Category Archives: Students

Cal State students begin hunger strike to protest cuts

Posted on May 8, 2012 by | Comments Off on Cal State students begin hunger strike to protest cuts

The New York Times: At California State, Protesters Start a Fast

Angry about tuition increases and cuts in courses and enrollment, a dozen students at California State University have taken their protest beyond marches — their usual tactic — and declared a hunger strike.

On Thursday, the second day of the fast, supporters were preparing a kale, apple and celery juice concoction for the protesters at the Northridge campus. The students have pledged to forgo solid food for at least a week, perhaps longer if the administration does not move to meet some of their demands, which include a five-year moratorium on student fee increases and a rollback of executive salaries to 1999 levels.

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Quebec Students Endure Despite Police State Repression

Posted on April 27, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Endure Despite Police State Repression

Photo by Peter McCabe, The Gazette

After 11 weeks of the student movement in Quebec, marked by 185,000 in protests and strikes, momentum is increasing as the Charest government is nervously clamping down. With all of the ingredients of a revolution, police state tactics are marring what would otherwise be forceful, yet peaceful, dissent in a mass movement for political change.  Joel Bergman reports that

The scope of the repression by the police is almost unheard of in Quebec — one would have to go back 40 years to see anything of this magnitude.  Over the course of one week alone, we saw upwards of 600 arrests at various campuses and demonstrations.  At the Université du Québec à Outaouais (UQO) on 19th April, the police broke the picket lines and locked the students out of the campus.  A few hundred students soon arrived on buses to demonstrate in solidarity with their brothers and sisters. Teachers soon joined, as well.  The police unleashed brutal repression on them with a few students and professors left bloody from baton hits to the head.  The demonstration of around 800 students then held a mass assembly and decided to march on the police lines and reclaim the university. They marched on the police, beating them back and they managed to reclaim the university for a short period of time before more police forces were called in and mass arrests commenced.  Approximately 300 ended up arrested at UQO.

Over the last 3 days, police have been especially brutal in clamping down on the protesters.  Yet despite the pattern of intimidation and arrests, the movement is growing in momentum and will.  High school students, looking at their future, are joining in with a presence in the movement that we’ve not seen in North America since the 1960s.

Read more In Defence of Marxism and Montreal Gazette

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Posted in Free speech, Organizing, Protests, Strikes, Student Movement, Students

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Quebec student strike contines

Posted on April 23, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec student strike contines

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Biggest Student Uprising You’ve Never Heard Of
April 23, 2012, 5:32 am

By Marc Bousquet

250,000 students pack the streets in largest demo in Quebec history

A guest post by Lilian Radovac. (BTW, SoCal readers may want to know that Marc is speaking at UC-Irvine a 4 p.m. 4/23 on New Media/New Protests.)

On an unseasonably warm day in late March, aquarter of a million postsecondary students and their supporters gathered in the streets of Montreal to protest against the Liberal government’s plan to raise tuition fees by 75% over five years.  As the crowd marched in seemingly endless waves from Place du Canada, dotted with the carrés rouges, or red squares, that have become the symbol of the Quebec student movement, it was plainly obvious that this demonstration was the largest in Quebec’s, and perhaps Canadian, history.

The March 22nd Manifestation nationale was not the culmination but the midpoint of a 10-week-long student uprising that has seen, at its height, over 300,000 college and university students join an unlimited and superbly coordinated general strike.  As of today, almost 180,000 students remain on picket lines in departments and faculties that have been shuttered since February, not only in university-dense Montreal but also insmaller communities throughout Quebec.
Aerial news footage of the March 22nd Manifestation nationale

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students

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Quebec Students Marathon Protest, Confrontation at Concordia

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Marathon Protest, Confrontation at Concordia

Photo by John Kennedy, The Gazette

Breaking rules and records two months into a strike and protest against rising tuition costs, students marched on Montreal for 12 hours on Wednesday 11 April. Smaller groups of students extended the march to 15 hours on the city streets and landmarks.  Gridlock and blocked streets have become routine in downtown Montreal while strikes and protests have brought campuses to near standstill.  Today  at Concordia University police rolled in to break up a student blockade.

