Even with the minimum wage increase on October 1, young Ontario residents are hardly making enough money to cover their basic living expenses
On March 31, 2023, the Ontario government announced it would be increasing minimum wage by 6.8 per cent to $16.55 an hour on Oct. 1, 2023. The Ford government stated that this pay raise will help offset the rising costs of living for nearly one million low-income workers. On the official Ontario government website Monte McNaughton, the former minister of labour in Ontario, declared the wage increase was a fair and balanced approach that would lead to building a stronger province for all residents.
But $16.55 an hour is still far away from truly being a fair wage.
A minimum wage is the lowest rate an employer is legally required to pay their employees. In Canada, minimum wage policy was created to protect workers from exploitation. However, minimum wage employees still face workplace mistreatment. Low-income workers are the most vulnerable to wage theft. They aren't paid for overtime work, are expected to do more work for less pay, and are not given their legally mandated meal breaks.
In 2018, 52.3 per cent of minimum wage workers were between the ages of 15 and 24 years old, making young Canadians the largest demographic at risk of minimum wage exploitation. In addition, young workers may not be aware of their rights as an employee, meaning they can be easily taken advantage of.
In my own experience working minimum wage jobs, I faced significant mistreatment. While working as a shift manager at McDonald's, I was rarely paid for my overtime work and I was never given medical benefits, despite being a full-time employee. I was also expected to pick up the slack for other employees and give up my breaks to help support staff during peak business hours. Yet I never received a raise for my additional work. I ultimately quit because I felt so unvalued by the company.
Other young Canadian workers are experiencing similar disparagement in their work environments.
Minimum wage tends to be the lowest number the government can get away with while still maintaining positive public perception. Even with the recent increase, working a minimum wage job can mean being condemned into poverty because these boosts fail to reflect the rising costs of living.
Even with the recent increase, working a minimum wage job can mean being condemned into poverty. Boosts in minimum wage fail to account for inflation. Minimum wage tends to be based upon the lowest number the government can get away with while still maintaining positive public perception.
As Ontario continues to grapple with inflation, it is also experiencing a housing crisis and growing food insecurity. Minimum wage doesn't allow people to live comfortably. Young Canadians are struggling to picture their futures as half are living paycheque-to-paycheque. And workers that insist on higher pay are often labelled as difficult, have their hours reduced or are fired. Similarly, increases in minimum wage are also linked to decreases in healthcare insurance offered by employers.
In contrast to minimum wage, a living wage is the hourly rate an employee must be paid, before taxes, to cover their basic living expenses. The Ontario Living Wage Network calculates living wages by taking into consideration the current costs of food, services, shelter, transportation, internet and cellphone plans among other expenses.
Living wages look like having your basic needs met consistently, while having money left over for other things meaningful to you. It means being able to eat nutritious food everyday, having access to services such as healthcare and being able to afford housing with the necessary amenities.
Living wages look like having your basic needs met consistently, while having money left over for other things meaningful to you. It means being able to eat nutritious food everyday, having access to services such as healthcare and being able to afford housing with the necessary amenities.
Living wages varies by region across Ontario. The OLWN determined that residents of the GTA should be paid $25.05 an hour and residents of Hamilton $20.80 an hour. Evidently, $16.55 an hour is far from being a living wage.
Employers have a corporate responsibility to protect their employees by providing them with the funds for affording a comfortable standard of living. To live without the constraints of poverty is a basic human right that must be respected.
The future doesn't need to be as unliveable as it seems. It is possible for more employers to start paying living wages. The OLWN certifies employers who provide living wages and publicly recognizes these businesses. Businesses that want to ensure their employees are able to live comfortably should look to their leading counterparts for guidance.
Introducing a living wage can provide businesses with many valuable benefits. When workers are paid well, businesses can become more profitable and sustainable. Living wages are a win-win for both employers and employees. Some companies are putting in the work, but our provincial government still has a long way to go if it truly wants to build a better, stronger province.
Most students in paid MSU positions have volunteered for the MSU in the past
C/O Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash
Every year around February and March, the McMaster Students Union begins hiring for paid student positions. Whether it’s being a part-time director for an MSU service, a research assistant for MSU Advocacy or working for the Silhouette, there are many ways to get involved and actually be paid for your work.
