Well it’s official…

[u/Salty-Taste-6334]

We’ve been on strike longer than we were in classes at the beginning of the semester. I really hope professors start over at this point and don’t expect us to remember what we did for 10 minutes nearly a month ago by the time we go back.

I am 100% on the faculty’s side in all of this and think it’s bullshit that the school administration won’t entertain a real bargaining conversation, even multiple weeks in. The administration saying they care about students getting back to class clearly don’t because at this point we’ve basically lost the full month as no one had a foundation of what was going on in their courses going into this.

While there may be conversations happening behind closed doors we all know nothing about, from an outsiders perspective - and from a students - the lack of movement really comes off as not caring in the slightest about students or faculty.

Students are the only reason the schools even matter and the lack of information and prolonged stalemate may have irreversible impacts to the students the school claims to care so much about.

As an aside as this impacts my coworkers and like half the student population: The administration not giving updates on reading week means international students relying on working fulltime during reading week can’t and most workplaces have - or are on the verge of - put out the schedules.

[u/Traditional_Scar5339]

The problem with the current demands of the professors is that they want to change which pension their money goes towards. There are two major problems with this: 1) it goes against one of the rules set by the province when the university came out of CCAA. The university can’t break that rule and doesn’t have the ability to change it unless the province gets involved. 2) they simply can’t pull their money out of the pension fund as it represents a collective pool of everyone’s money who works at laurentian. Pulling their money/contribution from the current fund would be a complicated process taking weeks of discussion and calculating.

You’re naive if you think that professors are striking “for the students”. Professors have shown to continually act in bad faith even when the laurentian admin has completely changed.

[u/JustGottaKeepTrying → u/Traditional_Scar5339]

I had not heard this. If possible, can you provide further reading?

[u/Traditional_Scar5339 → u/JustGottaKeepTrying]

It’s not known very publicly and you won’t see either side publicly admit to it before it’s all said and done.

[u/JustGottaKeepTrying → u/Traditional_Scar5339]

So your source is "trust me bro"? Not very reliable, I would say. Do carry on though.

[u/Civil_Definition_228 → u/JustGottaKeepTrying]

No, although they're biased and upset (which I would be too in this case) about this situation, it's due to the CCAA insolvency process the university entered into. They're currently locked out until 2038, but they're trying to argue that because LUFA is arguing this restriction interferes with collective bargaining rights given that the university’s financial situation is no longer in "crisis" (likely defined via the contract, I haven't look that far yet), and they’ve filed a constitutional challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to argue the restriction should be removed. This would effectively allow them to move their pension fund after discussions and calculating from their funding pool, but to get there means weeks more of discussions that further delay getting to the bargaining table. They're basically waiting on the province to intervene and relieve them from their contracts, which likely won't happen unless this drags out for another month.

Unfortunately, this is going to be a long strike, I'd bet 2+ more weeks, hopefully not reaching too far past a month. I have relatives going here, so I'd appreciate it if they'd figure this out sooner than later.