By: Anthony Houston, SFU student
Content warning: mentions of disordered eating.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen many negative communications fly around about SFU’s lack of effort in bargaining negotiations, the strike, living wages, and blah blah blah. You know what I haven’t seen? Someone explaining the positive impacts of SFU refusing to negotiate a fair deal for TAs, RAs, and other workers. So, I made a list.
- Great Grindr profile pics.
Dr. Joy Johnson has inadvertently put me on a rigorous two-meals-a-day plan by refusing to pay me a living wage. Yup, now that I have to skip breakfast and drink tap water for dinner, my body has never been this slim, and I mean visible-abs-slim! So yeah, thank you, Joy. Now, I am in a toxic work relationship with my employer and fit into toxic body image standards! Truly, what a gift.
2. I get to go full-out Boomer with my future kids.
Have you ever been so jealous whenever a boomer tells you how they could buy a house at 25 and fully support their family on a single wage? No, I’m not talking about being jealous of the house or the single-wage affordability; you and I both know that life is not for us — I mean the entitled-bragging rights. Thanks to needing three jobs to lower my monthly debt to only $100, I’ll get to act so entitled with my future children. I’ll be damn sure to tell them every single day that when I was their age, I had to work three jobs, and their life is so much easier now.
3. I am free from therapy.
To be honest, who even likes therapy? Therapy is for those with money, or extended health benefits, anyways. What’s the point? We just sit there and talk for about an hour about our problems, hoping to find solutions to our most pressing issues. It sounds so boring, doesn’t it? Well, thanks to having to choose between having two meals a day or going to therapy, I no longer have to go! Now, my life is so much more interesting. Will I have a tiny mental breakdown in the AQ on a random Tuesday? Will I be able to surpass my trauma alone, or will I submerge myself into the endless void of my anxiety? Who knows? That’s what keeps it interesting, all thanks to SFU!
4. I can present the same dusty-ass proposal and get away with it.
If we are to believe TSSU, which, let’s be honest, we do, SFU has been tabling mostly the same proposal for RAs since like . . . 2021? It’s been over three years, and SFU clearly thinks they can get away with it, so why on earth wouldn’t I? Updated annual progress report? Nah, sorry, the only update is the date, I think. Take it or leave it — actually, no, you have to take it.
5. The right to remain wrong.
You know how whenever you try to get back with your ex, all your friends tell you it’s a bad idea, and they hold an intervention to tell you to stop your self-destructive behaviour? Well, if SFU can remain deluded after an arbitrator told them they’ve broken most of their Voluntary Recognition Agreement with TSSU, then, so can I! I swear he still loves me just as much as SFU swears RAs are not workers.
