On January 20th, an email was sent out to the UW Employees contact list by Vivek Goel, President and Vice-Chancellor, and James W. E. Rush, Vice-President, Academic and Provost, to provide employees the chance to give feedback on the February return to campus plan. In text, the email was addressed to the UW Community. Didn't get that email as a graduate student worker (i.e., TA or RA)? Guess you aren’t considered a UW Employee.
Campus organizations continue to pass resolutions to endorse the grassroots campaign to unionize graduate student and sessional workers at the University of Waterloo. Read on to learn more about who has supported us and how we're teaming up to spread the word across campus!
OrganizeUW is concerned that international doctoral students are facing significant and unexpected reductions to their funding packages in their fourth year due to fine print, unclear offer letters, and apparent departmental funding shortfalls.
OrganizeUW is concerned that the uWaterloo administration is not communicating relevant health and safety information to graduate student workers and sessional instructors.
Sara, a student organizer, was recently interviewed by Ariel Deutschmann from KitchenerToday.com, for her article ["Graduate students from UW plan to unionize"](https://www.kitchenertoday.com/local-news/graduate-students-from-uw-plan-to-unionize-2693305). They chatted about digital organizing during a pandemic, our goal to improve working and learning conditions at UW, and how unionization works. This blog post not only includes some snippets from the full KT article, but also has the latest updates from the drive, some thoughts on being an organizer, and a preview of what's to come in the Fall semester.
Our campaign was covered yesterday in The Record! In it, Sophia, a student organizer, is interviewed by reporter Leah Gerber on why she joined the campaign, what we hope to achieve, and why now is the right time to unionize. Here are a few highlights, and be sure to check out the [whole article](https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2020/08/14/uw-graduate-workers-launch-campaign-to-unionize.html?utm_source=facebook&source=waterloo%20region%20record&utm_medium=SocialMedia&utm_campaign=&utm_campaign_id=&utm_content=)!
Late last month we told you about an important vote coming up on July 24th at the UW-GSA Council. Well, the results are in! Council voted in favour of the GSA supporting student-led unionization efforts. Read on to find out more!
Our campaign was featured recently in a news article in Imprint by Nicola Rose. It discusses an upcoming vote at the GSA (including how to contact your Councillor!), a response from UW administration, and more. Here are a few highlights, and be sure to check out the [full article](http://uwimprint.ca/article/union-efforts-by-uw-grad-students-face-first-vote/)!
Organize uWaterloo says thank you to Local 902 of PSAC, who represent graduate TAs at WLU, for your show of solidarity - you helped inspire us!