Daily Bulletin, September 12

Another short Bulletin today, just to remind us of today’s action and rally! We’ll return to the usual Bulletin format next week.

Friday One-Membership, One-Line Solidarity March

As mentioned in yesterday’s bulletin, today, in place of our usual picket lines and shifts, we will instead be asking everyone who normally pickets or performs alt-duties at a Halifax campus (and any member who can come) to gather in a rally, followed by a full-membership line, and lunch from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This will be the only action for most members today.

This event was planned as a big THANK YOU from your Job Action Committee (JAC) to you, the members, and in turn as a show of support from the membership for our bargaining team. We’ve been out for over three weeks, and it is has been all of your collective actions, in support of our bargaining team, that have moved our struggle forward, and that helps our team continue to make progress.

JAC knows that this has been difficult for everyone, and so we want to express our gratitude, and give us all a moment to come together and realize how strong and united we are!

We recognize that some people will have conflicts that can’t be changed, but we also want as many of our members as possible to gather together for one giant picket line to show our solidarity, our strength, and our resolve to save our university and our students’ education. Members in Truro and Saint John campuses and our virtual picketers are welcome to participate from their locations–let us know and send pictures or notes!

We will meet outside the Killam Library where we will host the rally with our flying pickets from our sibling CAUT-affiliated unions. Then we will march down University Ave. to Robie St.; we will then turn around (without crossing Robie)and march back until we reach the university quad. Rally marshals will be positioned throughout to help with traffic and safety, and we will have chant leaders at key points in the line. Students, allies, sibling union members, and friends and family are welcome!

For the end of the march, we have contracted with Greg Buckley, the hot dog and sausage vendor outside the SUB, to provide free hot dogs (veggie included!) and refreshments to participants! We’ll offer our brief closing remarks, then you can have a dog, chat with your colleagues and friends, mingle with folks from other lines! (But maybe don’t all go up at once–while we want the march to stretch a long way, we don’t want the lunch line to!)

We need to show the administration and the board that we are united against their underhanded dealings, and we need to show our students and the public that we will fight to bring our Dalhousie back from the brink. But we also need to remind ourselves that we, together, recreate Dalhousie every day, with every conversation, every shared laugh, and every moment of community.

ONE MEMBERSHIP, ONE LINE, ONE DALHOUSIE!