[September 24, 2013]
Dear AMUSE members,
For those of you who were out of the city during the summer, welcome back! It is great to see everyone back on campus for another year. To those of you receiving the AMUSE Newsletter for the first time: the newsletter is sent out periodically, with the intention of updating our membership on events, information, and issues that are important to you as a casual worker at McGill.
With that, these are the happenings at AMUSE for this week:
Upcoming Board of Representatives Meeting
Upcoming Events with AMUSE
Resources Available on our Website
Have you heard about the AMUSE Discretionary Fund?
1. Upcoming Board of Representatives Meeting
Our next Board of Representatives meeting will be held on Friday, September 27th at 6:00 pm in our office at our office located at 2015 Drummond Street, room 901.
All members are welcome to attend as observers.
The Board of Representatives has 2 empty seats - if you are interested in joining the Board we encourage you to attend the meeting or contact us with any questions.
2. Upcoming Events with AMUSE
Drop In Information Session (1 Oct 2013 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM Students Society of McGill University, second floor, Madeleine Parent room 3600 rue McTavish)
What are my rights in my workplace?
What do I do if my hours are cut?
Am I supposed to have a written contract?
When am I supposed to be allowed to take break?
Am I supposed to be paid for statutory holidays?
What’s AMUSE?
What’s a union?
Answers to these questions and more at the Association of McGill University Support Employees Drop-In Information Session!
Stop in to have your questions answered, pick up informational materials, meet your unions representatives and co-workers, or just for a snack!
Coffee, tea, and snacks will be available.
This building is wheelchair accessible.
AMUSE & AMURE Open House & Library Launch (Thursday, 3 October 2013 16:00 - 19:00. 2015 Drummond Street)
To celebrate the launch of our small (but strong!) labour library we would like to invite all members of AMUSE and AMURE as well as interested community members to our office for an open house!
At AMUSE and AMURE we’ve been talking about keeping a few books around the office to educate and inspire the work that we do through our unions. From books that educate us in our day to day work here at McGill and in Montreal to the struggles of others in very different situations, we hope that our small collection of books will inform us in our lives.
Refreshments will be served. All are welcome!
Regretfully, our space is not wheelchair accessible at this time (due to steps from the street to the first floor of the building), however there are elevators inside from the first floor of the building.
The Association of Mcgill University Research Employees - AMURE is the Association of McGill University Research that covers casual research assistants, research assistants and research associates working at McGill. We signed our first collective agreement with McGill in April 2013.
The Association of McGill University Support Employees - AMUSE is a labour union that represents ‘casual’ or ‘temporary’ employees at McGill. This includes both students and non-students in part-time and full-time positions. In fact, around 35% of casual employees are non-students. In total, our approximately 1500-strong members make up about 55% of McGill’s non-academic employees.
3. Resources Available on our Website
In an effort to provide more information to our members regarding our rights as workers and services that may be available to us in the McGill and Greater Montreal communities, we have published information pamphlets on our AMUSE website.
We invite you to check-out our pamphlet on self-care by clicking here. If you have questions about your rights as a worker at McGill, our collective agreement, or the Quebec Labour Code, we have compiled a list of informative documents that we encourage you to have a look by clicking here. Of course, if you have any questions, you are always welcome to contact us!
4. Have you heard about the AMUSE Discretionary Fund?
The discretionary fund is a way for the union to maintain links of solidarity with the community and help to support external initiatives and projects. If you’re involved in organizing a project or event that involves issues of social justice, unionization, or anti-oppression or if you know someone who is, then you should check out the guidelines for application on our website. Additional resources we can offer include access to our board room for meetings, printing and photocopying in small quantities, and the use of our office phones or computers.