Photo by Jan Ravensbergen, The Gazette

“I was astonished by how quickly everything happened,” an eyewitness said Thursday morning after Montreal police broke up a brief student blockade downtown of the main Concordia University campus building. “The students appeared from nowhere. Then these police just started flooding in. “The whole thing happened in just a matter of minutes, the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.” About two dozen Montreal police officers equipped with helmets and shields had pushed a crowd of protesting students away from the front of the Henry F. Hall Building westward along de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. on Thursday at 8:55 a.m., after which the crowd dissolved.

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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UBC Temporarily Dodges TA Strike

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | 1 comment

The University of British Columbia’s application to the BC Labour Relations Board for a mediator in the stand-off with the graduate students’ union CUPE 2278 was granted.  LRB Mediator Mark Atkinson will convene CUPE 2278 and the University to the bargaining table in early May.  Atkinson was a staff representative with the Hospital Employees’ Union from 1981 to 1995, and has served as Mediator in the LRB from 1995-2004, and 2008-present. In the meantime, CUPE 2278’s strike position will remain  but the union cannot strike during this interim period leading to mediation. And in the meantime, the University will fall back on an excuse that the graduate teaching assistants are net zero workers, underserving of an increase in their pay cheques.  Again, here we are like the case of the BC Teachers’ Federation and the government’s sentiment: ‘Let them negotiate, let them bargain,’ as long as they remain net zero workers.

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Posted in Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Quebec Liberal Government Criminalizing Student Strikes

Posted on April 10, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Liberal Government Criminalizing Student Strikes

Read More Richard Dufour, Quebec authorities seeking to criminalize student strike

Quebec’s Liberal government is using repression—arrests, court injunctions and the threat of cancelling the winter semester—to force an end to a nearly two-month-long strike of university and CEGEP (pre-university and technical college) students. Nevertheless, almost 200,000 students are continuing to boycott classes to oppose the Charest Liberal government’s plan to raise university tuition fees by 75 percent over the next five years, beginning in September.

Early last Wednesday, riot police chased and arrested more than 60 students who continued to demonstrate in downtown Montreal after the police had declared their demonstration illegal. The reason given by the police for dispersing, and later arresting, the student protestors was that they had perpetrated acts of “vandalism”, such as toppling tables and displays while moving through the chic Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the Eaton Shopping Centre.

Despite police statements to the contrary, there is no evidence to prove that the students committed any criminal acts. The arrests were filmed by CUTV, the Concordia University students’ community television station. The video, broadcast on the Internet, shows police shoving students prior to their arrest and ignoring students who questioned why they were being manhandled and arrested.

Montreal’s riot police have repeatedly used batons, tear gas, pepper spray and sound grenades to attack protesting students.

CUTV cameraman, Laith Marouf, was arrested for filming Wednesday’s arrests. CUTV reporter Sabine Friesinger, who was with Marouf, recounted what happened later the same day: “We were broadcasting live. Students were surrounded and pushed by police. They were also hit. The cameraman said several times: ‘I am media, we are on live.’ They definitively did not want us filming that. I have finally been able to retrieve the camera, but he (the cameraman), is still under arrest.”

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Quebec Student Strike Intensifies, Longest in Province History

Posted on April 10, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Student Strike Intensifies, Longest in Province History

Photo by Peter McCabe, The Gazette

The Quebec student strike is now in its eighth week and has gathered nearly half the higher education population in the province.  There are about 185,000 students on strike out of 400,000. “About 90,000 of them have agreed to an unlimited strike that won’t end until the government rescinds its plan for a $1,625 tuition increase over five years.” The students have sustained a series of demonstrations, protests, and strikes against the tuition hike.  Monday April 9 saw mass demonstrations and “Wednesday will be another big day for protesting students as they launch a 12-hour-long demonstration that will begin at 7 a.m. at Victoria Square. The “unlimited protest” is supposed to show the students’ unlimited resolve in the face of tuition increases and the Quebec government’s unwavering stance on the issue. A continual loop of students will take turns marching for an hour at a time throughout the day.”

