Students Unite Against a Strike

“No” Campaign Goes Public in Wake of CSU GA

NewsLaura Beeston — Published March 11, 2012

After the controversial Concordia Student Union general assembly on March 7, two things happened: a minority of undergraduate students voted to go on a five-day strike, and the anti-strike movement began.

Formed a day prior on the heels of an allegedly bitter GA held by the Urban Planning Student Association, the group, Concordia Students Against a Strike, took to the Internet to spread their message. Their membership has apparently ballooned from 160 members to 1,400 members over the weekend.

Taylor Green is a second year urban planning student and spokesperson for CSAS. He says the CSU didn’t do a good enough job representing the many political positions of Concordia students.

“More than half of our group don’t want tuition hikes, we can agree on that point, but the strike tactics [the CSU] are employing were never discussed —they just weren’t,” said Green.

The group also takes issue with the low quorum required to pass union decisions, the way the faculty association and departmental GA’s have been run and with what kind of information has been distributed of late.

“Where are the posters that say, ‘Hey, anyone have an opposing view?’ They never encouraged it. And while I think some of the onus is on people like me that are now speaking up about this, […] really the onus is on the CSU to make sure that there is some kind of involvement from all parties,” said Green.

Despite the differing opinions, Green does believe that creative compromises can be reached on campus that will work for all parties. He called the ideas of the CSAS moderate—maintaining that students’ right to go to class if they want to, or protest if they want to, ought to be respected.

“We should all be on the same side,” he stressed, adding that the term ‘strike’ has polarized our campus.

“Listen, no one wants to see this tuition increase—we all have the same goal,” Green argued, “But we need to get serious. A strike is not serious. It’s a joke if you’re blocking faculty and students from going to class.

“The fight is not supposed to be against Concordia, or against other students, the fight is against the government. Let’s bring it to the government.”

On Saturday, the group released their mandate, and will make its Facebook page public this week.

To download the document released by CSAS , click here

More to come.