Students arrested at UdeM
Eleven students have been arrested at the Université de Montréal Tuesday as the university cancelled several classes in an attempt to preserve the peace. As noted in this article, and widely tweeted, the presence of police at the campus is felt be heightening tensions rather than cooling them off.
Adam 12:57 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Obviously having the cops around while people are being illegally bullied and intimidated heightens tensions. Yes, it’s true that there would be no tensions if everyone just obeyed the mob and stayed home and away from the classroom. Like how if you just hand over your wallet, no one gets hurt.
steph 13:25 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Did law 78 revoke the ‘union’ status of the student unions? What does a vote to go on strike even mean anymore?
Kate 14:13 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
No, Bill 78 restricts picketing on university campuses, but it doesn’t say anything about the status of student unions.
As far as I can tell, the issue at UdeM is that students in some faculties voted to maintain the strike while others voted to go back to school, so you have some students wanting to go to class crossing paths with others intending to strike, inevitably a rather fraught situation.
Ephraim 14:23 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Well, this goes contrary to logic, because if you can afford to risk fines of $1K to $5K, you can certainly afford the tuition increase.
ant6n 15:08 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
@Ephraim
To your logic, if you accept the curtailng of basic rights (demonstrating near a university), you may as well accept not being allowed to vote anymore.
ant6n 16:06 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Although this discussion is moot, because it seems the students were arrested for assault.
Kate 16:35 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Yes, the police just tweeted that the charges were not made under Law 12, aka Bill 78.
Adam 17:31 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Steph: the student unions are “unions” in name only. They have no legal authority to enforce a boycott on their members by preventing people from going to class. They are granting themselves that power out of thin air. It’s as if you showed up at work and the social committee announced that there would be a strike vote and if it passes, no one is allowed to work. It’s utter nonsense.
The right to demonstrate near a university is important. So is the right to go about your business peaceably and go to class.
Adam Hooper 17:36 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Despite what some student picketers may say, “picket line” is legal and “prevent people from going somewhere” is illegal (it violates a Charter right). Bill 78 didn’t change that.
In other words: people have the right to cross a legitimate picket line. And it’s a beautiful thing, to me, when enough people freely choose not to. But that hasn’t been happening with the student movement.
I don’t even know why I’m writing this. It’s a tangent for sure. But I need to get it off my chest :).
Ephraim 18:00 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
@ant6n Near or on the campus? Big difference, one is public and the other is private property. Doesn’t matter in any case, no one has a right to assault anyone else, anywhere.
willie granger 20:39 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Six people, not 11, were arrested, the earlier reports were incorrect.
Alex L 21:47 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Ahh, won’t even bother to counter-argument, I’m getting tired of that nonsense.
Alex L 21:53 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
@ Adam
http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/le-cercle-la-presse/actualites/201205/05/48-239-greve-etudiante-injonctions-et-briseurs-de-greve-appeler-un-chat-un-chat.php
steph 22:55 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
So picketers can’t block access to the class. ok. Is disrupting class illegal? Who defines what is disruptive? How difficult would it be for Universities to hold attendance at the door to a classes and only registered students can enter? Enforce a ‘no audit’ policy, education isn’t free. And if the Students unions aren’t real unions, can students withhold the student fees that are being charged to them for the student union?
Kevin 07:23 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
Student unions are not representative and not real unions. I say this as a former CSU councillor.
As a dues-paying union member, I’m annoyed when a small group holds a poorly advertised and poorly attended strike vote and pretends it’s binding. It makes real strikes look bad.
The only reason for these clashes is because the ‘movement’ does not have broad support. If it did, protesters would not be inside classes pushing around students.
Making sure a strike has broad support is why most real unions demand supermajority votes to conduct a strike, and insist on very high quorum for votes.
The last figures I saw for a student vote indicated that 41 people out of a department of 600 attended a vote — and 28 voted to strike.
To pretend that is democratic, to pretend that is binding, to pretend that is sufficient mandate for a strike, is nonsense.
Adam 08:30 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
Alex L, that piece is just ridiculous. The author basically says, well, there’s no legal right to stop anyone from going to class, but I think there should be, so really we should act as through there is. I suspect that the reason she’s teaching law instead of practicing it is that she lost all of her cases.
Alex L 09:42 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
Well we agree on that, CSU isn’t representative of its students: but the councillors of CSU should try to enforce direct democracy instead of ignoring its members and bowing to the administration like they did in the last months. Have you been to other universities?
The only reason for these clashes is people in general don’t care about politics, be it student, municipal or provincial politics. And most students are not different in that. What will be the turnout for these upcoming elections? What was the municipal turnout? What do you expect a student assembly’s turnout to be? I agree it should be higher : but about half of the population showed up at last provincial election, and 39% showed at the municipal. But we still respect the results, whatever they are.
I had a teacher yesterday telling me she was angry at the students who complained they couldn’t their classes. She said (and I agree with her) that by not showing to the assemblies, they were basically putting her in an unbearable situation by having to call the security that, in the end, called the police. If they really wanted to get their classes, she said, they should have gone voting to end the strike and no one would contest the results and no picket lines would be held.
@ Adam, adjectives and insults won’t convince anyone.