Today, the resolve of striking students at the Université de Montréal was tested, “as the university sent out an email last week saying if students aren’t back in class by then, they can’t guarantee that all courses can be completed by June 15, the end of the extended semester. That means some classes could simply be suspended, as the university asserts there will be “no compromise” on the quality of the education.”

Read more: Montreal Gazette Story 1 and Story 2

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UBC TA / CUPE 2278 President Appeals for Solidarity

Posted on April 9, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC TA / CUPE 2278 President Appeals for Solidarity

CUPE 2278 President Geraldina Polanco appealed for solidarity and unity amidst recent ploys by a University of British Columbia faculty member and subsequently the University to splinter the graduate students union’s strike position.  Polanco wrote to members: “Our employer reads our communications to you — for example, they have told us at the bargaining table that they regularly visit our Facebook page and read our newsletters. This makes engaging in transparent discussions with our members regarding bargaining a difficult task for the Union Executive. Our members are sprawled across workspaces on the UBC campus and beyond, which reduces most communication to electronic routes that, by their nature, are accessible to the employer…. we are limited in our ability to communicate information with you via virtual routes because we do not want to facilitate the transfer of information to our employer.”

Responding to attempts to splinter or divide the union, the CUPE 2278 President now has to remind members and supporters: “Going forward with bargaining it is useful to keep in mind that the employer benefits from a non-unified membership. Our mutual trust in each other is paramount, and we hope our minimal communication with you has not been misread. Our lack of formal correspondence is not because we do not seek to be transparent but rather because we are limited in what we can say.”

Last week, FT faculty member Dr. David Klonksy published “Dear CUPE 2278,” a diatribe to undermine confidence in the graduate students’ leadership.  At these times a few anti-union or anti-labour activists are readily played by management.  Good try, bad motive, Dr. Klonksy.  The letter is seriously uninformed in stating that CUPE 2278 “Union leadership has made no effort to reach out to faculty.”  Let’s be clear, CUPE 2278 has reached out– the communication from the union leadership has been outstanding– a model of leadership and transparency. If a strike materializes from the overwhelming support, faculty members will stand on the picket line in support of and sympathy with the students.

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Posted in Employment rights, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Student-Labor Alliance Aims to Lift Standards at Vanderbilt

Posted on April 8, 2012 by | Comments Off on Student-Labor Alliance Aims to Lift Standards at Vanderbilt

Labor Notes: Student-Labor Alliance Aims to Lift Standards at Vanderbilt

Nashville’s Vanderbilt University hosted a conference in late March of the National Association of College & University Food Services. The association promises “revolutionary thinking” for university dining departments.

But outside the confab, 50 Vanderbilt workers, students, faculty, alumni, and faith leaders hosted their own event. They showcased the poverty that persists among Vanderbilt dining hall workers, who make only $16,500 per year on average.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Students, Working conditions

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UQAM Resorts to Intimidation Against Striking Montreal students

Posted on April 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on UQAM Resorts to Intimidation Against Striking Montreal students

Photo by Anne Sutherland, The Gazette

The Montreal Gazette reported that the Université du Québec à Montréal obtained a temporary injunction Wednesday ordering the strikers to allow employees and other workers to enter the university’s buildings and residences unimpeded.  The UQAM is “fed up with striking students blocking access and harassing staff.”

Strikes and protests continue to escalate across the province and 71 students were arrested today in Montreal for storming the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. “Two security guards at the hotel were injured in the melee. A buffet table was overturned and dishes were smashed.  A crowd of fleet-footed students estimated at 100 or more later roved through downtown Montreal, tieing up traffic and chanting their opposition to the planned university-tuition hikes.”

