Guest post! The following was written by Dominic Leppla, current communications and mobilization officer at TRAC and PhD in Film Studies at Concordia.

Hello Concordia Film MA and PhD colleagues,

I am writing this guest post – a complement to the PhD GPD Masha Salazkina’s excellent Teaching Assistant tips – on behalf of your union TRAC (Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia).

As union local 12500 of Public Service Employees of Canada/Alliance de la Fonction publique du Canada (PSAC-AFPC), TRAC represents the over 1,400 TAs and RAs who work everyday to ensure Concordia functions smoothly as a place of learning, inspiration and yes even business.

We are a relatively new force on the scene and currently engaged in collective bargaining with our employer Concordia to ensure some much needed reforms happen. Here is a good summary of what happened last Spring when for the first time we turned out over 100 at our general assembly, from campus reporter Michael Wrobel: http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/4281

In the picture accompanying that piece you can just make out in the far left new TRAC President Adam Szymanski, who like yours truly is a Film Studies PhD student and dedicated member of the TRAC Executive. I think our colleagues would agree with me that we are extremely fortunate to have the GPD that we do, who also has your back on these things, but TRAC’s Exec is the place to go with any specific labor concerns or friendly questions that come up as you sign your contracts and begin the exciting but hard work as a teaching or research assistant employed at Concordia University.

Finally, here is our webpage, soon to be updated, and look for us on social media: join our Facebook Group , ‘like’ our public page , #ff on Twitter, and we’ll keep you in the know.

Thank you for reading, and here’s to a fabulous year!
Yours,

Dominic M. Leppla

TRAC Communications and Mobilization Officer
Film Studies Doctoral Student Association (FSDSA) of Concordia, President (outgoing)