GSA budget proposes $7,000 salary cut for AVP labour

According to the University of Alberta Graduate Students’ Association‘s (GSA) proposed 2025–26 budget, the associate vice-president (AVP) of labour‘s annual stipend will be reduced by $7,000. This position is responsible for leading the GSA union, collective bargaining, and other labour-related matters.

At the February 24 meeting of the GSA Council, incoming AVP labour Nathan Lamarche raised concerns with the proposed 20 per cent cut to the position’s salary. According to Lamarche, “there is no valid reasoning” for this recommendation.

According to GSA President Haseeb Arshad, the GSA Budget and Finance Committee and GSA Board “have voted unanimously to approve this recommendation.”

In an emailed statement to The Gateway, the Sociology Graduate Student Association (SGSA) said that they proposed questions to the GSA about the proposed budget along with students from the faculty of sociology.

SGSA also said in their statement that the GSA told them the “stipend will be reduced by approximately 16.75 per cent” due to “a realignment of responsibilities.”

The proposed 2025–26 budget also indicates a 20 per cent increase of the GSA’s travel business budget. The budget for “business travel and external relations and advocacy” is set to increase to $30,000 from the 2024–25 budgeted amount of $24,368.

According to the proposed budget, this increase in the travel budget is aimed “to keep up with increased costs and inflationary pressures.”

Additionally, the proposed budget includes a 1.5 per cent increase in GSA membership fees and increases to Directly Elected Officers’ (DEOs) stipends. These DEOs include the president, vice-president (VP) (external), VP (academic), VP (student life), VP (Indigenous), and VP (student services).

The DEO stipend budget increased to $233,829 from the 2024–25 budget of $192,189. According to Arshad, this increase is due to the addition of the new VP (Indigenous) position. This position accounts for $37,000 of the DEO stipend budget.

According to Arshad, the increase in existing DEO salaries is 2.2 per cent, which corresponds to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment. The AVP labour salary is also subject to this CPI adjustment.

Salary cut was “discussed very heavily,” Arshad says

Arshad said that the budget cuts are a matter of ensuring that the “budget is balanced.” According to him, the stipend of a particular executive GSA position is “tied to the scope of the work.”

The GSA Budget and Finance Committee and Board “have voted unanimously to approve this recommendation,” Arshad said.

He added that the AVP labour position was created approximately two years ago during restructuring, following Bill 17, the Labour Statutes Amendment Act. Previously there was a VP labour position. During that restructuring period, the GSA moved items from the previous VP labour portfolio and created a new VP (student life) portfolio, Arshad said.

The AVP labour position became “restricted only to the core activities of the union,” meaning that they “only represent academically employed graduate students, which is roughly 3,500–3,700 students on campus,” Arshad said.

He emphasized that this budgetary decision “was discussed very heavily.” Referring to concerns made about the salary cut, Arshad said that “it’s up to the council to approve it.”

According to Arshad, the AVP labour will receive loss of pay for any training, conferences, or “the bargaining session[s] that they will attend.”

“I believe that the decision was made by rising above any individual or departmental issues by considering GSA as a whole and [the] union as a whole,” Arshad added.

There are transparency issues in GSA’s decision-making processes, according to incoming AVP labour

Lamarche called the salary cut “a systematic destruction of the position.” Lamarche said that the reduction in pay will discourage graduate students from running for the position.

“Even if it doesn’t pass, the issue is that [Arshad] made the recommendation. Those recommendations shouldn’t be happening,” Lamarche said.

“[Arshad] claims that [the position] has no scope, but that’s a very fundamental misunderstanding of what it does,” according to Lamarche.

Lamarche said that there is a lack of transparency in the operations of the GSA Budget and Finance Committee. Lamarche also raised issue with the AVP labour being a non-voting member on the committee.

“The Budget and Finance Committee has been using closed sessions to justify confidentiality, but the budget should never be confidential.”

In the minutes for the March 12 GSA Board meeting sent to The Gateway by the GSA, it states that “discussion of matters pertaining to the business interests of the GSA will occur in closed session.”

Lamarche called for the GSA to release public meeting minutes as a “way to have reliable access to information.”

Additionally, in their statement to The Gateway, SGSA said that they “[recognize] how important the proposed cut to the AVP labour position is.”

SGSA added that they will have “additional conversations with GSA executives.”

UPDATE: This article was updated at 1:30 p.m. to include additional information on the DEO salaries and updated meeting minutes for the March 12 GSA Board meeting.