By the time you read this article, nominations for FedS elections will have been closed for almost a week. Until then, we won’t know how many spots there will be elections for, but hopefully it will be a good old competitive time. The Iron Warrior will be having extensive coverage in the February 2nd issue so you can make an informed decision before voting. Here’s a quick list of the important dates to know:
• Start of Campaigns: January 24th
• End of Campaigns: February 7th
• Polling: February 8th to 10
As a side note, any current councillors or executive who are running for re-election will be temporarily stepping down from their positions during the campaign period to keep it a fair race.
Moving on to current business, there are a few key items to be aware of:
The Employment Standard’s Act of Ontario contains the rights of employees and requirements that apply to employers in most Ontario workplaces. For some unknown reasons, students who perform work under a program approved by a university of college (eg. co-op at waterloo), are not actually covered by the act. This means that most co-ops have no workplace rights, meaning that if an employer suddenly stops paying you, you wouldn’t have any legal recourse to get those funds. This is obviously a huge problem for students.
Nick Soave, the Vice-President Education of Feds, has been talking to our local MPP to figure out why this exception is in the act and have it resolved. This glaring omission can get fixed faster if we can present situations where students have been negatively impacted by this. If you’ve experienced a situation where either an employer has used this against you, or CECS has intervened and down-played the issue, get in contact with Nick at vped@feds.uwaterloo.ca with any details you may have. Hopefully this can be resolved so students will never have to face this type of situation.
Winter term also means that the Health & Dental Plan and GRT Bus Plans are both up for renewal. If you have any feedback on dental or health services that you would like to see added or removed from the plan, or any specific bus routes or bus trips that are constantly over-crowded, late, or never show up, drop me a line at t.ek.jenkins@gmail.com with specifics and I’ll pass it on with specifics. One fun fact I learned about the health plan is that it includes travel insurance for up to 150 days which means you can use it as insurance while you’re on co-op out of province or country.
If you have any problems, questions, or concerns, feel free to talk to any of the current councillors.
Cheers!
t.ek.jenkins@gmail.com .
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