In addition, the MSU highlights that prior employment or volunteer experience within the MSU is not required to apply for these positions. While that may be true, the odds of actually landing a position in the MSU without prior volunteer experience are very unlikely.
But if they’re saying you can apply without prior experience in the MSU, why would they not also hire students who don’t have prior experience? I’m not saying it’s impossible to be hired for a paid role, I’m just saying it’s not likely you will be hired for a paid role.
Why is that? Because in the four years I’ve been at McMaster University, most people I know who have been hired for paid roles had previous volunteer experience within the MSU.
Because in the four years I’ve been at McMaster University, most people I know who have been hired for paid roles had previous volunteer experience within the MSU.
Let’s highlight the part-time director positions first, shall we? Director positions are student positions that manage an MSU service. For example, services such as the Women and Gender Equity Network, Spark, the Student Health Education Centre, Diversity Services and Maccess all have a director.
Currently, all of these directors used to be volunteer executives for their respective services. Volunteer executives have to commit a large amount of time to the service — around 5-10 hours a week — typically for a whole year. If we open it up even further, most part-time directors have at least been a general volunteer for their service or the MSU as a whole.
Evidently, most directors have volunteered for the MSU in the past. This can make sense in many ways, as they are managing a whole service and obviously need to be qualified to do this — so volunteering is an asset, right? But what about paid positions that don’t involve directing a whole service?
Even for non-managerial roles, students who are hired for paid roles often have volunteer experience beforehand. I can speak on behalf of the Sil — as the Opinions Editor for the past two years, I volunteered for the Sil the year before I got hired.
At the Sil, previous experience is considered an asset. You don’t need to have previous experience to be hired, of course, but you’re much more likely to have a step-up in being hired if you can say you’ve written an article or two for the Sil in the past.
I can’t speak on behalf of the other paid roles in the MSU, but I can tell you that almost all my friends that have been hired for a paid role in the MSU have volunteered for the MSU at some point in their undergraduate career.
So what’s the problem? The problem is: what about the people who can’t afford to volunteer? Students may find themselves in a financially unstable situation where the only option they have is to find a job — volunteering simply doesn’t make sense because it won’t help them pay for their groceries or rent.
As a result, because they are not volunteering for the MSU, they are less likely to land a paid role in the MSU. This makes a lot of paid roles in the MSU financially inaccessible for students if they are unable to volunteer. They may be spectacular at the role they’re applying for, but they may not be hired because they don’t have previous experience with the MSU.
So what’s the problem? The problem is: what about the people who can’t afford to volunteer?
The fact that “you can apply regardless of MSU experience” is misleading — you can apply, but if you do have volunteer experience, you are more likely to be hired. It’s okay if volunteering helps you get a step up in being hired, but the MSU should start making that more clear.
By relying on students to work overtime in their MSU roles, low-income students are being barred from MSU jobs
The McMaster Students Union provides over 300 part-time job opportunities for full-time undergraduate students. For many students, MSU jobs can be incredibly convenient as you don’t need to travel far — either you can do your job from home or complete your shift on campus.
Additionally, MSU jobs can also be up your alley if it relates to something you’re passionate about. Whether it’s running a first-year mentorship program, editing for the student newspaper or running a food bank — there is plenty of space for you to pursue your interests.
However, it’s important to note that many of these jobs are contract jobs. While you can get a part-time job at Union Market or TwelvEighty Bar & Grill where you work on an hourly basis, a lot of MSU jobs state a range of hours in its contract. For example, the Student Health Education Centre Coordinator’s job contract says that they will work 10-12 hours a week, whereas the Women and Gender Equity Network Coordinator works 14-16 hours a week. However, despite what the contract says, many student employees find themselves working overtime — for free.
Students overworking their contracted hours are especially noticeable within the peer support services. For example, the Student Health Education Centre coordinator wrote in their Oct. 8 Executive Board report that they work 25-40 hours a week instead of their contracted 10-12. They then explained in their Nov. 5 report that although they have been logging their hours, they will not gain approval for many of them because then they would be considered a full-time employee.
The Pride Community Centre, Women and Gender Equity Network and Maccess coordinators also wrote similar concerns in their reports. All of the coordinators highlighted the issue of having to pre-approve overtime hours with the vice-president (administration) that may not even be approved. This is difficult to do, considering that many tasks and meetings pop up that are hard to anticipate in advance.
