chooseandact replied to your post āJust thought I'd send a Support Message. The strike is a bloody...ā
Ranting is fine. The students-caught-in-middle reminds me of a 2012 high school strike vs McGuinty gov't. Search "people not pawns sir robert borden strike" for more. Smaller scale true, but similar(ish?). Students: we have a shared, collective memory!
Honestly, in cases like this college-level strike there really should be something in place that at least allows the students to voice their concerns before the strike even happens. There should have been representatives from a provincial-wide student association at the meetings leading up to the strike between the OSPEU and the CEC. Itās one thing when itās high school or younger students, entirely another when youāre talking about legal adults who each spent thousands of dollars to get that education, moved to new cites, have to pay rent/res fees, and are relying on the education to get something that will lead to a future job (although Iāll admit that high schoolers would also have a pretty legit claim for grievance in the event of a strike lasting this long, too).
At the very least there should be some kind of deadline for a tuition refund, set maybe around the two week mark of a strike. If a strike lasts longer than that, then the colleges have to start giving money back to students. The longer it goes on, the more money goes back. Instead of right now, where it seems like we might not see anythingĀ back at all, and maybeĀ if we lose the semester completely. That way itāll at the very least encourage the colleges to get their asses in gear and start talking, and also possibly make them a little more flexible. Because right now they donāt see students as anything but a bargaining chip to guilt trip our profs back to work.
But more and more people are beginning to talk about some kind of legal action against the schools should we lose the semester. While Iām not too sure how effective it would be, it sure as fuck would make both the schools and the government look bad. But at this point I think thereās irreparable damage thatās been done between the students and how they view their schools. Thereās distrust, and hurt, anger, frustration, and betrayal. All those messages and emails the schools sent out to their students about how theyāre doing this for the improvement of our education, that things will end soon, that itāll turn out ok in the end: theyāre all lies at this point. And with each new email that tells us nothing of substance and only serves to try and patch up what, at this point, is a gushing wound all of that bitterness and resentment gets worse.
By the time this strike ends the students are going to hate their schools, and morale and pride will be gone. Any passion will be gone, any love for learning and the place weāre learning it from will be gone - all weāll want is our fucking diploma and to never look back.
