New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh addressed supporters of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 2424 on March 20, speaking about the importance of workers’ pension rights.
This came in the wake of Carleton and union officials meeting for 14 hours on March 18, with “the assistance of a mediator,” according to an official statement on Carleton’s website. The update further stated that they were “unable to reach an agreement at this time.”
“I really appreciate the fact that you’re out here in the cold, and you’re striking for important rights,” Singh said.
While Singh spoke about workers’ rights, he did not speak about how the strike has affected students and faculty members at large.
“I feel like they’re just annoying the students,” said Erica Rempel, a first-year student. “I didn’t think I’d be that affected, but now I hear exams could get affected, and the library closes at 8 [p.m.] most nights, so it’s difficult I find.”
The MacOdrum Library has since returned to normal hours, but according to several other students who spoke to the Charlatan, reduced hours at other facilities on campus have adversely affected students.
Minh Truong, a first-year communications student, spoke about how the strike has impacted her access to mental health services, and is concerned with her housing next year.
“The strike has been especially difficult for me, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on,” she said. “We were supposed to hear from housing right about now, and we still haven’t because of the strike.”
The CUPE 2424 strike has also affected science students at Carleton.
“I have nine hours of lab time taken out of my week, but I don’t have grades going into my finals, with chunks of grades missing or replaced with essays by professors,” said Navdeep Dhillon, a first-year neuroscience and biology student. “As long as it’s going on, I think it’s going to affect people more and more because we wrote a midterm and aren’t getting marks for it until the strike is over.”
But, Dhillon also said she believes the strike is justified.
“Yes, it’s taking time and yes, [the strike] has been on for a while, but the strikers had to do something for their rights,” she said.
Dhillon is not the only student who said they understand CUPE 2424’s reasons for going on strike. Several fourth-year journalism students recently penned an open letter to Carleton officials asking them to “support staff, and all of Carleton University’s support staff, to have secure rights to their pensions.”
The letter, which was co-authored by Greer Gemin and Mugoli Samba, was also signed by 25 other journalism students who walked out one hour early from their journalism class on March 19, with permission from their professor.
“I think it’s important to get students involved because at the end of the day, we have some power because we are the ones giving the university money, so if we just stand by and let them treat the support staff however they want to, that says a lot about us,” Samba said.
CUPE 2424 president Jerrett Clark said he believes that open letters are impactful.
“When student groups and faculty unions send open letters to the president and other decision-makers at the university, I think it has a huge impact,” he said. “And while it hasn’t necessarily resulted in a successful agreement thus far, I think it continues to build momentum and hopefully, we’ll keep sending a message to the university.”
Clark also said he believes that Singh speaking on March 20, and the Student Appreciation Barbeque the union held on March 19, are important to educate students about their stake in the strike.
“I think it’s always a big morale booster for the picket lines, and I think there was a lot of interest from students and generally passersby who help to bolster the whole event,” he said.
Stuart J. Murray, a professor in the department of English language and literature and health sciences at Carleton, wrote an opinion piece for the Ottawa Citizen in support of CUPE 2424. He was also part of 335 professors who signed an open letter urging Carleton officials to “return to the bargaining table and call for bargaining in good faith on both sides.”
“The students I’ve spoken to are stressed, and I think that my colleagues and I are very concerned,” he said. “ Our CUPE [2424] staff are the front-line workers, they’re involved in a day-to-day basis with everything. They make the place run.”
Photo by Meagan Casalino