Students overworking their contracted hours is especially noticeable within the peer support services. For example, the Student Health Education Centre coordinator wrote in their Oct. 8 Executive Board report that they work 25-40 hours a week instead of their contracted 10-12.
Many of these part-time managers are then left to decide whether to fulfill tasks of their role adequately and work overtime or work their hours but not complete the tasks they need to do in their role.
The Maccess, SHEC and PCC coordinators have also highlighted that they are the only paid staff members of their service, so when a volunteer executive cannot complete their work, they often have to take over the role. The reports highlight that volunteer executives often work well above their hours in addition to being unpaid, so it seems unfair to task them with even more work than they currently do. As a result, the extra hours of work fall onto the paid part-time manager.
This is a systemic issue within the MSU. By forcing undergraduate students to overwork their contracted hours, we are telling students that to do a good job at your role, you have to work over your expected hours. That you have to do unpaid work to be a good MSU employee. Because of this implied expectation, low-income students are often barred from MSU jobs.
You can even take the Silhouette as an example. The Sil’s section editors, like myself, are paid for 10-12 hours per week. But oftentimes, we work a lot longer than that. Last year when I and a few other editors logged our hours, we worked upwards of 15-20 hours per week on average. This is because in a week, we have to attend three to four meetings, find contributors to write for our section, write our own articles, edit anywhere from three to six articles, correspond with contributors, provide our contributors feedback and layout two articles. Sometimes, issues or complaints can pop up as well that we have to deal with.
Our workload is often impossible to complete within 12 hours — 12 hours per week is less than two hours of work each day! If we don’t do extra hours, though, we simply wouldn’t be able to publish the amount of content we do currently. The same goes for many other roles in the MSU — if you don’t work extra, you likely won’t finish the tasks you need to do for that week. But because we do so much extra work, low-income students are less likely to hold these jobs because they can probably find a job that doesn’t overwork them. As a result, students who are okay with doing a little bit extra for their job are the ones who end up in these MSU roles.
Our workload is often impossible to complete within 12 hours — 12 hours per week is less than two hours of work each day! If we don’t do extra hours, though, we simply wouldn’t be able to publish the amount of content we do currently.
If only privileged students can afford to be part of the MSU, there is an inherent lack of representation in the MSU — the student union that is supposed to represent all undergraduate students. The MSU relies on our ability to “put in the extra work” and if you aren’t able to do that, they’ll find someone else to hire.
What’s worse is to be a competitive applicant for an MSU job, you often have to volunteer and do a lot of unpaid labour to appear more qualified. For many paid positions in the MSU, it is an asset to have volunteered or contributed to that service in the past. With the Sil specifically, it is an asset to have written or volunteered with the Silhouette if you want to be considered for a paid role because it shows that you have an understanding and passion for the Silhouette.
However, because volunteering is looked highly upon when applying for a paid role, people who have the ability to spend time volunteering — instead of working — have an upper hand in the job application process.
It’s clear that this is a systemic problem within the MSU. The MSU is something that should serve all of us. I’m lucky enough to be able to hold a paid role in the MSU, but I still find that time after time, the MSU has harmed me and many others because the “higher-ups” tend to be upper-class, privileged, white and overall, out of tune with the rest of the student body.
Student job applicants need to be vetted more to prevent harm within our communities
CW: sexual violence, racism
As a student, there are many ways you can get involved at McMaster University. Whether it’s becoming a representative for Welcome Week, being a mentor for McMaster’s many mentorship programs, volunteering for the Student Wellness Centre or getting involved with the McMaster Students Union — there are plenty of opportunities for everyone. Some positions are paid as well — for example, a few part-time paid roles that students can apply for are the Archway mentor position where you mentor around 40 first year students, and a Residence Orientation Assistant, which manages a team of Residence Orientation Representatives throughout the school year.
Notably, a number of student jobs involve interacting with other students or prospective students, whether it is providing support to certain individuals or helping first-year students transition into university. Thus, it is important that individuals in these positions are properly trained for situations that may arise, such as sexual violence disclosures and situations surrounding discrimination. However, I believe that individuals entering these paid positions should also have some form of background check during the application process to make sure that they can respond to serious issues properly.
