Thursday, November 6, 2008

What the....strike?


So, Canada is not the US of A. I'm figuring this out day by day, bit by bit. However, this latest piece of information that goes into this ongoing list of differences has me confused and slightly concerned. My university went on strike this morning. Apparently there are unions that cover different employees on campus - one of which covers the teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and contract faculty. And apparently, they have been underpaid - at least they believe they have been. Erego, a strike has commenced and almost all of the university's courses have been cancelled for the duration of the strike. Except for mine. Yup, the graduate business school courses are still running, but since there are picket lines, they have the right to detain you for up to ten minutes. This is going to be interesting. Thankfully, the times I usually drive off campus are outside their picket line hours, so we should be okay. But still - universities can go on strike? More than 50,000 students can have their classes canceled? Doesn't this seem counterintuitive for the an educational institution to cancel the educating part of their operations? Gee whiz.

1 comment:

Jules said...

My school isn't on strike! You'd better transfer.