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Originally posted by DrConway:
You want to bitch about free tuition? How about the fact that free tuition gets given to anyone whose mother or father works at a university?

I don't want to drift this away from the forum's focus on Indigenous peoples, but I just have to address this remark as I believe it is rooted in ignorance. The reason we and our kids and spouses get free tuition is because we bargained for it in our collective agreements through our unions. University employees aren't just professors. They are admin staff, food service workers, and a whole bunch of other working class people too.

So yes, I proudly take advantage of the free tuition I get so that I can complete the university degree that I couldn't afford to continue before. And I will proudly take advantage of free tuition for my son, should I still be working here and should he choose to attend this university. It is a benefit that my union has fought for and, just like all the other benefits my union bargains for, including decent pay, and decent health and dental benefits, I am fully entitled to it, and so is my family.

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Most university student unions have campaigns to lower or eliminate tuition. I actively support those campaigns, not only as an employee who gets free tuition, but also as a student! (That's MY student union as well, after all... )

[ 14 August 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[ 14 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by WendyL:
Michelle is straight on here. There have been lots of sacrifices made by workers everywhere in establishing recognized union locals and in negotiating worker rights and benefits. Tuition waiver or relief, as it applies to university staff, is part of a larger package of attempts to have the value of the work recognized. And, not all universities have granted such benefits to their unionized staff. The University of Prince Edward Island does not provide any tuition relief to the family members of employees. And, still has a mandatory retirement at 65 clause, and has one of the worst track records for rights accorded sessional instructors in Canada. As more and more employees in this country gain rights and benefits they are deserving of, we all benefit. Cheer those that have gained the rights, support those who are still fighting.

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Bravo. Really. *claps ironically*

It may have escaped you that most university workers happen to be white, comfortable, and middle-class. In short, they ain't starving, and their children just got a huge leg up in the game of whose privilege got passed down. It's not all that different from the inequity of students who live at home and get everything paid for by mommy and daddy while people like me are carrying around $50k in student loan debt.

And what really gravels me in this particular instance of my particular uni is that these peoples' kids get free tuition and not all of them seem to appreciate the lessened financial burden. On top of this said staff are almost actively hostile to students asking for help, such as at the registrar's office. I was patronizingly treated by at least two people over the course of my time when in both cases I had a legitimate request that needed an answer.

I'll also point out I have yet to see a CUPE union official explicitly attempt to link broad-based all-student tuition relief to any ongoing union negotiations or to at least raise the profile of CUPE's perception of a community of interest between workers and students.

You want to know why some Canadians are hostile to unions? It's because of perceptions like these - that the union people aren't making more of an effort to show that they appreciate that inequities exist and are working beyond just their little oasis of "I'm all right, Jack."

I'm a union supporter and if I'm in a state of mild pissed-off-ness at the moment, ask yourself what Joe Conservative is probably doing.

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: DrConway ]

Every single benefit, right, protection in Canadian legislation for working people (whether unionized or not), with absolutely no exceptions, began as a struggle by some union somewhere and the achievement of such benefits in a collective agreement.

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Originally posted by DrConway:

I'm a union supporter and if I'm in a state of mild pissed-off-ness at the moment, ask yourself what Joe Conservative is probably doing.

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Unfortunately what this does is simply aid and abet the restructuring of society along feudal lines rather than along socialist lines, in which a de facto familial guild system is re-emerging.

In a small town that I used to live in it was an open secret that fathers would get their sons first crack at the good-paying sawmill jobs and there was even a letter to the editor complaining about it.

On the flip side, the wealthy are creating ways to transfer more and more of their wealth with less and less tax to their children, which also enhances the re-emerging state of feudalism in our society.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
In a small town that I used to live in it was an open secret that fathers would get their sons first crack at the good-paying sawmill jobs and there was even a letter to the editor complaining about it.

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It may have escaped you that most university workers happen to be white, comfortable, and middle-class.

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You happen to have missed male.

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What unionist says is well taken.