While training for paid positions is often provided surrounding these topics, the training can come in the form of a short Mosaic quiz or a two-hour workshop done by the Equity and Inclusion Office on responding to sexual violence disclosures. As someone who has completed many pieces of training on sexual violence, bystander intervention and anti-oppressive practices, I believe that training is often not enough to aid individuals in responding to disclosures if they’ve never done so in the past. If a student has responded to a disclosure in a harmful way in the past, I am doubtful that training will be able to equip these students adequately so that they do not cause harm again. As a result, they may intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to the people they interact with.
If a student has responded to a disclosure in a harmful way in the past, I am doubtful that training will be able to equip these students adequately so that they do not cause harm again. As a result, they may intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to the people they interact with.
Currently, many student jobs are heavily involved with the student body, such as McMaster Students Union part-time managers, Archway mentors or ROAs. However, in applications for these positions, there is little to no focus on how applicants have responded or would respond to serious incidents unless the job directly entails responding to disclosures, such as being a part-time manager of a peer support service. Many positions that my friends and I have applied for often focus on what relevant experience you have for a job or what ideas you want to bring to the role. Unfortunately, questions that focus on responding to incidents of violence are far and few between. It is especially vital that students in these positions know how to deal with difficult situations so that they do not cause harm to others.
As comprehensive as training can be, you can’t always train individuals to change their beliefs. By performing some form of background or reference check on applicants, you can vet whether they would be able to respond to harmful incidents well. Jobs outside of university that involve providing care, minors or vulnerable people require vulnerable sector checks. If certain student jobs involve support, students that are minors or people in vulnerable situations, it only makes sense that this standard is applied to students as well.
Checking to see how students have responded to incidents regarding harassment, sexual violence or discrimination in the past is important because it can be a good indicator of how they will respond to these things in the future. Whether you check their history by seeing if they have a negative record with McMaster or ask their co-workers or past bosses, this is something that should be done more frequently. Sure, training may be able to alter someone’s behaviour to some extent, but it is unlikely to completely reform someone from a few hours of training.
Checking to see how students have responded to incidents regarding harassment, sexual violence or discrimination in the past is important because it can be a good indicator of how they will respond to these things in the future.
In addition, many student job interviews lack questions where one can ask the applicant about issues such as sexual violence or racism to highlight any red flags. Even if the job is not directly related to dealing with discrimination or sexual violence, these situations can come up regardless, so it is important to make sure that people can respond appropriately.
Although student jobs are often part-time and temporary, they can still have a big impact on our community. That’s why it’s important to make sure that students in paid positions are adequately prepared to respond to any situation that may come up so that they don’t respond to an issue in a way that harms someone else.
I never actually applied to be the Arts and Culture Reporter, I got here mostly by accident. I applied to a few other positions on staff, but when I got a phone call from our Editor-in-Chief on a windy summer day to offer me a job, it was for A&C Reporter. I didn’t even know it was a paid position for another month.
McMaster isn’t my first school, I went to Western for two and a half years before coming here. In my first year at Mac I didn’t know very much about the school, and to be honest I still don’t know where Thode is — and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. But the Silhouette gave me a home on campus (our little office in the dungeons of the MUSC basement, untouched by natural light), and a group of friends that I didn’t have before. It made me feel like I was a part of a family, and a part of campus.
As Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
One of the best parts of working at the Silhouette is being able to give a platform to community events and organizations that matter to me. I’ve had the privilege to write about sustainable fashion, body positivity, local businesses and charitable organizations in addition to exciting arts initiatives. I was gone from Hamilton for a few years, and the Sil helped me to see my hometown in a fresh light. My magnum opus is my article on a local meme page The Hammer Memer. Don’t let your memes be dreams, folks. If there’s something happening in the arts community in Hamilton, don’t hesitate to contribute something to the Sil. It’s worth it.
I’ve also had the opportunity to write for other sections of the Silhouette. Being able to give voice to my thoughts about the Yellow Vests outside of City Hall was something vitally important to me, and the Sil let me do that. If I hadn’t been a part of the team I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to submit something, but I’m so glad I did.
