As Universities across the province resume on-campus operations this week, OUWCC urges all Ontarians to join them in supporting and endorsing the two-day Scholar Strike currently underway.
University faculty across North America will suspend regular instruction on September 9 and 10. In its place will be a series of ‘virtual teach-ins’ focusing on the impact of anti-Black racism, police brutality against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPoC), and a host of other vital issues that have received far too little attention, for far too long.
CUPE University workers are teachers and instructors, they are maintenance staff and support workers. The range of roles CUPE University workers play at Ontario universities is extraordinarily broad. Regardless of the role they play, on a daily basis they bear witness to the inequalities that are at the core of why the Scholar Strike is so important and necessary.
There can be no doubt that our members are wholeheartedly in agreement with the Scholar Strike, as well as the rationale for why such action is necessary.
We urge all students, non-management university staff and every OUWCC member to recognize the many ways in which systemic bias and racism against BIPoC members of university communities across Ontario are built into our post-secondary educational institutions, and to commit themselves to taking an active role in advocating for meaningful reforms, to our universities, as well as the broader society in which we all live.
In the wake of Labour Day, and in the midst of a pandemic that has thrown into sharp focus the profound inequalities in our society, OUWCC is proud to demonstrate their support and solidarity with the Scholar Strike.
David Simao Chair, OUWCC
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