Student Worker Centre Initiative Info Session

Student Worker Centre Initiative Info Session

Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Arts Central AQ 3020

Audience: Open to all SFU undergraduate students.

*Light refreshments will be provided at the event

About the SFU Student Worker Centre:

What is it?

Most students at SFU, both international and domestic, are also workers. Many work in sectors with high levels of precarious employment, such as hospitality and accommodation and food services. All student workers deserve to know about their rights at work, to have a space where they can get advice and information, and to understand if and how they can join a union.

Once established, the SFU Student Worker Centre will be a space for students, especially undergraduate students, to get information on their rights as workers.

These include:

• Rights under the Employment Standards Act, such as minimum wage, paid sick days, holiday pay, including for international students.

• What unions are and what they do; how to join or organize one

• Access to legal advice, support, and activist resources (the SFU Student Centre will not offer legal advice).

• generate and disseminate knowledge about the issues facing student workers in our province

• Workshops on collective organizing, rights for precarious workers, how to advocate in the workplace, as well as creating a space for grassroots initiatives from the student workers themselves which would be facilitated by the creation of the Centre.

It would also have events and training on student labour issues. It will use an organizing model to make space for conversations about how work connects to exploitation, oppression, rights, organizing, capitalism, colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and more.

Organizational Structure

The governance structure of the Student Worker Centre will initially be as a three-year trial initiative under the auspices of the Morgan Centre for Labour Studies. The Student Worker Centre proposal has already gained approval from the LBST Steering Committee and the Labour Studies Advisory Committee.

The day-to-day role of getting the Student Worker Centre up and running is being undertaken by continuing Labour Studies faculty member, John-Henry Harter. LBST would continue to have a faculty member assigned to the Centre as part of their service work, but the staffing of the Centre would be primarily undergraduate and graduate students, with support and oversight through the Labour Studies Program and the SFU Morgan Centre for Labour Research.

Student advising positions will be paid work experience opportunities and offer those students well-paid union jobs which would complement the aims of the Centre. Programming will be provided in collaboration with our partners (such as the local Labour Councils, the BC Federation of Labour, and the BC Fed Health and Safety Centre). We hope to also collaborate with on-campus groups.

Location

Eventually we hope the Student Worker Centre and the SFU Morgan Centre for Labour Research will share physical space. Currently the Morgan Centre does not occupy any physical space; the Student Worker Centre will offer pop-up events and workshops.

Questions?

Contact John-Henry Harter, Lecturer, SFU Labour Studies program and SFU Department of History <am9obi1oZW5yeV9oYXJ0ZXIgfCBzZnUgISBjYQ==>

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