Earlier today MGEU President Lois Wales addressed a rally in Brandon’s Stanley Park sponsored by the Brandon University Students’ Association in support of striking faculty members.
“I know some of you may be asking yourselves why this is happening. You’ve paid your tuition and now classes are being interrupted. It doesn’t seem fair,” Wales told the crowd. “But what I’m here to tell you today is that some things are worth fighting for. Right now, your professors are standing up against an administration determined to exert their power over their employees, no matter what the cost to you, the faculty, or the university.”
Brandon University administrators recently asked faculty and students to cross the picket line in an effort to undermine the strike.
“There’s a fundamental right at stake here that goes beyond whether you might feel ripped off, or whether your prof may leave Brandon for greener pastures,” Wales said. ‘Employees coming together to bargain collectively with their employer remains one of the few ways ordinary people can truly speak to power, and be heard.”
While in Brandon, Wales also visited with BUFA members and walked the picket line with them and several other MGEU members from the Westman area.