2024 Annual Meeting Recap and Q&A

Here’s what happened in the business portion of the annual meeting:

• The minutes of last year’s annual meeting were approved.
• UWSA’s treasurer Kosi Ike-Orji noted some highlights from our financial report and commented on the ways in which we’re putting money back into the membership:
  • Responding to the high demand for staff enhancement grant by increasing the grant by $3,000 to fund projects fully.
  • Budgeted an additional $2,000 to host informational and high-quality development workshops and opportunities and $1,000 to show gratitude and support to our volunteers.
  • Doubling the sponsorship budget to contribute to projects and services we have with important partners across campus.
• HFK McRae & Wilson were appointed to conduct the review engagement on our finances for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2025.
• UWSA chair Gitanjali Shanbhag thanked outgoing directors Kelan Hirtle and Lillian Liao, and congratulated incoming president-elect Alyssa Kuron, new directors Gail Bender and Matthew Grant, and returning directors Kosi Ike-Orji and Ken Berry. Voter turnout was a record 41%.

As always, we held a prize draw sponsored by belairdirect insurance. We have a partnership with belairdirect (formerly Johnson Insurance) that provides members with discounted rates and brings in some sponsorship money for the Association in return for promoting their services to members. All members who attended the meeting were entered to win one of three $100 VISA gift cards. Congratulations to Dean Perkins, Cody Miller-Sweeney, and Jessica Zimmerman whose names were drawn following the meeting!

We were not able to answer every question we received during the meeting, but we’ve compiled questions and our responses here.

Is the UWSA privy to how the university is managing budget cut-backs?

To be clear, the University is a separate entity from the UWSA. We are not privy to confidential financial information, except what is divulged in the forum of the Provost's Advisory Committee on Staff Compensation. For information about the University budget, we encourage you to attend Board of Governors meetings, Senate meetings, and the town hall meetings like the one coming up in November to be aware of the University’s plans and strategies to combat its difficult position. It is our understanding that the University’s desire is to be transparent and collaborative with the campus community in resolving these issues.

Is there any movement on switching our pay to twice a month?

We advocated for and achieved a working group to evaluate options for pay frequency and are expecting a report from that working group to come to the Provost's Advisory Committee on Staff Compensation soon! We will advocate for a public report at that time. The group was instructed to consider a variety of options and perspectives.

Responses from members during the meeting:

• Not everyone supports moving to bi-weekly pay; this needs to be considered.
• Twice monthly pay won't help with 5-week months. If a move from monthly is desired, biweekly is better.

What is UWSA doing for contract staff who are often left out of its negotiations (e.g., re. pay raises)?

To be clear, the UWSA does not partake in negotiations. We work in harmony with the employer and engage in salary discussions that result in recommendations for the approval of the Provost.

Contract staff now make up 20% of our membership and we take seriously our responsibility to represent and protect these important but precarious workers. Contract staff are full members in the UWSA and eligible for all of our programming and services, but have historically been underrepresented in our membership and advocacy work. We know there is significant work to do on both increasing awareness of the UWSA among contract staff and understanding and serving the unique needs of these members.

To this end, we struck a working group of contract staff this summer that is preparing recommendations for how both the UWSA and the University can better serve and support staff in temporary appointments. Recommendations regarding University processes and policies will inform our advocacy efforts and will be shared with UW leadership. We are expecting this report in the next couple of months. We are also paying close attention to differences in member survey responses between contract and permanent staff.

Our salary discussions at PACSC affect the USG pay scale and therefore salaries for all staff positions. The University’s salary structure does not include contract staff in the annual increase system, but contract salaries are still based directly on the pay scale and new/renewed contracts should reflect any increases to the scale. Please note that the decision to not include contract staff in the annual increases lies with the employer.

Will drop-in sessions with the president also be offered virtually for staff working remotely?

Our meetings and workshops have remained largely virtual since 2020, but we are hearing through member polls that people are eager for more in-person events and conversation. For better or worse, most staff are now on campus some or all of the time and we want our venues for connecting with staff to reflect that. For accessibility reasons and to include our members working at all our campuses or remotely, we plan to continue with hybrid or virtual options for key member events, consultations, and meetings—including town halls and Area Representatives meetings—and you can connect with the president or other team members online at any time!

Now that you have social media, what is your marketing strategy to increase membership enrolment?

Our member survey showed us that most people join the UWSA for one (or more) of three reasons:

1. they believe in belonging and/or contributing to the organization representing them in their workplace,
2. they want to access discounts, or
3. they want to be sure they have support if needed.*

We will continue to communicate with staff about the work that we do and the services available through a variety of channels, including social media. One of the most important ways we reach non-member staff is through you, our members, and especially our Area Representatives, and we encourage everyone to talk about our work and make sure that you have a representative from your department on Area Reps.

We have also increased our contributions to the Daily Bulletin, another valuable channel for reaching beyond our membership.

*See our Annual Report for the full breakdown of reasons for joining.

How do we provide feedback on policies that are being updated?

You can send all your suggestions to the main UWSA email address (uwsa@uwaterloo.ca) or our online Suggestion Box, and they will be directed to folks working on these policies as appropriate. You are also welcome to set up a meeting with the UWSA president to share your feedback that way. The university also often conducts community consultation on policy drafts, which it has already done for Policy 33 (Ethical Behaviour).

Why we couldn't use free services of our members or have a contest to design the new logo?

While we are grateful to rely on a large team of volunteers for many initiatives, and did consider member involvement in this, we hired an external designer for this project for a few reasons. It was important to us to compensate someone for this specialized and time-consuming work; to bring in an outside, neutral perspective; and to avoid the messiness that can result from judging and potentially rejecting work done by volunteers.

We chose Ranni Branding and Marketing in particular based on their portfolio, recommendations, and affordable rate—plus a discount because of their Waterloo roots!

This month was Islamic Heritage Month. Did we mark it?

Yes! We acknowledged German Heritage Month, Islamic History Month Canada, Latin American Heritage Month, and Women's History Month in our October newsletter. If you have ideas for how we could recognize or celebrate particular events with members, please reach out to us or join our Social Committee! We are always excited to explore new ideas within our capacity. Now is a great time to share these ideas with us, as we start planning events and communication initiatives for 2025!

Questions and comments we will pass on to the University

We also received the following questions that we will pass on to the University. We recommend members submit questions about University finances to the budget town hall on November 18 by emailing budget@uwaterloo.ca.

• With the financial issues the university is currently facing, are our pensions protected?
• With regards to parking, there is an accessibility issue. For example the parking machine for EC5 building and other physical spaces is not close to the buildings, which creates an access barrier.
• I have heard of staff not being allowed to go on secondment due to the possibility of their regular position not receiving funding for back fill. Is this something that could be addressed with the Provost?
• There are numerous job losses since the budget cut announcement despite leadership saying "don't worry, jobs are safe/secure"....how do we repair this newfound sense of distrust?
• Will changes to parking lots come down in 2024 or be pushed into the new year?