Kevin 11:41 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
@Alex
The problem is that student associations are for the most part just a clique of like minded people who want to buff up their CV.
80%+ of students aren’t aware they exist, or know about anything that they do.
Even when they have votes, average turnout is about 3%. And with the current crisis, the people who organize the votes seem to be making very little effort to contact all members of their association.
I dunno about you, but in my union, the reps have everyone’s email address, street address, and phone numbers. They make a big effort to make sure we know there’s a vote, and that everyone shows up.
My last strike vote saw 95%+ attendance.
Kate 18:11 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
If students don’t like the decisions being made on their behalf, they have to get off their arses and get involved in student politics. It’s a microcosm of what happens if you’re too apathetic to vote in regular elections and then don’t like the way you see your society going.
Adam 19:49 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
There is no way that the “if-you-don’t-like-it-then-go-vote” crowd hasn’t read about the numerous instances in which student associations arranged the vote so that people who oppose this movement could express themselves, for example by scheduling votes last minute or by scheduling them during classes so that people who are at school to actually get an education couldn’t make it.
There is no way that they haven’t read about the intimidation that takes place in these assemblies against anyone opposed to the red squares.
There is no way that they haven’t read that the votes are done by show of hands, which hasn’t been the way we vote in elections in well over a century, for good reason.
This is one of the reasons I get so worked up. It’s as if you just feel free to ignore logic, evidence and reason and just repeat the same slogans over and over, as if no one has explained why they’re invalid.
ant6n 20:21 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
Sorry, I just see claims. And they seem to be coming from the same people who make claims like “if some students can afford iphones, all students can afford the tuition increases”, or “if you go demonstrate despite a constitutionally questionable law disallowing that, then you don’t understand democracy.”
Kid A 20:51 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
From what I’ve been hearing, there’s definitely some organizing already going on at Concordia to get the anti-strikers to flood the assemblies in large numbers, next time the pseudo-revolutionaries try to mess up our semester(s). We will be ready.
Adam 20:55 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
ant6n, if all you see are claims (I assume you mean unsubstantiated claims) about the non-existent democratic legitimacy of some of these votes then you’re not reading the same articles that I am.
And for the millionth time, even if the student associations vote in favour of a “strike” they have absolutely no legal authority to require their members to respect it. I keep repeating that again and again and the only answer I remember getting is that article that Alex L posted that, as I mentioned, concedes the point and then pretty much argues that we should pretend that they’ve got the authority anyway. Isn’t there a point at which one gets embarrassed to be making such transparently inane arguments?
Kate 09:00 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
Adam, you’re shouting down a storm drain, you know it. You don’t have a leg to stand on and have fallen back on calling ant6n’s views inane, which they’re not. Reading this blog must be painful for you. I suggest you start your own instead.
Adam 11:45 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
Kate, you’re serious, aren’t you? You really think that I don’t have a leg to stand on? Wow. Evidence, logic and facts are normally the way one engages in discussion on such issues, but I guess for whatever reason things are different in these parts.
Still wondering when someone might actually acknowledge that student associations simply do not have the authority to keep people out of the classroom.
Incidentally, what I referred to as “inane” was the article that Alex L posted (nothing to do with ant6n or Alex L personally). I explained why. Crickets…
I read the blog for local news, although sometimes the jaw-dropping nature of the comments can be interesting.
Kate 12:22 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
Has it not crossed your mind, Adam, that your sneering condescension and dismissiveness is either merely boring or annoying people and that they’re not engaging with you not because of your superior arguments or charm but because they don’t want to encourage you and wish you would go away?
Kevin 12:56 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
@Kate
“If students don’t like the decisions being made on their behalf, they have to get off their arses and get involved in student politics.”
That has never happened in history and it’s not about to start now.
The vast majority of people getting a post-secondary education just want to go to class, get their degree, and get out. (This is often denounced as turning schools into diploma mills, but it’s what most people want. I saw this first hand in every class I took that was not in my major. Boy were people apathetic lazy and ignorant. And with deep pockets since they often failed and had to take classes twice. But I digress.) They have *no* interest in anything else, which is why these associations and their votes are not legitimate.
ant6n 16:44 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
That sounds a bit like saying government is not legitimate because many people don’t care about politics.
Kate 19:38 on 2012/08/30 Permalink
Well Kevin, how are students as a group meant to muster attention and action on issues affecting them as a group?
Students have had unions for years. McGill’s is over a century old. These organizations exist, and have continuity, for all kinds of reasons.
Students may not have the same reasons to band together to deal with those in authority over them as working people do, but they do have reasons.
Kevin 07:23 on 2012/08/31 Permalink
@ant6n
If voter turnout dropped to the levels seen by student associations it would not be legitimate.
@Kate
They have to get the masses out to vote, and if they can’t get the numbers, they cannot pretend to
Like I said, my union makes a point of getting every new employees email and phone number, and contacts us when something important is happening.
If student associations want to strike and claim it’s fully democratic they’ve got to get the people out.
Enough of the endless debates followed by a show of hands — that drives people away because people who love to hear their own voice dominate the mic. Hold a debate one night — vote the next. Vote online, vote all day (or over 3 days), vote with a secret ballot.