all those members.

We must bring the union to them, inform them of the rights, benefits, and privileges that their collective agreement grants them, and offer them the opportunity to work together to advance their interests and those of their students.

How many of these members are unsure of their responsibilities to their TAs? How many have registered to take full advantage of the healthcare funds they and their family may access; too few have enrolled in the group registered savings plan [GRSP] to which the University contributes funds.

Our membership in the Canadian Association of University Teachers next year will extend even more opportunities to these members. There will be conferences, workshops, seminars and training offered by CAUT, and many will want to attend; those delegates will return eager to share their findings with us all. But first, we need to connect with each other.

As Unit 3 Representative, I intend to bring this information to our Unit 3 members on every campus through multiple meetings, gatherings, and workshops throughout the year. Personal communication, face to face, is the most effective and simple way to foster solidarity between these members; solidarity is not a response we give to the union, but rather a response we give to each other – solidarity is our commitment to people who share our problems, our concerns, and our interests in the workplace and in our society. I am certain that once informed, the members of Unit 3, through their participation, will become the backbone of our local.

We need to do this organizing work now. Our collective agreement expires in August 2009 and, when we return to the bargaining table, we must demonstrate to our employer the strength and conviction that our Unit 3 members have built together. Therefore, next year’s outreach will be crucial to the success of those negotiations. Your vote will allow me to turn this platform into action.