Dear students: get real
Isn’t legitimate, and in the long run it could well hurt your cause
Dear
CEGEP or university student, So you’re going on “strike” against the increases in university tuition fees.
Man, that takes me back – more than 40 years, to when I was at Mcgill (and, incidentally, working part-time and summer jobs to pay fees amounting to significantly more than what you’re paying now, considering inflation over the years).
Back then, Quebec student leaders pretended that we were “young intellectual workers” and that our student associations were like labour unions.
The problem is that, unlike real workers, we weren’t producing any goods or services. If we stopped “working,” it wouldn’t put any real economic or political pressure – which is the purpose of a strike – on anybody.
So what you’re doing now isn’t really a “strike.” It’s not really a consumer boycott, either, since the service you’re refusing has already been paid for.
The right of unionized workers to strike is recognized, protected and regulated by law, namely the Labour Code. You have no such right.
The Labour Code says that a strike must be approved by a majority of a union’s members voting by secret ballot, a basic rule of democracy intended to free the voter from intimidation or bribery. So a vote by a mid-19th-centurystyle open show of hands, such as the “strike” votes held by some student associations, lacks democratic legitimacy.
The Labour Code says that once a union goes on strike, none of its members can go back to work until the strike is settled.
Your student association, however, has no legal power to prevent you or your fellow students from returning to classes, or continuing to go to them, during its walkout.
Even for a union, it’s hard enough to maintain morale after the first few heady days of a strike. (I know. I was once in a union that went out on strike for eight months.) For your student association, it will be even harder.
The Liberal government has ordered classes to continue in spite of the student walkouts, though some have been cancelled.
It’s also said lost time in class will have to be made up, which could cost you money from a part-time or a summer job. Unlike a member of a real union, you won’t get strike pay.
Some CEGEP students are competing for admission to university, and some university students for jobs or places in graduate programs.
As the end of the academic year approaches, pressure on students to cross their own associations’ picket lines will increase. As a result, solidarity among you and your fellow students will break down, amid acrimony.
So maybe you should question your leaders’ judgment in having you walk out, especially so late in the year.
And maybe you should also question the motives of the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire in encouraging them in the hope that students’ frustration and anger at the Liberals will over- come their usual political apathy.
Maybe your leaders are counting on the sight of thousands of students marching in the street to bring public pressure to bear on an unpopular government.
But striking unions usually don’t get public sympathy. And in your case, the public has seen too many news stories about disruptions, vandalism and intimidation by students opposed to the fee increases.
If anything, the government might gain in popularity by resisting what looks to some taxpayers like another interest group reaching into their pockets.
In February, Léger Marketing reported that only 29 per cent of voters said they would vote for the Liberals. But in a recent Léger poll for TVA’S Larocque Lapierre program, 48 per cent expressed approval of the fee increases. Do the math.
By going on “strike,” you might actually help the government. But you probably won’t help yourselves.