Hundreds rally outside Governing Council meeting in support of CUPE 3902
I wrote nothing for the printed issue this week, but I was asked to cover a demonstration on Thursday afternoon. This hasn’t been posted on the newspaper website yet since I have no companion images and this piece is suppose to be doubled up with another that still hasn’t been written, but hopefully it will go online later tonight. I’ll link it when it does.
Also the headline and subhead will likely change. I’m not very good at writing those things, so I mostly give up and let someone else do it. My submitted offerings were “TA rally at Boredom Dull / Protestors gonna protest.” A running theme has been my belief that my writing is dull and the subjects are boring, so I doubly express that in the titles I offer (“The Spy Who Bored Me,” “JSNORE,” etc).
I’m on reading week now, so I’m hopefully going to get on top of some of my leisure projects and studies for the final stretch of the academic year. If I’m really prudent, I might even knock out one of my two essays. There’s also no issue on Thursday due to the break, so hopefully I’ll finish the final batch of crosswords and sudokus as well.
Hundreds rally outside Governing Council meeting in support of CUPE 3902
President Naylor says administration will not lock out TAs if they strike
This past Thursday, hundreds of U of T students and campus contract workers braved dreary weather to rally behind CUPE 3902′s fight for better working conditions for teaching assistants and stronger support for graduate students. The demonstration, which took place in front of Simcoe Hall for approximately two hours during the afternoon’s Governing Council meeting, is the most recent expression of the frustration that U of T’s TAs have endured over the course of their lengthy bargaining process.
“We’ve been trying to negotiate a fair contract for eight months,” said James Nugent, Chief Spokesperson for the bargaining team. “Our goal, shared by all of the education workers, students and faculty who have come out here today, is simply to improve the learning and teaching conditions here at the university.”
Amidst their incessant chanting interspersed with brief speeches from concerned undergraduate students and troubled TAs, members of the crowd held high various banners sporting passionate pleas of “defending our education.” The innovative centrepiece of the demonstration, a helium powered kite of protest, could often be seen bobbing back and forth in front of the windows of the Governing Council chamber. “When you’re at an undemocratic university, you’re forced to use balloon banners,” remarked Ashleigh Ingle, an event coordinator and member of CUPE’s bargaining team.
Even though the rally was mainly in support of CUPE 3902 and U of T’s TAs in the face of treatment they perceived as grossly unfair by the administration, the outrage of the crowd was also directed towards the allegedly shady procedures of Governing Council meetings. News that the majority of the council members overseeing the university is comprised of sharply dressed CEOs incited the crowd to shout “Shame!” repeatedly.
In addition to raising awareness for the plight of graduate student existence at U of T, five undergraduates offered to deliver copies of a letter in support of CUPE signed by over 1000 of their fellow students into the council meeting. Katie Mazer, Internal Liaison Officer for CUPE 3902, read aloud the letter, explaining that “[we] got 1000 signatures not for lack of support, but for lack of labour.” Such support was solicited only at Sidney Smith Hall in the few hours before the rally. Soon thereafter, more signatures arrived from UTSC.
Several campus police officers guarding the doors to Simcoe Hall repeatedly denied access to the undergraduates. When the undergraduates were finally admitted some time later, it was soon reported that they were blocked from entering the council chamber, and the crowd roared again.
Attendance figures for the demonstration vary. CUPE’s official press release claims that over 1000 students, faculty, and U of T contract workers were present, while Ingle estimates a more modest turnout of approximately 400.
One of the notoriously large lecture groups exiting nearby Convocation Hall — an embodiment of the declining quality of undergraduate education from unwieldy class and tutorial sizes and one of the reasons for which the crowd had gathered — offered the opportunity to swell the numbers of the crowd, yet nearly every passerby fell silent. Regardless, pledges of solidarity by Canadian Federation of Students Ontario President Sandy Hudson and other union representatives kept spirits high, and CUPE will return to the bargaining table early next week to continue their negotiations with the U of T administration.
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