Posts tagged with vote.

Will students vote?

Joey Coleman, October 19, 2010 at 2:50 PM


It's municipal election season in four of Canada's provinces. Voters in Alberta were the first and cast their ballots yesterday, followed by Ontario on October 25, Manitoba on October 27, and Prince Edward Island on November 1.

Municipal government is the level of government that most affects the daily lives of citizens, students included.

While the issues may not seems as big as provincial issues (tuition, for example), the impact of the winning candidates can be profound.

Nowhere is the impact of municipal government upon students more visible than in Oshawa, in my home province.

The city has acted aggressively against students during the last three years. The most infamous incident being the search warrant raids against student homes in which the city searched for lease agreements and records of rent payments in October, 2007.

The city eventually passed a bylaw which restricts the number of students who can live near the university (though it is not being actively enforced).

The student association at University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which also represents students at Durham College and Trent University's Oshawa campus (all three institutions share the same campus), has been using this issue to mobilize students to vote next Monday.

One of their main promotional posters asks "Do you want to be evicted?" implying that if students do not vote, the City of Oshawa will start enforcing its bylaws and removing students from near the campus.

Students in Oshawa have clear reason to vote, but what about elsewhere? Why should students bother to vote?

It comes down to influence: Politicians pay attention to the issues of voters.

I now live in an area of Hamilton with a large population of seniors and baby boomers. I enjoy better bus service than the student area where I used to live. My local buses rarely transport more than a dozen people at a time, but we receive the same frequency of service on weekends as the bus routes serving McMaster University.

Why? Simply put, the people that ride my bus vote.

This is one of the reasons student unions across the country are trying to mobilize their voting blocs and are often using public transit issues as the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Students can exercise their voices in both provincial and federal elections, but are rarely able to swing the overall result. University campuses tend to be located in urban areas, often in "safe" ridings and the student population is either too small or diffuse to be the deciding factor in the race.

In municipal votes, students can make the difference. The political boundaries are smaller and voter turnout is insignificant, hovering in the low-to-mid 30-per-cent range. These factors combined make even a small concentration of students capable of swinging a race.

It does not take much, maybe only a thousand votes, to decide a municipal ward race. In some cities, students can also swing a mayoral race. More importantly, higher levels of government will take notice of a local race which is decided by students and tailor their party's electoral platform in an attempt to capture that voting bloc for their candidate.

Mobilizing voters for a mundane municipal race can have a greater return on investment than dropping a couple of thousand students waving placards on the front lawn of Parliament Hill.

Update: Political scientists will spend the next few months analyzing how an unknown candidate like  Naheed Nenshi could win the mayoral chair in Calgary. What is known at this point is that voter turnout and the youth vote were both key elements of his victory. Proof indeed that voting works.

Tagged with students, vote, municipal, election | Comments (3) |

Why the college vote to strike wasn’t

Joey Coleman, January 14, 2010 at 3:22 PM

 

With Ontario's college instructions barely giving their union a strike mandate there is an opportunity for both sides to forget past grievances and work anew to reach a negotiated agreement.

 

Much like a political leadership vote, there is a convention that a strike mandate requires a two-thirds majority to be considered successful. 

 

With only 57 per cent of college faculty voting for strike action, it is clear that the union does not have enough support to launch a successful strike action; even more so when the numbers are broken down by college campus. With the majority of faculty at four colleges voting against strike action, any attempt by OPSEU to quickly launch a labour disruption will be met with resistance from enough faculty members to doom any strike to failure.

 

Where does this leave students? The same place they were prior to the vote; sitting on the outside looking in and wondering what's next.

 

The truth is nobody really knows what will happen. The negotiations are occurring at a provincial level disconnected from both students and faculty. A strike will be the result of negotiators from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union bargaining team and the College Compensation and Appointments Council failing to act in good faith to reach an agreement.

 

Sadly, as I noted in December, the two sides have a strong personal dislike for each other, making the outside mediator's job a tough one.

 

With the strike vote out of the way, both sides need to negotiate and keep in mind that this vote doesn't work in either side's favour; faculty are divided but they are not siding with either party.

 

Over the past few days, I've spoken extensively with college faculty and the theme of those discussions are the same: They want a fair agreement without going on strike. I find they have a distrust of both their union and the college administrators. They are upset with the announcement by Ontario's colleges that they intend to impose a new non-negotiated contract. There is concern that their union is looking to make a statement by going on strike. In short, many of them are conflicted and this conflicted atmosphere is evident in the split in the strike vote.

 

There is a strong message in the split for Ontario's colleges: Their faculty are discontented and demoralized. This is a major problem that needs to be addressed, especially at Lambton college, where more than 80 per cent of the faculty voted in favour of strike action. The colleges need to be seen by their faculty to be acting in good faith instead of imposing a contract that struck out sections of the previous agreement.

 

The union, despite its public chest-puffing, has been told by its members not to rush into a strike. Technically, they have a strike mandate and legally, the union negotiators in Toronto can call a strike. In reality, they do not have enough support to run an effective strike. They are in no position to win a strike and will only harm their members by calling for one. Two recent higher education labour disputes illustrate the peril of OPSEU's current position.

