Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Labour and Advanced Education

Open letter calling for reduced student tuition and increased funding for post-secondary institutions

At the end of a challenging year of online classes, Nova Scotia universities are voting to once again raise fees for the coming year. Today, an alliance of 20 higher-education unions, non-unionized workers, and student associations in Nova Scotia, formed at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, released an open letter to Premier Iain Rankin and Labour and Advanced Education Minister Lena Diab calling on them to step up to support struggling students.

Labour views: Kill a worker, go to jail

Danny Cavanagh: “Changing workplace safety will only happen about when bosses learn “kill a worker – go to jail”. Otherwise, fines are just a slap on the wrist, viewed as the cost of doing business.”

Dalhousie Faculty Association receives huge strike mandate as it heads into conciliation

An overwhelming majority of members of the Dalhousie Faculty Association are willing to go on strike if the university’s Board of Governors doesn’t compromise on its current bargaining stance. “We’re still not sure why this is the year they’ve chosen to try to force through these changes, other than that they don’t believe we have the strength to fight back because of Covid fears. To try to take advantage of the pandemic in such a way is just terrible,” says David Westwood, president of the faculty association.

Julia M. Wright: Independence of universities doesn’t end at boardroom door

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Dr. Julia Wright: University presidents cannot effectively lead academic institutions if they are made precarious by boards that overreach or can be significantly driven by the focuses and assumptions of their day-jobs, rather than by academic expertise and the urgent needs of our classrooms, our labs and studios, our libraries, and our province—the whole province, in all its rich complexity and diversity.

Media release: Students barred from campus Sexual Violence Prevention Committee

The Canadian Federation of Students-Nova Scotia (CFS- NS) has been informed that they are not invited to the first meeting the government’s newly reinstated provincial Sexual Violence Prevention Committee to address sexual assault on university campuses. This decision comes as continued retaliation by the Minister of Labour and Advanced Education, Labi Kousoulis, against the CFS-NS, after an op-ed was published in The Coast on March 15 that was critical of the Liberal government’s decision to vote down campus sexual violence legislation.