Concordia Students Say Let the Strikes Begin

Posted on March 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on Concordia Students Say Let the Strikes Begin

6,380 Concordia students are on strike with more departmental general assemblies discussing strike action.  A Concordia Student Union vote is set for 7 March and a planned, four-day strike begins on 26 March. See The Link for more…

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Posted in Organizing, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions

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Teachers / BCTF Solidarity Run

Posted on March 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on Teachers / BCTF Solidarity Run

Charles Menzies is organizing a KillBill22 Solidarity Run Monday morning for 22 minutes.  Pick a public school of your choice, show up and run around it for 22 minutes!  This is linking a new passion with an old one, running and solidarity actions 🙂  A consistently reliable labour advocate and leader, Charles will be at U Hill Secondary Monday morning @ 8:22 if you want to join him.  ICES will be joining!

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Posted in Athletics, K-12 issues, Protests, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes

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BC Secondary Students Walk Out in Protest

Posted on March 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on BC Secondary Students Walk Out in Protest

It takes a ton of courage for a student to walk out of school and today these young citizens demonstrated en masse across the province.  Every teacher should stand proud as their students stand side by side with one voice.  Every parent of these kids should feel the payoff.  And the students themselves have to know they make the difference for all of us.  This is education (see slide show below).

At the Vancouver Art Gallery, at least 1,500 students convened around 2:00 and stood, spoke, and shouted in solidarity with teachers and the BCTF.  Students at Eric Hamber Secondary seem to have been the first group, exiting the school around 11:00 this morning.  Despite the typically uncooperative weather (5C and rainy), the students were still protesting through the late afternoon.

It has been quite some time since BC saw a student movement but what struck me most was how many showed up and how well organized the demonstration was.  These kids know their politics and how to win hearts.  Signs everywhere with the critique of the BC government’s decision-making loud and clear, a young woman kicked things off: “BC” she shouted and 1,500 hollered back “students”… “BC” she shouted and 1,500 screamed “teachers.”  That’s a solid show of force.

As post-secondary students in BC deal with compounding challenges that seem relentless, let’s hope the high school students spark this from grass roots to an all out BC student movement.  Quebec post-secondary students are putting everything on the line right now.  Time to take inspiration from the younger crowd to stand up and be heard BC post-secondary students!

BC Students Walk Out March 2012 Slide Show (photos by S. Petrina)

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Posted in BC Education, Protests, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students

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BC Students Walking Out on Government

Posted on March 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on BC Students Walking Out on Government

Thousands of BC students are set to walk out this afternoon in support of public education and their teachers, and in protest of the government’s draconian legislation Bill 22.  They’re making “their voices heard in the prolonged teachers’ dispute with the province.”

See updates at CBC and Facebook

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Posted in BC Education, K-12 issues, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students

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Petition in Support of Teachers / BCTF

Posted on March 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on Petition in Support of Teachers / BCTF

Post-secondary Support of BC Teachers / BCTF Petition.

Faculty members, librarians, administrators, students, and staff in post-secondary institutions across British Columbia in support of teachers and the BCTF.  All bargaining units deserve a fair process of reaching a collective agreement.

This is for post-secondary to demonstrate support and appeal to the BC Premier and Minister.

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Posted in BC Education, K-12 issues, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions

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Quebec Students Met with Police Force

Posted on March 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Met with Police Force

As thousands of students protested tuition hikes outside the provincial legislature in Quebec City today, they were met with police force and tear gas. The protest was initially peaceful but when a group of students crossed barriers erected around the national assembly, the riot squad pushed back and deployed tear gas.

Photo (Jacques Boissinot / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Read more: CTV News

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Posted in Protests, Student Movement, Students

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Kill Bill 22 in BC Legislature Petition

Posted on March 1, 2012 by | 4 comments

Sign the Kill Bill 22 Petition

The B.C. Govt is removing teachers’ right to fair contract negotiations and is continuing to cut funding for public education and in particular, special education support.

We need your help to protect the children and teachers of British Columbia.  Please sign the Petition.