As I sit at my desk at home, I feel a deep sense of loss. This is my final year at Mac, and I don’t think I’ve entirely processed that it’s over now. I can’t chill on the couches in the office and ask Hannah when the desks for the reporters are going to be built (spoiler alert folks: it didn’t happen). I can’t warm up my lunch in the microwave that can’t be used at the same time as the kettle without blowing a fuse. I can’t chat with my friends about the latest tea while munching on the chicken strips from La Piazza. It feels like just as I was settling in — everything ended.
In grade 12 English I read the book Stone Angel, which ends mid-way through a sentence. That’s how these past few weeks have felt for me; like an unfinished ending. It’s unsettling and unsatisfying, and I think we’re all feeling that way. Zoom calls are fine, but they’re not the same as sitting in your final few lectures and talking to your friends over coffee.
It feels wrong to mourn for this when there are people who have it much worse than me right now, but undergrad has been a long and complicated process for me, and I can’t help but feel sad that our end of year festivities have been postponed or cancelled. This is it, this is our last issue for the year, and we can’t have a last hurrah. Oh jeez, I’m crying a bit just thinking about it.
So here it is, my love letter to the Sil. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for this wild ride. Maybe this isn’t an ending, but a beginning. At least I can use the Oxford Comma again, thank the lord. Thank you to everyone on the team for being so kind, and thank you to everyone reading this for getting through to the end of my sentimental ramble. This isn’t a goodbye, just an until next time.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
[spacer height="20px"]A few weeks ago, the provincial government froze the minimum wage at $14 per hour and cut the planned increase to $15 per hour that was planned for January 2019. With this cut, many businesses, but not all, have decided to forgo the planned increase they had set up for employees. The McMaster Students Union should not be one of them.
Studies have shown that the actual living wage in Hamilton is $15.85. The cost of tuition ranges, but the majority of programs at McMaster are roughly $7000, with some programs slightly below that figure, and many significantly above, going as high as $13,829. There’s no collected data on the average rent McMaster students pay, but anecdotal evidence points to most students living in off-campus housing paying somewhere around $500 per month, not including utilities. Some students pay less and others pay more.
With this in mind, working during your undergraduate degree is inevitable for a lot of people. Whether it’s a retail job or a paid internship, many students find themselves working two to three jobs at a time just to pay all of their fees. I can personally think of a handful of friends and acquaintances who juggled three jobs just to pay for rent and school.
The MSU employs 300 students, and the jobs they offer are unique to the university bubble. They offer the kind of experience many people would not receive otherwise and are often set up with the student schedule in mind, making them ideal for anyone who wants to work on campus. The MSU’s minimum wage for these jobs is currently $14.15.
It’s no secret that students are struggling to pay tuition and the rising costs of rent. One of the easiest ways to support these students is to go ahead with the wage increase, something that had already been worked into the 2018-2019 budget.
The MSU has a lot of initiatives that support low-in- come students such as the Food Collective Centre, but one of the easiest ways they could vastly improve the livelihood of hundreds of McMaster students is by raising the wages for their workers. The MSU is run almost entirely off of student labour, so it would only make sense that these students are compensated appropriately.
If the MSU really wants to support low-income students, they could easily do so by making sure that their workers are compensated appropriately. In doing so, they set a standard not only for other student unions but for any future employers students may have.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
By: Moleen Makumborenga
No one gets a student job thinking they will eventually start to feel unsafe or uncomfortable at work. I do not believe McMaster University thinks that student jobs can be precarious. This would explain why I found myself unprotected and unsupported when my supervisor who works for a research organization on campus tried to illegally demote me in order for my current wage to match a job title and description that was unlike the tasks I completed.
The situation arose from the implementation of Bill 148 also known as the “Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act”. In order for the university and my organization to be compliant with the law that came into effect April 1, 2018, I had to sign a new contract that assigned my work to the new classification model created by McMaster University.
As with any immigrant and international student, my first concern was how this would affect my permanent residence application. To those not familiar with the PR application process, it works on a point system whereby you are awarded more points based on the type of job experience you have. The more specialized your role, the better your chances of earning an invitation to apply for your PR status.
My first concern was about how the last year in this position would essentially be a waste of time as the job title and description they were suggesting I should sign on to was classified as administration work, which is something Immigration Canada does not value.
When I was hired, I had signed a contract that stipulated that I would be the student Digital Communication Specialist. I was intent on taking on the position not only because it matched my experience, but because it would also help with my PR application.
