#student strike

San Francisco State College 1968: On strike, shut it down!

There is a province wide student strike being organized in Nova Scotia for March 15-20.

This is happening as the provincial government is planning huge cuts to University funding.

The main demands (as set in the Canadian Federation of Students NS's resolution) are:

-Affordable tuition (defined as the abolition of differential fess for international and out of province students, as well as a 20% reduction in tuition fees for all students at all public post secondary schools in NS. These are intended to be achieved through increased government funding.)

-Divestment (from all weapons manufacturing entities, all entities directly involved in the production of fossil fuels, all entities directly or indirectly supporting genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression, as well as all entities which directly profit from exploitation of resources extracted from sovereign Indigenous land without consent.)

These demands can be changed or added to by individual student unions participating.

NSCAD student union voted yes at the end of February to join the strike, the first student strike mandate in NS history. (SUNSCAD voted to add timely repair to ensure access to printers and elevators.)

They were followed by Acadia University last week. (ASU did not allow amendments to the strike motion.)

Dalhousie and Kings University student unions have votes planned for this Thursday March 12th.

I believe Mount Saint Vincent University is intending to as well.

Cape Breton University and Saint Mary's University student unions have chosen to decline to participate (keep a "neutral" stance in their words), and will not be holding a student vote.

I believe similar strikes are planned across Canada, I've mostly heard about Ontario schools. The intention, from my understanding, is for a national movement.

Student protest and good for them!

“‘The Dames Let Us Down,’ Say Student Strikers, Returning To School,” Toronto Star. April 20, 1939. Page 25 & 26. ---- BEFORE STRIKE ENDED For three days students went on strike at Port Haney, B.C., because they said their schoolhouse was rat-infested and a handicap to students and teachers. They loafed, fished, did a little picketing. But yesterday the strike was over.

PORT HANEY YOUNGSTERS ARE BACK IN THE SCHOOL THEY CONDEMNED Port Haney, little Fraser valley town in B.C., is back to normal again. Three hundred protesting students returned to classes yesterday in the unlighted school which they condemned as unfit. Three days ago they trooped out on strike parading with signs, but the strike was over when the students’ council voted 11-5 for return. ‘Too many girls on the council!’ exclaimed some irate young males, who declared: ‘The dames let us down.’

“Tanned Hides, Co-Eds’ Lure, Bust of Students’ Strike,” Toronto Star. April 20, 1939. Page 25 & 26. ---- B. C. School Reopens - Reveal Gladstone Murray Once Was Pupil ---- ‘DAMES LET US DOWN’ --- Special to The Star Port Haney, B.C., April 20. - Fourteen-year-old ‘Brains’ Williams and 17-year-old Douglas Edwards are convinced the old-fashioned razor strap and fluttering feminine hearts are a menace to civilization.

Though they would be the first to deny it, the freckled-faced young ‘Brains’ and his good-looking partner are moving spirits behind the ‘children’s crusade,’ which 300 school students of this Fraser Valley town walk out of classes three days ago and stay out, as a protest against overcrowding. Today, however, they were forced to admit their strike was at a temporary end. Reluctantly, Haney;s pupils straggled back to class down country lanes to resume their readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic. ‘The dames let us down, young Edwards growled bitterly. The son of a valley mill operator, he is the ‘Frank Merriwell’ of the school and a natural-born leader.

Young Williams, a laughing, good-natured little man, with a sharp face and sharper mind, blames the parental rod for breaking up a glorious three-day holiday devoted to loafing, fishing, and a little incidental striking.

‘My old man said he’d tan my hide if I didn’t go back to school,’ he confessed to a Star reporter.

‘Yeah, and mine said he’d take away my clarinet and sent it back to Vancouver,’ piped up another young red-head.

Girls Swing Vote At any rate, the students went back to classes yesterday after their council, headed by pretty Phyllis Dewold, had voted 11-5 for return. ‘Too many girls on council,’ an irate knot of boys cried, when the decision was announced. Lusty boos resounded over the McLean high school playing field, where students had massed in bleachers to talk the matter over with their principal, F. J. Welland.

The students went back to classes grudgingly. Several said they would be out on strike again within a week.

Meanwhile, they are pinning their hopes for better conditions on a petition which they have signed and forwarded to Dr. George M. Weird, provincial minister of education.

In the letter they complain that Maple Ridge school, which was built in 1870 and numbers Gladstone Murray among its alumni, is overcrowded, dilapidated, has been condemned four times, and is a virtual arena for Port Haney’s rats.

‘Come and see for yourself,’ they invited the minister. So far the government has indicated they will leave it a municipal problem. With the chairman of the school board away on holidays, the four remaining trustees have split on the issue.

Trustee Runs Blockade A bitter argument Tuesday night resulted in a near-riot when one of the trustees tried to force his way through a cordon of students who linked arms to prevent him from leaving the building. In the ensuing fracas a pretty ninth-grade student, Peggy Whitby, suffered three scratches on the neck.

‘He was mad, all right,’ she told reporters. ‘But I don’t think he meant to hurt me.’

All other demonstrations of students, who have the sympathy of a large number of farmers in the area, have been most orderly. They marched out in neat file singing ‘The Stein Song,’ and since that day have had a whale of a time with their mass hookey.

Teachers were credited with a neat coup d’etat Wednesday when they issued term report cards to parents. ‘That will bring some of them back,’ one instructor said: ‘and I miss my guess if a few of ‘em don’t take their classes standing up.’

[Student Strike UG (University of Guanajuato), wednesday on december 4th, from 5:30am.

“The truth is not enough to set us free”

We demand immediate action in regard to the security from the city and college authorities]

As the poster above states, from this wednesday (there has been smaller protests since before, but this is the first great and organized one) to call for action against the violence and danger that face college students, particularly for female students.

This has been piling up for quite a while now; since there had been filed hundred of sexual assault complains from students and female staff against other professors from the college, and the only reprimand was a paid week of suspension. Things don’t stop there, since there have been cases of students gone missing later found dead, with no further action from either the police or the college to improve security.

The last drop was that on December 2nd, a chemistry student called Ana Daniela (pictured above), who had gone missing since Nevember 29th after coming back home from a party, was found dead by her parents on her own apartment, something that was at first atributed to a suicide, but the forensic reports declared that she had been strangled.

That same day the strike was called by to start on Wednesday. The school first response was to close all the campus from the college to avoid the strikers to enter the buildings.

The demands that are being made by the students are as it follows:

Dialogue with the authorities of the city and the college

Acknowlodgement of the murder cases of the students

For the college to listen to the assault compliants filed against several employees.

To organize mandatory conferences about gender-based violence

Improve the locations of the different campus of the city, since lots of students live too far away from them, needing to traslade themselves from 6 to 10 km everyday.

Improve public transportation for the students.

To respect the rights of the families of the victims

For the University of Guanajuato to stop turning a blind eye and stol silencing the victims of violence.

Here are some pictures from the strike:

6/100 days of productivity