News

Staff Enhancement Grant Report: Introduction to Beekeeping Workshop

by Kathy Becker

(July 14, 2019)

Challenging times

Chris Glover, the NDP Critic for Colleges and Universities conducted a campus tour on Tuesday, November 12^th.  He met with administrators, faculty, staff and students to discuss the recent funding changes and other challenges and opportunities at UW.

Shown in the photo from left: 

Brent Matheson (FAUW)

Terry Labach (UWSA)

The UWSA Election Results 2019

The UWSA Board consists of nine (9) directors, some of whom hold the position of President, Past-President, President-Elect, Secretary, or Treasurer.  Annually the President-Elect and two directors are elected to serve three-year terms.  Joe Allen, UWSA Chief Returning Officer, gave his report at the UWSA Annual General Meeting on Thursday October 31^st.  The following candidates were successful in their bids for election.

Kathy Becker, President-Elect.

On May 3, 2019 Rose Vogt, UWSA President and Lawrence Folland, UWSA President-Elect attended a consultation process organized by Peter Bethlenfalvy, President of the Treasury Board.  The intention of the consultation with public sector employees and bargaining agents was to receive feedback and discuss “in good faith” on how to manage Ontario public sector compensation growth in a way that results in wage settlements that are modest, reasonable and sustainable.  The feedback was supposed to directly inform any next steps taken by the government to manage growth in compensation costs.

When the Staff Enhancement Grant committee met last December, they reviewed many applications from members seeking funding. Among the recipients they chose was Lynn Long. who works at the Centre for Teaching Excellence. In her own words, here is Lynn's experience.

The 2019 Staff Conference was held April 8 and 9, and we hope you were able to attend all, or at least part of this fantastic event. UWSA is a proud sponsor of these annual conferences. This year, our corporate partner, Johnson Insurance sponsored a draw for an Ipad Mini 4 and everyone who visited the UWSA table in STC was able to enter their name for a chance to win. 

Co-op supervision and U-Waterloo

A message from the University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) as seen on Daily Bulletin Nov. 27, 2018

As a member of the Waterloo community, you may have had concerns about the recognition and impact of the time and work you put into supervising co-op students. These concerns may apply to both what is written in your job description and within an interview setting when applying for supervisory roles.

Lisa Brackenridge used SEG funding to work toward upgrading to an honours degree, with a long-term goal to apply for graduate school.

Plant Operations working with Retail Services to provide vending machines

(From Plant Ops) - The decision to discontinue the feminine hygiene product dispensing service was made within Plant Operations about 10 years ago following a high number of incidents involving vandalism of dispensers and theft of product and/ or money. Unfortunately, we have been unable to determine if there was ever any communication to the University community at the time of the decision and it appears the winding down process was disorganized at best.

Looking at employee benefits

A UW’s Pension and Benefits Committee meeting was held last week. Our consultant let us know that with the change in Ontario’s government, there might be some consequences to our pension plan. They’ll be monitoring this and will be reporting back. There were three very interesting reports included in the agenda.