After careful consideration about what my supervisor and the faculty director were suggesting, it was pretty clear these people were misaligning my work in order to keep paying me at the current wage rate. There was no attempt on their part to find a position on the McMaster employment directory that matched my current position or upheld the contract I had signed, which was still in effect.
In a meeting with managers, I brought emails that documented projects I had completed on behalf of the organization, which in their numbers and level of technicality were clearly not administrative projects. Upon this evidence, my supervisor then tried to pass off to the director that she had made a mistake and had not looked at the employment directory carefully, and she realized that perhaps she might have made a minor mistake.
Now this so called “minor mistake” had led me to two nights of sleeplessness because without my PR, I cannot afford to go graduate school. It had caused my family to panic because they had to consider the possibility of helping pay $30,000 for my grad program and undergoing the financially invasive student visa application process to extend my current status.
This worry piled onto the fact that I am in my final year, and only two weeks out from exams and needing to complete all my major final grade influencing, graduate-school gatekeeping courses. One of the moments I remember so vividly in the meeting was when my supervisor said to me in a tone so sarcastic and condescending, “Sorry I stressed you out for those two days.”
And in that moment it became clearer to me, if it had never been in my last six years in Canada, that I am a black woman navigating white privilege waters, and my God, I am drowning. I understood what it is to hold onto your pain in fear of being labelled an angry black woman even when you have a legitimate reason to feel this way. I was reminded I am a black woman and these people will never be conscious of themselves in the way that I am.
And I am not saying my manager and the director are racist, but I am saying they lack a sensitivity and introspection that would make it obvious to anyone of colour that we are faced with varied challenges in life. You telling me a Zimbabwean girl, coming from one of the worst economies in the world, that you are demoting me is not the same thing as telling someone born and raised with a better financial background.
This notion that my manager did not carefully review all the job descriptions and titles is incorrect because meeting notes from almost two months prior show that she knew exactly what the correct correspondence for my current job would be in the incoming job directory. In the meeting, these women belittled me by insinuating that I did not understand the legislative process when repeatedly I said I understood the legal requirements they were trying to meet. They were still misaligning my work with the position they wanted me to sign onto.
I reported the situation to International Students Services, and the head officer directed me to another office who directed me to another office, then another one because no one thought the situation was theirs to handle. It is upsetting to know that as international students we pour so much money into Canadian institutions. Not providing us with people to help us in times of need shows that they see us as cash cows.
The human rights officer said that my supervisor and I have a right to differing opinion on what my job description should be under the new law. And to that I wonder, but did my supervisor not have an obligation to refer to my previously signed contract when suggesting the new position?
The only office that took the situation seriously and saw how this was not just a minor mistake, but potentially gross misconduct was the Ombuds office. They told me if HR does not fix this, she would have to refer the situation to the Ministry of Labour.
Over 40 per cent of jobs in Canada are classified by Statistics Canada as precarious work, and immigrants are more likely than Canadian born workers to be in precarious work. We are talking about the institutionalization of disadvantageous working conditions for racialized minorities.
Whilst this issue is the main reason I brought attention to my unsuitable work environment, this job had historically made me feel uncomfortable. It was only last year my fellow colleagues, white health science students, made jokes about including me in the digital media for the organization because it was clear that they had a “diversity problem”.
One of the jarring lessons from my experience is that white people are the gatekeepers of what constitutes as pain or a problem. That you can tell someone you are uncomfortable and being unfairly treated and it can be ignored because people cannot relate to your racialized experience felt like I was drowning.
So I am speaking up now because I was not sure about the nuances of precarious work then and I was not sure about how my voice would be treated. I think it is time we really look at this problem on our campus and do something.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
There are a number of full-time positions open to graduating students that the McMaster Students Union employs each year. Each one for the 2018-2019 academic year are currently up on the MSU website or will be in the coming days and weeks. These range pretty drastically in the responsibilities outlined and the skillsets needed for each considering the services they are attached to, e.g., the Silhouette, CFMU, Campus Events and the Underground.
While I would encourage anyone reading this to apply if interested, I would reapply to be Editor-in-Chief myself if returning staff were allowed to during the first hiring efforts, there are a few things you need to know.