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Frontline staff at the registrar's and financial aid are fairly well-represented in terms of female presence. AAMOF the two people who patronized me were male, ironically enough.

In fact at least two of the people I know who go to uni tuition-free are doing so because their mothers are working there. So please spare me your spleening over alleged sexism, 'cuz there ain't any.

As for Sun Tzu, a statement is not necessarily wrong based on the source. I'll believe Stephen Harper when he tells me the sky is blue, as an example.

At the University of Toronto, a unionized staff member's spouse and dependents under the age of 25 get a full tuition waiver. The unionized staff members account for over 80 per cent of non-academic staff, including library workers, operating engineers, administrative and technical staff, police and skilled trades and services personnel. (See here.)

However, knowing the school up the mountain... I think it's only about half of the staff who are CUPE staff at SFU. There's a professional non-union staff association (APSA) who represents Administrative and Professional Staff (management) and then there's traditional exempt management.

All permanent, continuing, and full-time staff get the tuition waiver -- this includes CUPE staff, APSA staff, excluded staff, and faculty. They can have 9 credit hours a semester tuition free, and partners/dependents can get all tuition waived, except ancillary fees.

However, this should be tempered with an understanding that the university doesn't really hire permanent, continuing, full-time staff anymore. Virtually everyone's hired as a temporary employee, and many are hired, recurringly, as temporary employees. These people don't get tuition waivers. Students who work on campus don't get tuition waivers.

DrConway, you mention being patronized at the registrar's office by male staff. I assume you mean student services, third floor MBC? Most of those staff are APSA. Aside from the front-line staff, many of whom are temps, most of the staff in that office are classified 'management' or 'excluded,' but I will agree -- they can sometimes be rather patronising.

Seth Klein said for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives(pdf) that:

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It makes good sense to have people pay more at the back door, rather than the front door. First, in this way, low-income doesn’t close the front door on people before they even get a chance to access postsecondary education. There is a connection between tuition and participation, particularly for people from lower-income families. . .

Not letting people on welfare also attend post-secondary institutions, eliminating IBT funding, and ending tuition-free ABE at colleges and institutes. The CCPA just published a report (with financial support from FPSE) by Shauna Butterwick called A Path Out of Poverty, which detailed how investing in these developmental education programs for low-income adults pays off. Shauna’s paper showed how the former IBT programs represented extraordinary “bang for the buck”.

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Bob Allen's CCPA study of 1999 concluded that:

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...at every level, there is a social rate of return to education spending that exceeds the cost of public spending on education, even if governments have to borrow money, meaning run deficits and pay 5% borrowing costs, to do so. And the social rate of return was higher for women, which speaks to the importance of education in enhancing gender equality.

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Our old line party stoogeocrats were instructed years ago by their friends in industry to maintain a sizeable low wage, lowly skilled, lowly-educated and non-unionized workforce. And Liberals and Conservatives have come through for them in spades - next to the U.S. in a comparison of developed countries, Canada owns the second-largest low wage and lowly-skilled workforce. Millions of poor Canadians on welfare - chronically unemployed or underemployed or working for McSlave wages, would actually have been better off under Soviet communism in several respects.

Our stoogeocrats must refuse to consider all of the reasons why poor people remain poor, and why Canada maintains dreadful child poverty rates in a comparison of rich nations, because it would mean reflecting on all of their repressive policies in relation to an overall effect, and policies which guarantee socialism for just about everyone above the lower middle class and working poor.

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by academentia:
In other news, sixteen credits at SFU -- a full four courses -- now costs $2,733.

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Originally posted by Makwa:
Still, I find it interesting that a thread which was originally focussed on the ongoing conflict among the dominant culture and FN people who wish to retain their treaty rights (as sparse as they might be - most people have no idea how difficult it is to claim post-secondary funding) has morphed into a discussion among dominant culture folks about union benefits.

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Yeah...I'm sorry about that. I probably should have just started this thread to begin with instead of answering DrC's remark in that thread.