Hello! My name is Tal Isaacson. I ask you to consider me for the position of Grievance Officer.
This past year I was part of the Bargaining Committee that successfully negotiated and drafted our new Collective Agreement. I know our new Collective Agreement inside-out, as well as all the possible nuances and interpretations of language. This knowledge and experience is important for anyone in the position of dealing with grievances that arise from the new Collective Agreement. I feel strongly in my ability to aid members in the grievance process, and make sure that the new agreement is being followed, especially in a year when a great deal has changed!
I have a longstanding commitment to this Union that goes beyond the work I did this year on the Bargaining Committee. For three years, I have been the Steward for the Centre for Comparative Literature, where I have dealt with member education, questions, grievances, and concerns. Being a Steward of a Centre has meant helping members navigate and problem solve issues in a wide range of language and literature departments. This, alongside with participating in Steward’s Council, has given me a broad sense of the problems we face in the workplace. My work as a Steward has given me the practical, everyday expertise in navigating graduate student concerns, while my work on the Bargaining Committee provided me with the expertise to understand the institutional structure under which we work.
In terms of my own studies, I am a PhD Candidate in the Centre for Comparative Literature, and I work as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Classics and in the Literature and Critical Theory programme at Victoria College. In the before-times I was into martial arts and rock-climbing, but now I’m into pickling and fermentation, and spending time with my two cats.
I am committed to bettering the working conditions of all members of the Union through the grievance process. This means both enforcing the new Collective Agreement and advocating for issues that remain unaddressed in the Collective Agreement but still impact our working conditions.