Photo credit: Matthew Ingram – CC BY 2.0
It’s an honor to speak with you today. The gathering included a critical spirit in this country, a sign of the awakening of the political and moral energies needed not only to fight for the university as a democratic public sphere, but also to oppose the increasing corporatization of the university. is seen again. . you are not alone. You are part of today’s labor movement. The movement is young, dynamic, belligerent and willing to fight for important personal, political and economic rights. You represent the spirit of collective resistance that refuses to be written out of the democratic script. It is resistance characterized by a willingness to stand up and fight oppressive working conditions.
Your struggles today range from justice for indigenous and transgender people to struggles for students, workers, women and others, along with the ongoing struggle for broad democratic rights. It speaks to future possibilities. current shackles. Your request for meaningful wage increases, reduced tuition increases, and guaranteed access to jobs for your fifth-year TA should be based on working conditions and work environments that justify your dignity, professionalism, and motivation. Demonstrate willingness to fight for Stand firm against universities whose models of governance refuse to take seriously how education and democracy share information with each other. I mention dignity because it is hard to believe that this administration is unaware of the difficulties placed on TA, where wages have barely kept up with inflation, especially coupled with extreme housing costs. Such policies consume your time and crush your spirit. This is more than arrogant disregard. It is a morally and socially irresponsible act.
My discussion today is not confined to McMaster University, but more broadly, particularly to higher education in North America. Your strike is more broadly around the university as a place of critical teaching and learning, a site that embodies a vision of social justice, and a vision that refuses to make the university an adjunct to corporate ideologies and values. cannot be separated from the struggle. Universities are more than just markets. It is more than a space where the only interaction that matters is commerce-based, and where higher education is tapped for the needs of war-states, the fossil fuel industry, and corporations. You have rejected a corporate-based ideology that defines you as a commodity, a temporary workforce, a consumer. Your vision is much bigger than this oppressive view of higher education. Your struggle is a testament to the success of the university as a public good and its potential as a valuable resource for establishing itself as a key institution in the service of civil society, civic courage, social responsibility, and democracy itself. foundation of a meaningful role. Your refusal to give up enlivens the image of the university as a place of criticism, academic freedom, and social justice, while at the same time exalting the corporate model that often confuses education with a form of training. clear that it has a civic purpose. Sterility control method.
Universities should not be vastly underfunded institutions, should not require students to pay tuition fees, and should not lack services available only to the wealthy and privileged. should be a space where the call for democracy is not construed as agitation, the call for freedom is not seen as a form of violence, and the call for social justice is not subject to censorship or the suppression of student voices. Suppressing workers’ rights or undermining the right of students and faculty to think, engage in critical dialogue, and reflect on themselves, others, and the larger world.
Finally, I would like to talk about the admiration I have for your bravery, your sense of collective struggle, and your refusal to submit to policies that exclude your voice from the bargaining process. Characterized by the courage to imagine not only another world, another vision of the university. It is a condition for mobilizing opposition, holding power visibly accountable, and embracing the virtues of collective struggle. It combines a sense of justice with a gritty sense of limits and a high vision of what is possible. I would like to conclude with the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass. It never did and never will.” You’re not just taking these words seriously. It shows in solidarity the power of radical imagination and the need for a political struggle to address the injustices that can and must be changed.
Text of a speech delivered at a rally of striking students at McMaster University on December 7.
