AMICCUS-C

Here is where AMICCUS-C comes in. Like any professional association, it exists to promote the occupation and to support development in it. So once in a while, members get together and talk about how they can be better at what they do. They talk about best practices in accounting and human resources. They talk about how to engage professionally with campus and outside media. They talk about food services. They have workshops and training sessions and all the sorts of things any other organization does. But all of it relates explicitly to the work that a student union does and what it means to work for one on a full-time basis.

Contrary to what many people might expect, most professionals working for students’ unions are not lifelong student activists. Most were not involved at all in student life or student politics when they were in school. They are just folks who work in accounting, or management, or the service industry, and when it came time to find a job for whatever reason they fell into working for a students’ union and then happened to stay. This is one of those many careers you don’t hear about at a job fair, and yet someone always ends up doing it anyway. I think that’s for the best. The elected students will always bring politics to the table. The staff are there to provide knowledge and experience and concrete skills.

I’ve always found AMICCUS-C to be a great organization, from the first moment I was introduced to it by the business manager of my own union. It’s inspiring to see an entire organization devoted simply to running unions better. And the folks I meet in this context are invariably sincere and interesting professionals. I could not do what they do. I’ll freely admit it. The frustrations and uncertainty that comes along with working for a union with annual elections and a new set of “bosses” every year – it would drive me nuts. But I sure respect the people who can do it.

AMICCUS-C affects few people directly, but indirectly it’s a very important organization. And I think it’s worth a little time and effort to understand what they do because it illustrates so many important facts about unions that are easily missed. Unions are serious business. There’s a lot more going on than just politics, elections, and the inevitable controversy. The full-time professionals who run the day-to-day business are the civil servants of the union movement. Most have no political agenda at all, other than seeing that services are delivered to students and that things run smoothly. And that’s extremely refreshing to see.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.