THE STUDENT MOVEMENT Issue 5—Check out our website at www.tsmwindsor.ca

Budget cuts leave students and workers hungry “I've seen so many students throughout these campuses in the province at [conferences] stand up and ask for help. CUPE is doing the best they can to help,” said Dave Montgomery, President of CUPE 1001, when he spoke at the Annual General Meeting hosted by The Student Movement. Montgomery represents over 1200 staff members at the universi-ty including food services and custodians. Montgomery says of his experiences with the administration. “Student tuition increases: they've claimed it's because of raises for faculty and staff. Last night, the President introduced new staff at the garden party...we counted ten brand new—not faculty—ten brand new Provosts and Vice-Presidents. Dr. Wildeman's office has tripled the amount of people they have.” He points out a double standard in the hiring practices of the uni-versity. “He claims some of [the Provosts and Vice-Presidents] have retired and he's replacing them...” Montgomery then ex-plains that when his staff members retire or leave, they are not replaced. “It's in the budget, the budget has been approved,” Montgomery says, adding that the budget runs from May 2010 to May 2011. When he asked that his staff members be replaced, “they said we don't have the money,” even though the funds have already been allocated to that department to maintain the same amount of staff. Montgomery outlines a few examples of the budget cuts' impact. “In our local, we've been told to make cuts of $650 000 - $800 000. So what's going to happen now is washrooms aren't being cleaned, garbages aren't being emptied, staff is reduced in food services.” “Downstairs in the marketplace they cut the numbers in food ser-vices in August...From 11am to 3pm yesterday we had 391 stu-dents that walked out of the marketplace because they couldn't get food because the line was too far back.”

Montgomery also takes issue with the Strategic Priority Fund. “All this money given to the provost, well, if he don't like you and he don't like your group, you ain't getting any money! So he has the control, which I believe is wrong. There should be some type of committee who looks at it.” Indicating a lack of transparency on behalf of the administration, Montgomery says, “[Dr. Wildeman] started out with these town hall meetings and...whenever a student asked a question his only response was ‘communication, communication, communica-tion’...when you actually asked for answer, he didn't have it.” “It's time we start thinking of students, start thinking of organiz-ing, and start saying that we care about this university,” Mont-gomery says. “And that's why we support The Student Move-ment...right now we need to spread the word because it's going to get worse.” “You know, students stood up, when we closed all the parking lots, and raised a complaint,” Montgomery adds. “They sent all these emails. The administration backed down and froze the parking fees. When the student body gets together we spread the word and together we can accomplish a lot.” The Student Movement accepts letters from any staff, students, and faculty. Please send letters to movement@tsmwindsor.ca

By Darryl Gallinger

“A people who want to be free must arm themselves with a free press.” — George Seldes

October 18th, 2010

Get involved on your campus!

Drop Fees Coalition Organizing Meeting The DFC is holding an organizing meeting on Wednesday Octo-

ber 27th at 6pm, in the CAW Boardroom (2nd CAW center, above

the Advising Center). All students, faculty, and staff are welcome

to attend.

For info: drop.fees.windsor@gmail.com

The Student Movement

Students join workers in protesting Bill 68 outside of MPP Sandra Pupatello’s office. Photo by Ken Townsend.

Editorial: The UWSA should tackle

real issues on campus As I walked out of the student center one day I was asked by the UWSA President to sign a petition. At first I was very happy that the UWSA would be out amongst the students trying to get them involved in campus politics. After all, this is what The Student Movement has been trying to do since last year and the Drop Fees Coalition for the last two years. Finally, the UWSA wants to get involved. What a great development, I thought. The petition was to call a referendum about students’ member-ship in the Canadian Federation of Students. Of course I am not naï ve: I have heard of the initiative to try and leave the CFS. I also know that the UWSA executive has sent out e-mails to all students making claims about corruption and de-mocracy and the need to leave CFS. They even used the Pulse to advertise for Drop CFS, the group trying to leave CFS, named sim-ilar to the Drop Fees Coalition. The President asked me what I thought about the petition. I thought for a moment. “Well,” I said, “I find it very ironic that the UWSA is doing this. On the issues of concern to students, like ris-ing tuition, cuts to programs, the new Strategic Plan, and the Stra-tegic Priority Fund, the UWSA hasn’t said a word to students to get them informed and involved. It’s only the Drop Fees Coalition and The Student Movement that has. And now, all of a sudden, the UWSA Executive is going all out to tell students that CFS is cor-rupt and undemocratic and that the UWSA will protect students by having a referendum to get out.” One of the petitioners, a UWSA Board of Directors member, then piped up full of arro-gance: “Well,” he said, “those are the issues you think are im-portant,” as if to say I was out of touch. Continued on next page.