The first is that the mandated 35 hours of training before the commencement of your employment will likely be untracked and not actually reach 35 hours. While it is convenient that there is no punch card system or anything similar over the course of the regular year, it will mostly be up to you to make sure the union and its hierarchy are held responsible for training you in the job they hired you for.
This may get a bit messy on paper. Despite it not being included in the job description that training a successor will be necessary, each Editor-in-Chief has been trained by the previous one.
This will likely not be too much of a worry given the presence of supervisory and management staff for most places also running a Student Opportunity Position. It is still worth asking about in the initial interview to make sure they have a solid training process in place.
The second is that your job description is likely outdated. Mine mentions supervising 14 staff members while we have 19. It also lists the need for knowledge in PageMaker and WordPerfect despite the fact the former’s last release was in 2004 and the latter was overtaken by Microsoft Word in the late 1990s. It also references “Assistant Editors”, which is a classification that no longer exists.
While everything is roughly correct in terms of general themes, you should talk to whoever is currently in the role to get the best idea of what their job actually entails.
The third involves some oddities with the full-time employment policy. Out of those in Student Opportunity Positions that I have talked to, no one has received a formal performance review as stated in the document. The mid-year review was supposed to take place in November.
This also overlaps with the fact that all employees start off on a six-month probationary period for the supervisor to assess their suitability to the position. If successful, they become a regular employee of the MSU. I have yet to be formerly told if I am a regular employee or if I am still on that initial probation.
There are a lot of things the MSU meticulously follows when it comes to the policy, especially when it comes to anything leave or financials related, but performance feedback is not one of them for Student Opportunity Positions.
Though there are only a few positions like this available, the union’s number of full-time employees is small enough that helping a few out would go a long way in effectively using student levies. Better training, clearer job descriptions and performance feedback are all things that need improvement or more formalized systems.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
Being employed with the McMaster Students Union can not only make you a little bit of pocket money to pay for your expensive food spending on campus, but it can also benefit you in your future.
Aside from it being another work experience you can put on your resume, MSU employment allows you to discover a new part of campus in greater depth, whether it be the ins and outs of Union Market or how student-run organizations like Women Gender and Equity Network are able to operate for students.
The opportunity encourages you to get involved in the student related parts of campus that you may not have been able to discover before, and opens doors to other jobs on campus after you have already been employed on campus.
For students who are interested in campus politics or who are already involved in student politics at McMaster, the experiences you take from this opportunity are ones that can help you outside of Mac as well.
You can connect with people through your MSU position who you may not have had the confidence to connect with before. Take Chukky Ibe and his sweet selfie with Justin Trudeau for example.
Being the MSU president has likely played a role in his life and allowed for him to experience things that he may not have been able to before.
We all know the importance of making connections and networking in the working world.
A campus job can hep you do that by meeting other people on campus who may have a foot in a workplace that you may be considering for your future career.
Who knows, while you’re working at TwelvEighty one night you may get into a conversation with one of the professors you were considering as a reference for grad school.
Personally, my position has allowed me to meet with McMaster students from different backgrounds who I may not have been able to connect with otherwise and understand their different perspectives on McMaster related issues.
It also became a motivation for me to become more involved with student politics, especially now with MSU presidential elections. Before my involvement with the Silhouette, I wouldn’t have been as interested in becoming as involved as I am now.
The opportunity encourages you to get involved in the student related parts of campus that you may not have been able to discover before, and opens doors to other jobs on campus after you have been employed on campus.
Especially for first years who may feel that university life is one that seems all too independent and may feel a little lonely, finding a job on campus can help with meeting other students that most likely feel the same, while making some money to pay for those late-night study snacks in exam season.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not all exciting and fun. I’m just looking at how McMaster can benefit you. Like most part-time student jobs, yes, there is added stress, and the never-ending feeling that there is never enough time to do everything.
But at least you can go through all that with the word “McMaster” in your MSU job that you can flaunt to people. And who knows, those peoples might just be the strangers that end up funding your future post-grad future career one day.
Finding part-time employment that works around your student schedule can be difficult, so it’s worth it to make yourself aware of all the options you have for employment.
Many may not know that there are options for those of you who are not TAs but are still looking for work on campus, but there is. And it doesn’t look bad on your resume either.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