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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UBC Braces for TA Strike

Posted on April 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC Braces for TA Strike

Signs are pointing to a full strike by Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) at the University of British Columbia within a week.  The GTAs’ bargaining unit, CUPE 2278, put its members on alert and is taking measures to train picket captains for successful job action.  In the meantime, the University is calling the escalation “perplexing,” despite its longstanding wage freeze / cut for the students under rising costs to their graduate programs, exploitive working conditions, and rolled over contracts.

Routinely, the University has placed the Vice Provost and AVP Academic Affairs, this time Anna Kindler, in charge of the notorious Ad Hoc Senate Strike Preparedness Committee. Following the CUPE 2278 strike in 2003, UBC’s Senate rushed through a series of changes to the University’s Strike Policy and Guidelines and the charge of the Strike Preparedness Committee is to enforce the new policy guide.  In 2003, many faculty and students felt intimidated by the University in its use of the policy guide in a “captive audience” workplace setting to maintain business as usual against union job action, including the full 2278 strike.

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Posted in Administration, Organizing, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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UBC TAs Mobilizing Strike Capacities

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | 1 comment

Voting overwhelmingly on 22 March to move into a strike position, Graduate Teaching Assistants at the University of British Columbia are now mobilizing for a strike that may begin next week.  Frustrated by the University’s unwillingness to give on key components in contract negotiations, the GTA’s bargaining unit, CUPE 2278, is taking steps toward labour action. The government and University have designated the TAs net zero workers.  In many ways, the University ought to feel indebted to the GTAs, yet exploitative conditions prevail. CUPE 2278 has asked if it is “okay to let an employer profit off your work at a comparatively lower cost and then balance its budget out of your pocket by passing on its expenses?”

Let’s face it– the TAs, like all workers in BC, deserve much, much better than the net zero worker designation.  And rolling over contracts that date all the way back to 2005 is not good enough.  The UBC Faculty Association is also bargaining with the University at this time, with faculty members similarly designated as net zero workers.  Yet unlike CUPE 2278, the faculty members have a no strike clause in their history with the University. If the 2003 CUPE 2278 strike is an indication, a vast majority of faculty members will nonetheless be on the picket lines behind and beside the students.

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Posted in Organizing, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Quebec Students escalate Boycott and Protests

Posted on March 29, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students escalate Boycott and Protests

Photo by Phil Carpenter, The Gazette

Students stormed the Quebec Liberal party office in Montreal this morning and again a large mass  marched down Pie IX Blvd. to the intersection with Notre Dame St. and blocked the entrance to the Port. Demonstrations are now nearly daily and at Concordia alone, about 10,000 students out of 30,000 undergraduates are boycotting classes. “Education Minister Line Beauchamp stated that students will need to choose between boycotting and their diplomas, saying they ‘can’t have it all’.”

The students have re-adopted the red square to symbolize their protest and remind the government of the force and successes of the 2005 strike and raise spectres of socialism and Marxism.  The government’s plans to raise costs of education, students said, “would leave them ‘carrément dans le rouge’ or squarely in the red, the colour of debt.”

Photo by John Kenney, The Gazette

Read more Montreal Gazette

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Quebec Students Rolling Protests while Universities Resort to Intimidation

Posted on March 27, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Rolling Protests while Universities Resort to Intimidation

Photo by Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette

Quebec students have planned a series of rolling protests while claims of Concordia and McGill university intimidation tactics against the students increase.  Tensions on the campuses are escalating as the students are moving into their second month of activism against rising tuition and other costs to education.  Students are reporting that the more the universities face the student activism the nastier the administrative and police tactics are getting. Three McGill students were banned from campus for protesting while others faced off with security guards.  “This is completely a new level of political repression,” said Kevin Paul, a cultural studies and philosophy student at McGill. ”

Joel Pedneault, vice-president of external relations for the Student Society of McGill University, got a letter saying there were “reasonable grounds to believe that your continued presence on campus is detrimental to good order.” He is planning to contest the disciplinary action.

