The Peak's General Meeting Guide
Earl Tapia & Amanda McCuaig, Peak Staff
See the *FULL* PDF here
The “issue,” as it has come to be known, began Wednesday, July 26, 2006, when the SFSS Labour Committee sent seven staffpeople home on a week of unexpected paid leave. Staffpersons, members of CUPE 5396, were surprised to receive letters requesting they refrain from speaking to one another and asking them to turn over their office keys and passwords to their computers. On Friday of that week, CUPE 5396 met in Convo Mall to show solidary as long-time staffperson Hattie Aitken was brought in for questioning with SFSS President Shawn Hunsdale and a lawyer. The questioning period lasted nearly five hours and resulting in a firing the following week.
Controversy arose when a number of concerned students began to question the legitimacy of the process followed in order to fire Aitken. These students were comprised primarily of two groups — graduate students who worried that the personal information stored on the graduate health plan computer in the SFSS offices had been jeopardised when computers were searched, and past Board members who are familiar with the ways in which the Board is supposed to function.
In order to fire a staffperson, the employer — in this case the SFSS Board of Directors as a whole — must make the decision. However, the firing of Aitken was never brought to the Board, and several Board members did not find out about what was happening until they read about it in The Peak the following week.
The Labour Committee — composed of Shawn Hunsdale (president), Margo Dunnet (external relations officer), Vanessa Kelly (treasurer), Glyn Lewis (member services officer), and Marion Pollack (at-large representative) — have been challenged ever since regarding their justification for the firing and their choice to fire without consulting the Board.
A group now known as the Students for a Democratic University was formed, seeking what has become known as the “Group of Seven,” for impeachment. The seventh individual is Erica Halpern, an at-large representative who was grouped in due to not protesting the actions of the Labour Committee. All members of this group are from the “Common Sense” slate during the SFSS elections last spring, with the exception of the independent Halpern.
While members of the Group of Seven claim that Aitken’s offence was serious enough to warrant just cause for termination, the SDU feel this is not so, especially given Aitken’s work record with the SFSS. The SDU also feels the evidence presented by the Labour Committee justifying the decision is insufficient.
In order to fulfill their wish for impeachment, the SDU had to organise a Special General Meeting (SGM).
Early this September, the SDU collected 2,425 (roughly 9.8 per cent of the Student Society’s population) valid signatures to force President Hunsdale to call forth a Special General Meeting. However, the Board, under advice from their legal counsel Don Crane, has advised that, in accordance with the Society Act, signatures from 10 per cent of the Student Society’s population (ie. the SFU student body) are needed to compel the president to call such a meeting, while the SFSS’s own bylaws state that signatures from only 5 per cent are needed.
The Group of Seven had received complaints from students who had signed SDU’s petition, saying that the SDU had obtained their signature unfairly. The G7 then launched a campaign, speaking to students in classrooms, revealing certain details about the circumstances surrounding Aitken’s firing, and circulating their own counter-petitions for students who felt their signature was unfairly collected, and another in support of the Board.
On Wednesday, September 27, Forum — a sect of the SFSS with student representatives from each departmental student union — was held. Due to concern that Hunsdale would fail to call the SGM as required by the petition, Forum voted in favour of holding an SGM on October 25 in Convocation Mall. However, Member Services Officer Glyn Lewis had cancelled the Forum meeting the night before. Although the bylaws do not say whether or not he has the power to cancel Forum, executive members of the SFSS have chosen not to recognise the validity of the Forum meeting, and, subsequently do not recognise the SGM.
The 15 Directors of the Student Society are now in conflict, with members of Common Sense on one side and opposing Board members, such as Graduate At-Large Representative Ben Milne and Graduate Issues Officer Joel Block being on the other.
The Society Act requires soceties to hold an Annual General Meeting each year. The Board called this year’s AGM for the same time as the SGM.
The by-laws of the SFSS require a quorum (required number of people in attendance in order to make decisions) of 500 SFU students in good standing in order to pass any motions on the table. The AGM requires the same number of students in order to successfully trump or pass the motion to impeach the G7. Many are concerned that confusion between the two meetings will result in no quorum. Additionally, the SGM remains officially unrecognised by the SFSS and motions passed may require Forum to continue their fight to be recognised as a legimtiate body able to call an SGM.