Last Wednesday the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board tabulated your votes, and 96.2% of you declared your support of forming a union! That is an amazing declaration of solidarity! Months of hard work have paid off and now graduate student workers at the University of Saskatchewan are unionized – congratulations!

We know many of you have been wondering why it has taken so long to hear the results, so here is a run-down of what’s been happening:

On March 19th we filed a request with the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board to form a union of graduate student workers at the UofS. After filing, the employer had 10 business days to respond.

On March 23rd the Board declared the vote would happen that Friday.

March 27th – Vote Day!!

April 2nd was the deadline for the employer to contest after the filing date.

On April 16th both the employer and the union sat down with their respective legal representatives and came to an agreement regarding the list of eligible voters.

The next day, April 17th, the Labour Relations Board announced a date for the tabulation of votes.

On April 22nd the votes were counted in the presence of scrutineers from both the employer and the union. The employer accepted the results of the vote without contestation.

Our union was certified with 96.2% of the vote — that is a massive victory!! Thank you so much to all of you who came out to vote, who helped spread the word, and who volunteered their time. We could not have done this without you.

What Happens Now?

Our union has been certified, but there is still a lot of work to do. In the coming weeks we will be contacting graduate student workers with more details about what still needs to be done and asking for input regarding bargaining priorities and how we want our union to work.

If you are interested in coming to a planning meeting, please let us know! Email usask.age@gmail.com, contact us through this website, or send us a message on facebook.

Watch this site for future developments!

(Oh, and here’s what the PSAC Prairie Region website has to say on our success: http://prairies.psac.com/academic-workers-university-saskatchewan-join-psac)