“This seems to be a real crackdown on students for the strike,” he said.

Teachers also reacted. David Douglas, of the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association, said the university’s decision to issue the directive in response to a peaceful demonstration last week was “interpreted by students and many within the university community to be an ill-timed and regrettably hostile gesture.”

A small group of professors at McGill also wrote to the administration to deplore the disciplinary action against the students, saying the student code of conduct was being misused “to persecute students at will.”

Read more, Montreal Gazette 

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UBC TAs Approve Strike Vote

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC TAs Approve Strike Vote

CUPE 2278, representing graduate teaching assistants at UBC, overwhelmingly approved a motion to strike– 81% in favour.  Now poised for labour action, CUPE 2278 heads to the bargaining table on Tuesday.  The students have opted for solidarity with other unions:

On Thursday, March 15 local CUPE 116 (UBC) obtained a successful strike vote. 75% of the local’s membership cast a ballot. 89% voted in favour of potential labour action. An eclectic assortment of U.B.C employee’s (custodians, brick layers, electricians, gardeners, food service workers) came together to let the university know that they are willing to fight for fair working conditions.

Our members have been very vocal that our goals in bargaining need to be about more than simply increasing compensation for teaching assistants. T.A.s have expressed the importance of supporting their fellow UBC workers. Though there is certainly outrage at the amount of remuneration we receive in comparison to T.A.s at other universities, (http://cupe2278.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Steward_march_2012.pdf) we are ultimately fighting for more than just ourselves. We are striving to create equitable working conditions for all UBC employees.

Read More at CUPE 2278 blog

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Posted in Employment rights, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions

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Quebec Students Flood Montreal in March Against Tuition Hikes

Posted on March 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Flood Montreal in March Against Tuition Hikes

Photo by Dave Sidaway, The Gazette

Historically, at least over the last fifty years, Quebec students have been immensely successful in checking the powers of government and universities from unilaterally raising tuition and other expenses for higher education.  Large, focused, unified, and sustained protests by Quebec students over the years have been influential in keeping tuitions among the lowest in Canada.  Knowing this, there is no way the students will back down from this latest and increasingly vocal series of small resistances and large demonstrations, protests, and strikes.

Today in Montreal, “tens of thousands of activists filled Montreal’s downtown core Thursday to protest tuition increases. Students demonstrating Thursday in Montreal and across the province, say higher fees mean higher debt for them and their parents. The protesters reject the government’s position that student aid, offered to about 35 per cent of students and based on a system of loans, will ease the debt burden.”

Read more Montreal Gazette 

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UBC Frets over Strike Votes on Campus

Posted on March 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC Frets over Strike Votes on Campus

CUPE 116 members overwhelmingly approved a strike motion last week and CUPE 2278, Graduate Teaching Assistants, vote on a strike motion on Thursday.  AVP, Human Resources, Lisa Castle circulated today an advisory that “the University has concerns with the manner in which the Union [CUPE 2278] is presenting information to support a positive vote.  They state on their website that the University’s negotiating team has not listened to them.”

The GTAs are countering that a “‘yes’ vote is a show of support… And the threat of a strike means our issues have to be taken seriously; a strong positive strike vote makes it possible for us to make gains at the table.”

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Posted in Employment rights, Organizing, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students

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Montreal Students Blockade Champlain Bridge

Posted on March 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on Montreal Students Blockade Champlain Bridge

Photo Montreal Gazette

Education Minister Line Beauchamp, who promised the government won’t budge in its plan to raise university tuition by $1,625 over five years, told protesters to stop inconveniencing the workers whose taxes pay for their studies. Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said the five weeks of strike activities were having a negative effect on the city’s economy, and called on Quebec to help pay the expenses.

