Six Unions, One Voice: It's our university action rally.
February 14, 2013 at 10:37 AM
More than 500 members representing six campus unions (CUPE 3909, UMSU, UMFA, CAW, AESES, and CUPE 1482) joined together with other activists at an information rally held on February 13 at the U of M's Administration Building. They were there to protest the University’s efforts to promote corporatization, privatization, contracting-out, diminished collegial governance and increased workload.
The actions of the administration towards faculty, staff and students directly contradict what is being promoted to the community locally and nationally. The changes that have been seen under the administration of UM President David Barnard, particularly over the past two years, show an employer that is more concerned about external impressions and advertising awards than with the working and learning conditions inside the university.
While faculties are being told to cut their budgets for next year by 3 to 5% the university is spending millions of dollars on consultant fees and advertising campaigns. There is also a plan by the administration to amalgamate a number of faculties under a new mega faculty of Health Sciences. The Faculties of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Medical Rehabilitation are being re-classified as colleges under the Faculty of Health Sciences. The advantages are not clear nor are the implications for academics and other workers, but the inevitability is very clear and many members of the university community feel that raising concerns is futile.
The administration touts the employee benefits, physical facilities and a respectful environment as some of the reasons that people choose to work at UM and why the university is an “Employer of Choice.”
UMFA President Sharon Alward said, “We want the administration to know that they are making bad decisions which need to be reversed. These actions are not representative of an employer of choice.”
This information rally served as a collective notice to the University of Manitoba administration that the university community finds these actions to be unacceptable and that the staff, academics and students are frustrated and dissatisfied. The unions want the administration to know that they are making bad decisions which need to be reversed. The administration needs to know that this university belongs to all who work and study here and to the citizens of Manitoba.