Letter: Lack of communication In regards to the September 9th issue of The Student Movement, I would like to voice my concern that I believe the government is going in the wrong direction. Firstly, I believe that the govern-ment should provide more money to education, which will in turn help create jobs in the long run. If you want your young people to lead the way of the future, you should invest money into them, and listen to what they say. Last semester, I was involved with a board of about twenty Com-munication Studies students who talked about the direction of the program. What was apparent was that the U of W was not “keeping up with the times” and, with a program such as Comm. Studies, this is an asset, especially considering that communica-tions has been such a huge and arguably revolutionary aspect in our lives. For example, how is the productions side of our pro-gram supposed to keep up with other universities when our equipment is out of date? How are we supposed to garner new students !? As for the Strategic Priority Fund, I believe this is bull%@#$...considering the continuous rise in tuition fees EVERY year, there shouldn't be a “contest” to get your program funding. I think this is outrageous. In my opinion, I think education should be free, and I believe the government should rethink the way they spend our money. Be-cause the young people are the way of the future, why not invest in them...there is no reason to enroll in post-secondary education and graduate IN DEBT and then find out that there are zero jobs! This is bogus: if you ask me, the way things are going is not the way it should be—tax tax tax (referring to the sweet HST that just kicked in)—how about invest in your future and think long-term instead of short term? If communications can teach us anything it should be that people need to foster new media—and I think the government should be open to new ideas!!!! Thank you for your time, Frank Mancina — 4th year Communications, Media and Film What’s happening in your department? Let us know at movement@tsmwindsor.ca

The Student Movement

Fair Trade? Social Advocacy?

Overseas Volunteer Opportunities?!

Engineers Without Borders Windsor Has all these and more!

Weekly meetings in the CAW on Thursday, 7pm

Not Just for Engineers! But anyone who wants this world to be a better place

For Volunteer Information, or just to find out about us contact

Stanley Moll at: Stanmoll@ewb.ca Or check out www.ewb.ca

By Vajo Stajic

Letter: The economics of waste From the essay “G8/G20, New World Order” For the full essay, visit www.tsmwindsor.ca Our fine politicians are spending billions of dollars on security and other budgets of these G20 sum-mits, only to discuss how they can tax us even further into the ground and at the same time al-lowing them to give away what little sovereignty we have left. There is no return on our tax dol-lar investment that ends up di-rectly in our pockets. There is actually nothing being accom-plished during these summits. We can simply fix the economy by not spending billions of dol-lars flying political leaders and their security, who accomplish-ing. None of the crises facing us all from the global banking system to global warming can be dealt with if a tiny number of super-rich corporations have veto over every inch of progress. It’s not the tax itself that we should be worried about, but rather the sovereignty we would be giving up in the process of a common global currency and global economic integration.

By Jiwan Jot Singh Photo by Lauren Quinn

The Student Movement

Continued from Our student government We are facing a financial crisis, and in the midst of it, the govern-ment is working with universities and colleges to raise tuition. The former chair of our Board of Governors—the highest deci-sion making body at the university—has announced that whole programs will be cut. The Strategic Plan is cutting funds and then handing over the money to the Provost to give out however he sees fit. Students are seeing less services, higher costs and uncer-tain futures for their programs. That’s why we started this news-paper: so that students could discuss the real issues and get en-gaged. It’s ironic that, right as students are getting involved and the administration is blaming the workers on campus for the problems, instead of pitching in, the UWSA is trying to drop CFS.

By Enver Villamizar Migrant Workers March 51km

on Thanksgiving Weekend On October 10th, migrant workers and their supporters held a 51 kilometre “Pilgrimage to Freedom” from Leamington, Ontario, to Windsor. The workers courageously organized their historic march under many threats and pressure from employers and agents so that they could take their demands directly to the pub-lic and the government. The twelve hour march passed through the village of Cottam and town of Essex eventually ending at the historic monument to the Underground Railroad in Windsor. Responding to the request of migrant workers for everyone to take a stand, Justice for Migrant Workers organized the march and called for broad participation. Participating in the march were migrant workers from large fac-tory farms in Leamington and others who pick fruit and tobacco in places like Simcoe and Niagara. The workers were joined by supporters from Toronto, Chatham, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor and Essex County, including a number of U of W students, members of The Student Movement, The Wind-sor Workers' Action Centre, the Windsor Marxist-Leninist Party Club, CAW Local 195, and many others.

By Enver Villamizar Turn to the back page to see photos from the march.

Take Back the Night March: Oct. 29th

Take Back the Night is a protest to end violence against women in which women will march to reclaim their rights to safely walk at night. The march will begin and end at Dieppe Park, the rally be-ginning at 8pm and the march to follow. While the march is for women and children only, men are encouraged to show their support by attending the rally. A free shuttle service leaving from Vanier Hall at the University of Windsor will be provided. For more information, please contact the Women’s Studies Student Association at wssa@uwindsor.ca

By Meghan Mills

The Student Movement

By Ken Townsend