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Posted in BC Education, K-12 issues, Protests, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions

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BC Teachers Vote Yes to Strike

Posted on March 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on BC Teachers Vote Yes to Strike

With overwhelming support, BC Teachers approved a motion to strike.  The vote was cast “to resist the unjust actions of the provincial government in yet again moving to impose a contract on the province’s 41,000 public school teachers.  A total of 27,946 teachers voted yes in a province-wide vote conducted February 28 and 29, 2012.  In all, 32,209 teachers cast ballots, of whom 87% voted yes.”  See the BCTF for updates.

The full scale strike, limited to 3 days by the BC Labour Relations Board, begins on Monday morning (6 March). On 27 January, BC teachers wore black (see BCTF Teacher p. 18), to mark the 10th anniversary of Bills 27 and 28, which stripped their collective agreements of class size, composition, and specialist service-levels language.  Bill 22 is now threatening to undermine the teachers’ bargaining rights even more.

Labour advocates see this courageous escalation of job action as a spark for solidarity for coalescing the BC labour movement.  At the University of British Columbia, CUPE and FAUBC contracts are in bargaining and at least two bargaining units, CUPE 116 and CUPE 2278, are looking at job action scenarios.  Many BCTF members teach at the University and the BCTF strike may once again force the Faculty of Education to play its hand, as was the case for the 2005 BC teachers strike as university professors turned out in support and documented the 2005 strike.  Look for leadership here from UBC’s Institute for Critical Education Studies.

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Posted in BC Education, Government, K-12 issues, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes

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B.C. teachers plan strike vote, gov’t prepares bill

Posted on February 29, 2012 by | Comments Off on B.C. teachers plan strike vote, gov’t prepares bill

CTV: B.C. teachers plan strike vote, gov’t prepares bill

The ongoing contract dispute between British Columbia teachers and the provincial government is promising to heat up before it cools down, as each side prepares its next move.

Teachers have been on a limited strike since September, and while they can’t legally walk off the job, they’ve been refusing to perform administrative duties like filling out report cards.

On Friday, the BC Teachers’ Federation, which represent 41,000 members, announced it will hold strike votes province wide, asking educators Tuesday and Wednesday whether they want to escalate limited teach-only action to a full-scale walkout.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Workplace journal has new home

Posted on February 28, 2012 by | Comments Off on Workplace journal has new home

Dear Workplace Authors, Readers, and Support,

We have moved to a new site. Please bookmark and circulate http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace for content, submissions, and correspondence.

Thank you for your extremely important, continued scholar-activism and support.

Institute for Critical Education Studies

Faculty of Education
University of British Columbia
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Canada
604-822-2830

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UBC Graduate Students Move Toward Aggressive Bargaining

Posted on February 27, 2012 by | Comments Off on UBC Graduate Students Move Toward Aggressive Bargaining

University of British Columbia Graduate Students Local CUPE 2278, still negotiating the extension of the 2006-2010 Agreement, resolved that they are “tired of struggling year after year against rising inflation and tuition costs while some UBC employees are financially protected from these concerns…. Have we set a date for a strike vote? No. Has there been an official strike vote yet? No. Have we been given the mandate to stop taking crap and use every tool available to us to get taken seriously at the table? You better believe it.”  Those in support of bargaining agency will recall the courageous 2278 strike of 2003.

See CUPE 2278 UBC Graduate Students and Ubyssey for more.

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Posted in Protests, Student Movement

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Concordia Students 5-Day Sleep-In Protest

Posted on February 27, 2012 by | Comments Off on Concordia Students 5-Day Sleep-In Protest

Beginning today, students at Concordia University will be moving en masse to the W. McConnell Library and staying for the remainder of the week.  The 5-day sleep-in is in protest of pending tuition hikes and increasing burdens trickled and poured down on students within an economy that is failing.  About 48,000 students throughout Quebec are  boycotting classes, “many indefinitely,” in protest.

Photograph by: Phil Carpenter , Montreal Gazette files. Read more: Montreal Gazette

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Student Activism Gathers Force in Montreal

Posted on February 23, 2012 by | Comments Off on Student Activism Gathers Force in Montreal

MONTREAL – About 15,000 students rallied Thursday afternoon at Phillip’s Square to protest tuition hikes.

On Tuesday, about 36,000 students took part in an unlimited strike to oppose tuition hikes – about 16,000 of them from CEGEPs and the rest from departments at the Université de Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Université Laval à Québec.

Organizers claim more than 65,000 students are on strike in Quebec.