 

The CUPE 3903 strike at York University was a dismal failure for the labour movement. While the membership of the union was behind the strike at the beginning, the public was not. An extremely poor communications strategy and horrible negotiating tactics resulted in overwhelming public distain for the strikers. The personal dislike between the negotiators for York University and CUPE dragged out the strike, which ultimately required the provincial legislature to end it with back-to-work legislation.

 

OPSEU faces an uphill battle to win over public opinion to their side and, judging by their communications following the strike vote, they have not figured out how to communicate to the middle-class parents they need the support of. Further, the history of animosity between OPSEU and the colleges is very similar to the York situation.

 

The recent teaching assistants' strike at McMaster University is a perfect illustration of what happens when a union's leadership decides to take a weak strike mandate and throw up picket lines without going back to their membership for a strong mandate.

 

The strike was a complete and utter failure with a large number of union members ignoring the picket lines and continuing to conduct tutorials. Eventually, the union was forced to allow its membership a vote on McMaster's contract offer; the membership accepted it and the union leadership were left with a humiliating defeat.

 

OPSEU would be wise to lower the temperature of its rhetoric and delay any strike plans until such time as they are in a position to win a strike.

 

They have not won the strike vote, nor have they lost. They have the attention of the media and the public; there is an opportunity for them to focus on the issues that they can win the battle of public opinion with. Victory is within reach, if only the labour movement would move past their old industrial-age ideas that a picket line is necessary for victory and move into the information age, in which intellectual actions are more effective than physical blockades.

 

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Students: vote or face the consequences

Joey Coleman, December 16, 2009 at 4:57 PM

 

The next two calendar years are important for students in Ontario with 2010 municipal elections and 2011 provincial election. If students vote, they could finally see their issues considered by government.

 

I'm not counting on this happening.

 

Take Hamilton's Ward 1 as an example. Only 10 students who lived on-campus at McMaster University during the 2006 municipal election voted at the on-campus polling station. There were a total of 151 votes cast at the nearest polling station to the University; a polling station in an area with a majority of student voters. These two polling stations had the lowest voter turnout in the city.

 

Every politician in Hamilton knows students don't vote and this is why student interests lose out when they're competing with other interest groups.

 

Because students don't vote, politicians are able to play to the anti-student vote without fear of consequences. Contrast this to the anti-student element that votes and, due to low voter turnout in municipal elections, they gain disproportionate influence over politicians.

 

In Hamilton, for instance, the incumbent city councillor does his best to work for the interests of the entire community, including students, while in office. But during the election campaign, he has to talk tough against the "problem students" in order to win re-election. To be seen as pro-student is political suicide in most university communities.

 

The 2010 municipal election season is already well under way across the province and anti-student sentiment is starting to be stirred up by some opportunistic aspiring city councillor candidates.

 

The starkest example of this is Oshawa, a city which has acted aggressively against students during the last three years. I've been to Oshawa dozens of times since the founding of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and have covered the story of the city's crusade against students since the infamous search warrant raids against student homes in which the city searched for lease agreements and records of rent payments in October of 2007.

 

The city eventually passed a bylaw which restricts the number of students who can live near the university. Students and landlords, backed by Ontario's chief human rights commissioner Barbara Hall, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Last month, the Court decided against hearing the appeal, leaving the city of Oshawa free to start cracking down on students living in houses near the university.

 

Shortsighted municipal politicians are again pandering to the worst anti-student elements in Oshawa. Lead by councillor John Neal, who represents the area in which the University is located, Oshawa city council passed a motion calling on city staff to enforce the anti-student housing bylaw they passed in 2008.

 

The mayor publicly dismissed this as political grandstanding.

 

But it is widely believed that Mr. Neal will be facing an opponent who hopes to rally students to vote him out of office. Amy England, the current president of the student association representing students at Durham College, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and Trent University in Oshawa, is rumoured to be planning to run for the city council seat held by Mr. Neal.

 

Ms. England has been involved in the fight against Oshawa's anti-student bylaws and could mount a challenge against Mr. Neal. 

 

Politics being politics, nothing motivates voters quite like a wedge issue. Making students the wedge issue is smart politics; students don't vote and the people who dislike students do.

 

If students turn out to vote for candidates who care about their issues and them, they could stem the tide of anti-student bylaws, masquerading as "housing standards", being considered by short-sighted municipal politicians across the province.

 

Having covered this issue in depth, I have observed that many of the present city councillors are merely drifting with the wind.

 

The councillors who opposed the anti-student nature of the bylaw, and who were outraged by the raids conducted against students in their homes, have been unable to outmaneuver Mr. Neal and his crusading anti-student colleagues. As one of these councillors pointed out, too many of their colleagues are focused on re-election and know who the voters are. If students vote and change the direction the wind is blowing to their favour, it will be the beginning of the end of the growth of anti-student bylaws across the province.

 

Students face a stark choice: vote or be forced to move out of the neighbourhood.

 

In the interests of full disclosure: I ran in the 2000 municipal election for public school board trustee in Hamilton, Ontario. It's been suggested that I may run for office in 2010. I will not be running this year.

 

Tagged with bylaws, students, elections, oshawa, anti-student, vote, municipal | Comments (4) |