visit qjlongform.com
for extended coverage and multimedia content
the
Queen’s University
journal
Vol. 144, Issue 27
F r i day , M a r c h 3 1 , 2 0 1 7
since
1873
LWT’s final Assembly drags on in debate over Student Activity Fee Policy
PHOTO BY VICTORIA GIBSON
AMS President Tyler Lively and VP (Operations) Dave Walker address Wednesday’s Assembly meeting.
Extensive amendments made to motion regarding student activity fees before Assembly approval Maureen O’Reilly Assistant News Editor In the last Assembly for this year’s AMS executives, Tyler Lively, president, and Dave Walker, vice-president (Operations), faced accusations of being “out of touch” with students, after proposing a motion regarding changes to the Student Activity Fee Policy. Wednesday’s meeting, the last of 2016-17 AMS Assembly gatherings, mainly comprised of a nearly three-hour long discussion — requiring several votes to extend the grueling conversation — on a single motion. The motion proposed that Assembly
approve a revised Student Activity Fee Policy, presented by Lively and Walker. Changes in the policy included rendering clubs engaged in “partisan political activity“ or whose primary purpose is lobbying ineligible for student fees, and requiring clubs to pass a two-thirds majority in referendum in order to ratify their student fee. Introducing the proposed policy change, Lively said the goal was to hold clubs accountable for how they utilize their levied student fees, and to reduce the current slate of student fees by eliminating clubs who use theirs irresponsibly. As it stands, the AMS currently levies 114 student fees, while most other Canadian universities fund their groups solely through grants. According to Walker, $35,000 in fees were never collected by clubs this year, and were reallocated to the AMS Membership Bursary Fund, as dictated by AMS policy. “I’m not necessarily okay with [uncollected fees] being in excess of what See We on page 3
Research assistants join PSAC Local 901 Unionisation wins majority vote as ballot box is opened after two years Morgan Dodson Assistant News Editor After two years of campaigning for unionisation and attending hearings to prove their job status, research assistants at Queen’s have won the right to unionise effective Feb. 16, 2017. Approximately 600 research assistants voted on union certification two years ago — on April 30, 2014 — however until the Labour Relations Board deemed them
eligible to join the union, the ballot box remained sealed. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Local 901 President Craig Berggold explained that the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) viewed those who voted as students, not research assistants. “The union was asked to provide proof that the people who voted do work,” Berggold said. Over the two years, research assistants were asked to make statements to the OLRB describing their work. “At the end of the process the Labour Relations Board said ‘sounds like work to us’ as defined by the provincial law, therefore we can count the ballots. They opened up the box, we won the vote,” Berggold said.
See Unionisation on page 5
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Sports
Gaels’ striker returning to form after years of knee troubles page 10
Features
Editorials
Arts
page 6
page 7
page 8
Frats: why Queen’s hasn’t made the pledge Online:
queensjournal.ca
@queensjournal
Door-to-door check-ins a small step to combat a larger problem
facebook.com/queensjournal
Reviewing the drunken tradition of Queen’s Players
instagram.com/queensjournal
qjlongform.com
Postscript
What I’ll miss at Queen’s
page 15