Member Voice Report | Ram4Change

“For too long our members have been asked to settle for less. I'm asking you to expect more, and know that I intend to deliver it.”

— Ram Selvarajah, No-Slate Blog, Feb 9

Practicing My Promises

Seven Principles

These aren't slogans — they're commitments this campaign is already living by.

Measure Before You Move

Before any reform, we measure what’s actually happening. Staff workload, local health, where the money goes, which services are reaching members and which aren’t. How many grievances are backlogged? How long is the average member waiting for representation? Which locals are thriving and which are collapsing under caseload? Right now, nobody’s tracking this. You can’t fix what you refuse to count, and you can’t ask members to trust the process when there’s no data to back it up.

Demonstrate, Don’t Declare

I actively practice what I’m promising to do as First VP. Leaders shouldn’t need an official role to demonstrate how they show up. The townhalls, the member insight dashboard, the delegate toolkit. All built before winning anything, with a small team and limited resources. That’s not a slogan. That’s how the office should operate.

Fix the System Before You Blame the People In It

When a local is struggling or a staff member is falling behind, the first question isn’t “who’s failing?” It’s “do you have what you need to do your job?” Staff, stewards, local presidents. If the tools are broken, the training is outdated, and the caseloads are unsustainable, that’s not a people problem. That’s a leadership problem. Fix what’s setting people up to fail, then hold everyone to a higher standard.

Invest in the People Who Do the Work

Stewards, local presidents, bargaining teams, committee members. These are the people holding the union together at the ground level. They deserve training that’s current, relevant to their collective agreement, and built for the fights they’re actually in. Not a generic course that hasn’t been updated in a decade. Not a video before bargaining. Real investment in the people who show up for members every day.

Bread and Butter First

The union exists to make sure working people have a good standard of living and their rights are protected. Wages, representation, workload, safety. The number one issue members raised across every sector and every region was the same: affordability. Paycheques aren’t keeping up. Grievances sit for years. Caseloads are unsustainable. Get the basics right first. Everything else flows from that.

Accountable to Members, Not to the Board Table

The First VP/Treasurer’s job is oversight. That means asking hard questions about spending, hiring, and priorities, even when those questions are uncomfortable. If the person in this role owes their seat to the people sitting around that same table, who’s actually doing the oversight? Members deserve a First VP who answers to them.

Two Terms. Then the Next Generation.

Two terms as First VP/Treasurer. That’s it. By the end of that, you’ve either delivered on what you promised or you haven’t. After that, real succession planning, knowledge transfer, and room for the next generation of leaders to step up. The goal is to build something that outlasts any one person in the role.

The Roadmap

Priority Action Items

Not vague promises. Not “if elected.” These are the things that happen first — because you can't fix what you haven't measured.

◉ First 100 Days

🎤
Monthly open townhalls with members. The campaign model, continued from office. Your voice stays in the room, permanently.
📊
Commission a staff workload audit. How many members per rep? What are the backlogs? Where are the gaps? You can’t fix what you haven’t measured. This is literally the first order of business.
🛠️
Skills inventory for every staff member. Starting with one question: do you have what you need to do your job? Support first, then standards.
🏥
Launch a local health assessment. Every local’s structure, resources, and capacity reviewed. If we can see which locals are struggling, we can send support before they collapse.
💰
Start the budget process earlier. Every dollar of member dues should be traceable, defensible, and working harder than it is now. No more lazy across-the-board cuts.
💻
Technology audit. Scope every core system from UnionWare to grievance tracking. IT is my profession. I’ll lead this personally.

◇ Once I Understand the Full Picture

⚡
Technology modernization. Real-time membership databases, dashboards for local presidents, board meeting streaming, grievance tracking you can actually use. Scoped and budgeted based on what the audit reveals.
🔀
Staff restructuring. If the data supports it — a dedicated bargaining unit so negotiations get the specialized attention they deserve. Separate bargaining from servicing.
📚
Education reform. OPS and BPS in separate classrooms. President scholarships. CA-specific steward training. Rebuilt college partnerships. Because our stewards shouldn't be going to the table underprepared.
🏗️
Local restructuring. Where health assessments reveal structural problems — book-off formulas, composite locals, geographic boundaries. Support first, redesign where needed.
⚖️
Cross-sector bargaining coordination. Bring all bargaining team chairs together. Workers facing the same employer shouldn't be isolated — and COLA belongs in every contract.
🏛️
Political advocacy capacity. A lobby function within the union. Continuous engagement with government — strategic instead of reactive. We need to be at the table, not just on the picket line.
🎙️
Priorities that evolve with what members are actually facing. Monthly open townhalls, continued from office. Same model as the campaign: show up, listen, document, and let what members are facing shape the priorities as they evolve. Because what’s hurting members today won’t be the same two years from now.

We asked members: how supported do you feel by your union?

2 out of 3 rated support low

On a 5-point scale, nearly two-thirds of members rated their union support a 1 or a 2. That's the starting point for everything below.

34.1%

31.8%

18.2%

11.4%

1 Not at all 2 Slightly 3 Somewhat 4 Mostly 5 Very

Open sessions over 5 months

Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Any member could attend, with messaging intentionally inviting both folks who were skeptical and supportive of Ram.

RSVP →

Issues members kept raising

Not themes we picked. Problems members couldn’t stop talking about. We tracked every one.

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What we heard — and what Ram will do about it

We ran 7 open sessions. 12 specific issues kept coming up. Here they are — ranked by urgency and paired with what Ram plans to do about each one.

Tap any issue to see the full picture — member voices, the plan, and Ram's take.

3 Critical

4 High Priority

5 Recurring

Have your voice heard.

This mandate is still being built — and it needs your input. Fill out the member survey or register for the next session.

Take the Survey → RSVP to the Next Session →

This report is built from everything members shared across Ram's town halls: live conversations, Zoom chat, pre-registration comments, and written submissions. All of it is coded the same way, every single time.

We didn't just listen to what members said directly — we paid attention to what they implied, what they avoided, and what they only felt safe saying in private. In a union where members describe a climate of fear, the things people don't say out loud matter just as much as the things they do.

What you see here are aggregate themes. We do it this way on purpose. It protects member privacy, and it means no one gets to handpick quotes that make them look good. What participants said is kept separate from what Ram said. Same method, every cycle.

Our town halls run between 1.5 and 2 hours and have drawn diverse membership across regions, divisions, and sectors. Each issue on this page was independently raised by members — not prompted, not led. We tracked which sessions each issue appeared in, and flagged the ones that came up in every single one.

The range is real, the signal is strong, and if Ram is elected, you can count on this kind of member-driven listening extending beyond a campaign — into bargaining, budgets, and how leadership reports back to you.