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The November 5 Day of Action to drop user fees for university students is fast approaching. Regional rallies are being planned in Toronto at Queen’s Park and Ottawa’s Parliament Hill. Other regional actions are planned for Thunder Bay, Sudbury, and Windsor.
It’s important for CUPE members to attend their regional rally as it will bring thousands of people out in support of demands for the university sector. It’s also an opportunity to let undergraduate students know about the issues we face as workers on campus, and build further solidarity between workers and students today, for bargaining in 2010, and beyond.
Get on the bus to your regional rally!
CUPE Ontario and the OUWCC are supporting member locals by providing bus transportation to and from regional rallies. We are also providing informational materials such as posters and flyers, university sector scarves and more.
Privatization is an ever-increasing threat to the university sector. There is an increase in many forms of corporate presence on campus including fast-food suppliers, sponsorship of universities activities such as Welcome Week, exclusive arrangements from cola companies, externally sponsored research and more. Privatization in the form of food and cleaning businesses threatens our jobs. Corporations are concerned first and foremost with increased profit, and not for providing better service for lower prices. We must take a stand against privatization in all its forms, including user fees.
Our coordinator will assist you to mobilize members
Our coordinator, Darius Dadgari, is contacting each local to provide you with information about the campaign, help organize transport, and provide what you need for your local to get members out. A package of materials will be sent to all interested locals including flyers, posters, etc.
Electronic materials are also available on-line at www.cupe.on.ca for you to use immediately.
Be there on November 5:
It’s Time to Drop the Fees
Increased Privatization on Ontario Campuses
A recent survey, developed by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), noted among its findings:
Seventy-nine per cent of respondents indicated there are fast-food suppliers on campus; 79 per cent cite corporate sponsorship of activities like Welcome Week or Spirit Week; 54 per cent of respondents said their campus had an exclusive arrangement with Coke and 40 per cent an exclusive arrangement with Pepsi.
There have been many studies that outline how bottled water is not as rigorously tested as public water supplies, not to mention the disposal of the bottles themselves, up to 80 per cent are not recycled and end up in landfills.
Increased privatization of funding for universities has grown significantly in the last 30 years. Almost half of this funding has come from corporations.
In Ontario, the trend toward privatization has been especially significant, with more than half of all university revenues coming from private sources, PRIVATIZATION INCLUDES TUITION AND STUDENT FEES, private grants and corporate donations.
Externally sponsored research has also grown which means that universities have less and less control over research performed on their campuses.
Private companies, such as food service or cleaning businesses, provide services to some campuses and are constantly approaching others to offer their services. What happens is, the current workers lose their jobs and the private company employs non-union labour at much lower wages, lower regard for health and safety, and these companies provide less service in order to make their profit. Always keep in mind: The main interest of private companies is to make as much profit as possiblenot to provide a clean and healthy campus or nutritious and reasonably-priced meals.
Private campus suppliers can even influence maintenance. Beverage companies who supply food services and machines frequently include bottled water in their contracts and, as a result, universities don’t repair public water fountains (in some cases, they have even removed them).
University campuses are reducing the number of drinking water fountains on campus and, in the CCPA survey, 43 per cent of respondents cited delays in repairing existing water fountains. Others said that new buildings are being built without water fountains, that existing water fountains and cold water taps in washrooms are being removed, and that vending machines are blocking access to water fountains.
FIGHT FEES, FIGHT PRIVATIZATION, FIGHT BOTTLED WATER