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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Posted in Protests, Student Movement, Students

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Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge to Race-Conscious Admissions at U. of Texas

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge to Race-Conscious Admissions at U. of Texas

The Chronicle: Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge to Race-Conscious Admissions at U. of Texas

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it would take up a lawsuit challenging race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas, setting the stage for it to reconsider affirmative-action policies that it had ruled constitutional in 2003, before its composition significantly changed.

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Posted in Legal issues, Students

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Michigan Senate Approves Bill to Block Unions by Graduate Research Assistants

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on Michigan Senate Approves Bill to Block Unions by Graduate Research Assistants

The Chronicle: Michigan Senate Approves Bill to Block Unions by Graduate Research Assistants

A Republican-sponsored bill that would bar graduate research assistants at Michigan’s public universities from unionizing has been approved by the State Senate. Consideration of the bill coincides with debates over whether research assistants at the University of Michigan should be classified as students, not as employees entitled to collective-bargaining rights. The bill, which now heads to the House, threatens to upend a case pending before an administrative-law judge, who is scheduled to deliver her recommendation to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission on March 13.

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Posted in Legal issues, Organizing, Students, Unions

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AAUP Will Reconduct 2011 Election After Labor Dept. Finds Problems

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on AAUP Will Reconduct 2011 Election After Labor Dept. Finds Problems

The Chronicle: AAUP Will Reconduct 2011 Election After Labor Dept. Finds Problems

The American Association of University Professors must redo an election it held last year after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor found irregularities that it believes could have affected the election results.

The faculty group will hold a new vote for members of the National Council, its governing body, and for the chair of the Assembly of State Conferences, an umbrella organization of all of the state AAUP conferences.

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Posted in Unions

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The birth of critical university studies

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on The birth of critical university studies

The Chronicle Review: Deconstructing Academe

By Jeffrey J. Williams

Over the past two decades in the United States, there has been a new wave of criticism of higher education. Much of it has condemned the rise of “academic capitalism” and the corporatization of the university; a substantial wing has focused on the deteriorating conditions of academic labor; and some of it has pointed out the problems of students and their escalating debt. A good deal of this new work comes from literary and cultural critics, although it also includes those from education, history, sociology, and labor studies. This wave constitutes what Heather Steffen, a graduate student in literary and cultural studies with whom I have worked at Carnegie Mellon University, and I think is an emerging field of “critical university studies.”

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Posted in Academics

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Laurier could face strike by faculty in early March

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on Laurier could face strike by faculty in early March

The Record: Laurier could face strike by faculty in early March

WATERLOO — Full-time faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University will be in a legal strike position on March 3 if a contract settlement isn’t reached with the university.

The Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association said Wednesday that 520 members approved a strike mandate with a 91 per cent vote last Friday. The group includes 19 librarians. Their contract ran out on July 1.

Main issues include salaries and pensions, both sides said.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

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Dalhousie faculty vote 83% in favour of strike

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | Comments Off on Dalhousie faculty vote 83% in favour of strike

CBC: Dalhousie faculty vote 83% in favour of strikehttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/02/17/ns-dalhousie-faculty-strike-vote.html

The Dalhousie Faculty Association has voted 83 per cent in favor of a strike.

Anthony Stewart, president of the association said the vote will send a message to Dalhousie University that the faculty is serious about getting a fair deal.

The biggest issue for the faculty association members is protecting their pensions.

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Protesters swarm streets of Spain against labour law reforms

Posted on February 19, 2012 by | Comments Off on Protesters swarm streets of Spain against labour law reforms

Protesters swarm streets of Spain against labour law reforms

Photos of Protest

Hundreds of thousands of people, many waving red and white union flags, protested across Spain on Sunday against sweeping labour market reforms that make it easier to slash pay and lay off workers.

Spain’s two biggest unions, the CCOO and UGT, organised protests in 57 cities against the reforms which Spain’s new conservative government argues are needed to revive the economy and slash a jobless rate of 22.85 percent, the highest in the developed world.

Union officials said 500,000 people hit the streets in Madrid and 400,000 in Barcelona.

In the Spanish capital, protesters marched under sunny skies behind a large banner that read “No to the unfair, inefficient and useless reform”.

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Posted in Protests, Unions

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