Coming on the heels of recent demonstrations that blocked the Metropolitain Expressway and Jacques Cartier Bridge, and led to vandalism and 226 arrests when combined with the march against police brutality, the student protests have been facing a growing chorus of negativism from a disgruntled populace.

But rather than hurting the cause, the public backlash will actually help propel it forward, communications specialists predicted.

And organizers said the disruptions will escalate soon unless the government starts negotiating.

“ For the general population (blocking the Champlain Bridge) might seem overboard,” said Anna Kruzynski, head of the graduate program at Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs and a strike supporter. “But if you look historically over time, you’ll see these kind of strong tactics … and other actions that aim to disrupt the regular functioning of society actually end up having good effects after the fact. They do contribute to the government responding positively to demands that are legitimate demands.

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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UBC Teaching Assistants Taking Strike Vote

Posted on March 19, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC Teaching Assistants Taking Strike Vote

CUPE 2278, the graduate teaching assistants union at the University of British Columbia, is taking a strike vote on Thursday, 22 March.  The bargaining environment for the GTA union has been awful for a number of years.  The current contract dates to 2005 and recent attempts to bargain with UBC have been frustrated by the BC Public Sector Employers’ Council’s “net zero mandate” and the university’s unwillingness to grant the level of respect the GTAs deserve. The union is asking if it is “okay to let an employer profit off your work at a comparatively lower cost and then balance its budget out of your pocket by passing on its expenses?”

The 2005 contract was rolled over in the last round but signs suggest that CUPE 2278 will not roll over again under conditions of exploitation.  The union was forced to a full scale strike in the spring of 2003– a successful strike that reminded students, faculty members, and administrators just how vital GTAs are to the functioning of the University.  As was the case in 2003, CUPE 2278 is currently preparing research-based information for the UBC community and will likely have to counter the employer’s aggressive campaign to malign the GTAs and misinform the campus.

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Student News on Chan v UBC Racial Discrimination Case

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Comments Off on Student News on Chan v UBC Racial Discrimination Case

The Managing Editor for the Ubyssey, UBC’s student newspaper, reported in a feature article in this morning’s issue on the Chan v UBC and others racial discrimination case to be heard by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) this summer. Jonny Wakefield reports:

The threshold to dismiss a complaint at the BCHRT is low. Since 2006, it appears that no cases against UBC have gone to a full judicial hearing. But one professor’s complaint has survived numerous attempts by the university to have it thrown out. The hearing, scheduled this summer, will be one of the very few times that the university has had to deal with a complainant in a public forum.

That discrimination complaint came from Jennifer Chan. Chan is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education. In May 2010, she filed a complaint of racial discrimination with the BCHRT, naming the university and four employees—among them senior administrators—as respondents. Chan, who is Chinese Canadian, alleges she was not selected for a prestigious research chair in part because of her race.

That appointment was to the Lam Research Chair in Multicultural Education. Chan was shortlisted for the chair in October 2009 and when it was announced that another candidate—a white woman—was given the appointment, Chan started to make complaints about bias in the process.

In short, Chan said the search committee of five members from the Faculty of Education broke every hiring rule in the book. It failed to keep any records of its procedures, including how the search was conducted and what criteria were used to determine merit. The committee also failed to consult Chan’s references, which included former Lam Chair holders. The Ubyssey contacted Chan’s references independently and confirmed that they had not been contacted regarding her application.

“A lot of my students would ask for references for their part-time summer jobs,” she said. “This endowment chair is a very prestigious position. Why were external references not contacted? Was it because the candidate was predetermined? Or was it because of some other factor?”

One of those factors, she argues, was her race.

See Ubyssey 15 March 2012 pp. 6-7 for more, and BCHRT for decision to hear the Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] case.

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Posted in Accountability, Chan Case, Equity, Human Rights, Legal issues, Students, Tenure & Promotion

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