A new CSU?

Concordia’s fee levy groups are seeking to form their own student union, which would allow them to get funding without having to go through the CSU.
Following the CSU’s recently aborted referendum to cancel funding for the Sustainable Action Fund, Concordia’s fee-levy groups came together to create a joint lobbying organization.
The referendum had sought to cut the group’s funding without prior consultation, and was cancelled by the CSU following a legal challenge to the Quebec Superior Court.
The groups, which receive money drawn from student fees, include CUTV, the People’s Potato, QPIRG and the university’s two newspapers, among others.
According to Jason Gondziolla, station manager at CUTV, who called the groups together, the new union would be the first non-academic student union at Concordia.
“We realized a better approach was needed to look at what fee levy groups can do to advocate on each other’s behalf and make sure our interests are being protected, and [to ensure] we are being fairly treated by the student government,” he said.
Gondziolla also said there had been previous times when issues directly relating to fee-levy groups were discussed by the CSU council, without affected groups being present.
In particular, he said council did not consult fee levy groups two years ago when it discussed a motion that would have required each fee levy to be re-approved by students every three years.
In response to that motion, Gondziola said he and other fee-levy group members got the CSU council to implement a regulation requiring council to give affected groups 10-days notification prior to any votes “that would affect space or funding” of fee levy groups. This would include an invitation to the groups concerned to speak on the proposal before council. But Gondziola said the conflict over the SAF funding, where council did not notify the group until after a question to cut the group’s funding had been added to the now-cancelled referendum, prompted him to organize a meeting of the fee-levy groups to propose the new union.
CSU VP communications Elie Chivi declined to comment on the new union, saying he did not anything about it.