On March 13, nearly 900 McMaster students voted unanimously for their student union to make a plan to build towards a student strike, setting an example for universities and colleges across the province, and the country.
That kind of attendance at a student union general assembly is unheard of in Ontario. Both the numbers, and the speeches at the meeting testified to the anger that students felt at the OSAP cuts, and their desire to take action. The size of the assembly also meant that it hit quorum (for the first time in over a decade!), which makes the vote binding on the student union.
This did not happen spontaneously. Students Against Austerity, a student club, had been mobilizing to bring students to the assembly since the OSAP cuts were announced: holding a town hall on Feb. 26, coordinating a McMaster contingent to Queen’s Park on March 4, holding speeches and marches on March 6, stickering and postering the campus, and most significantly, setting up a permanent table on campus for the weak prior to the vote, encouraging people to attend up until the last minute.
This example shows what is possible with leadership. There is nothing unique about students at McMaster, the same desire to fight the cuts exists everywhere. What made the difference was an organization actively engaging with students and pointing a way forward. And if a campus club can mobilize 900 students to a meeting, imagine how much greater of an impact the student unions, with all of their resources, can have.
Assemblies on strike plans should be called at every other postsecondary institution in Ontario. This is an opportunity to reach out to, mobilize, and win students over to the idea of a student strike; and ultimately, to put the struggle into the hands of the students themselves.
Just like students in Quebec did in 2012, we can stop Doug Ford’s attacks on education through a mass student strike.
