Term Update - Aleksander Strazisar
Hello TMU Students,
I am Aleks, and I was elected VP Operations for the Students’ Union for this Winter term. I am writing this post to
provide transparency to the student body about the on-going operations of the organization as I have personally
experienced it. Despite my initial enthusiasm, I am sad to announce that I am unhappy with a number of things that
have been going on since I started my Winter term this December. Our Students’ Union has a lot of opportunities to
improve our university experience, and if these problems are resolved I believe it can do so.
I have come to believe that a number of staff members operate a clandestine network within the Students’ Union for
their own benefit and enrichment. I regularly witness staff come in late, take a long lunch, and leave early while
simple tasks are not being done. When trying to understand why tasks are not finished, I often hear serious
accusations brought up externally against management staff and student executives. Before these accusations
surface, I often witness multiple unionized-staff leave their offices and workstations to go and speak with one
another for hours at a time. These accusations and complaints have happened multiple times in the month and a half
I have been in office, and the Students’ Union spends a very large amount of its resources involved in defending
itself against malicious and defamatory complaints from staff. There are constant, albeit largely inaccurate, rumours
about the Students’ Union which could only be started from those with insider knowledge of the Union. I have
never dealt with a situation like this in my life. From my perspective, some staff attempt to maliciously prevent the
Student Union from being able to operate by sabotaging the ability of their managers and their part-time staff to
complete work through constant complaints and lack of guidance.
When investigating the nature of the hiring of these staff members, I discovered a startling fact. Almost all
unionized-staff members were hired by the 2021-22 Executive Team (Siddhanth Satish and his team). This is
important to note because these past Executives are currently being sued by the Students’ Union for defrauding the
Union for personal gain. In addition to this, Siddhanth signed several one-sided memorandums of understanding that
amended the Collective Agreement between unionized-staff and the Students’ Union to the severe detriment of the
organization and specifically the former President before leaving office.
These terms include, but are not limited to:
Three (3) week probation periods for management to see if an employee is doing a good job before
they become a unionized member with numerous protections against being terminated.
This short length does not allow management time to assess whether an employee is
competent before the Students’ Union has to take them on permanently.
This is also hindering the Union from hiring additional staff.
Right to work from home, even if the job cannot be done from home.
Some staff are essentially given a weekly paid “day off” as their job has no tangible tasks
that can be done from home.
Twelve (12) month period of notice before a layoff can occur, and a (24) month recall period where
that employee has a right to be prioritized for rehiring.
If an elected student representative wishes to make a change, they will likely graduate
before any changes can be made. Because this change has to last multiple terms of new
executives, this paralyses the ability for any change to be made whatsoever.
This leaves the Students’ Union with the obligation to pay staff whose roles are no longer
required or have substantially changed so that another role would fit the tasks better.
In my opinion these facts raise suspicion and potentially indicate a level of coordinated malice with the intent to
continue to earn full time salaries and benefits from the Students’ Union with little to no work. Many of these jobs
provide the students of this university with little to no benefit whatsoever, or are being so poorly done that students
aren’t able to maximize their benefits. This drains hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the fees which we
all pay. It is extraordinarily suspicious how the 2021-22 Executive team being sued for defrauding the Union
suddenly decided to hire many of these staff and offer them one-sided contracts through MOUs, despite having these
vacancies open for over a year previously.
In my experience at the Students’ Union I have been lied to on multiple occasions about basic work being
completed, and when following up, I find out that weeks have gone by without the simple tasks completed. I have
even had a staff member attempt to pressure me to give them money they were not eligible for, and when their
request was not approved; they began to launch baseless complaints about me and gossip to other staff for unrelated
reasons. There are many instances of obvious and blatant lying about basic workplace facts, but I cannot disclose
these due to an overbearing and far reaching confidentiality agreement included in the collective agreement.
This is highlighted by an email I have seen that was erroneously copied to management in mid 2023 which directed
members of the staff union to “bury them in grievances”. Grievances are written statements to management for
complaints about experiences in the workplace. The official grievance process requires an extremely lengthy series
of fact finding and meetings as written in the multi-step process outlined in the Collective Agreement. The arbitration,
which many grievances lead to, requires the Students’ Union to pay for 50% of an arbitrator and 100% of a Students’
Union lawyer. This expensive process also requires the direct supervisor to be heavily involved. In a team with only
two managers who are being “buried in grievances”, and staff who don’t care to do their job, it is nearly impossible to
get any work done for the students of this university.
My experience is that management is being strategically worn down by having to deal with bad-faith complaints. I
have had multiple priorities I wanted to do such as electronic reimbursements pushed aside because there is no room
left in the week for management to properly support my goals to address student needs. It is becoming more evident
to me that the labour relation processes of: Confidential investigations & arbitrations, workplace safety meetings,
meetings with the Ministry of Labour, and more are being weaponized to prevent management from actually
working on improving the student experience.
Many people have told me that the TMSU has the most toxic elections of any student organization across the
province, and this very well could be why. Perhaps most sinister, I have heard rumours of full time staff actively
and passively encouraging specific students at our university to run in the elections, and spreading malicious lies
about management and executives. This is an egregious breach of their duty to the Students’ Union if true, and
highlights the undue control and influence of a small group of staff members over the democratic student elections.
The reason I am writing this statement is because I believe previous executives have been too scared of this group
of individuals to speak out publicly about the full extent of what is going on, and I think it needs to stop now. I
believe that what happened to all previous executives in terms of “scandals” were orchestrated attempts by a
network of individuals to essentially steal money from students by maintaining “no-show jobs”.
In my view, these actions are exploitative and potentially criminal if they are truly coordinated as I suspect. I
believe that those with the power to do so should step in to ensure that a small group of badly motivated individuals
cannot continue to leech student funds indefinitely and sully the working reputations of legitimate labour unions.
Finally, I call on CUPE National, CUPE Ontario and various other CUPE branches to consider their continued and
extensive support of this staff union. Full time permanent staff should not be allowed to manipulate student leaders
on a one year mandate with weaponized complaints and ridiculous contracts to leech student funds. I hope members
of other CUPE chapters realize that their union dues are currently in part going to a small group of, in my opinion,
malicious actors who continuously bully and intimidate students.
I have attached below some key documents that may be useful to read through, including:
Best Regards,
Aleksander Strazisar
P.S. This statement is only on behalf of myself, and does not represnt the feelings of TMSU the organization, the executive committee or management, nor the board of directors.