In November, Staff Representative Mohan Mishra announced that he would be taking a six-month leave from the local, leaving us in need of a temporary staff rep. Sandra Hudson has been hired as our new temporary staff rep. She was an organizer of students’ support for CUPE 3902, and has been a very active and committed organizer and mobilizer in the U of T Students Union and in social justice organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Common Front Ontario, and the Black Liberation Committee (a cross-campus student network resisting anti-Black Racism in post-secondary education institutions). She has a strong commitment to and practice of anti-oppression politics. Sandra will be joining our staff team as of February 1, 2016, and we hope all members will welcome and support her.
The process of hiring a staff rep involved electing a Hiring Committee (HC) during the November GMM, which put together hiring procedures which were approved by the membership during the December GMM. The HC then endorsed a candidate during the January 7 GMM. The executive committee, as the employer of the local’s staff, needs to rubber-stamp all hiring decisions. Consequently, an exec meeting was scheduled for January 12. However, on January 11, a member of the HC informed the Chairperson that some members of the HC wanted to have a final meeting to discuss their recommendation. Consequently, the exec meeting was postponed. The Chairperson was subsequently informed on January 14 that the HC would not be meeting after all, and an executive committee meeting was promptly called for January 18, then postponed until January 19 so that the Grievance Officer, who sits on the HC, could attend. At this meeting, the executive passed a motion to offer the position to the successful candidate, which they have since accepted.
We are hoping to learn from the complications and delays of this hiring process, and will form a committee to write a report and make recommendations in order to ensure that future hiring processes run smoothly and in a timely fashion.