Re: "The students won't sit for it" (October 2, 2008)

We are the two individuals identified in E.D. Cauchi's recent article, as being "faculty" members "of questionable association". We find it necessary to clarify a few points.I, Jenny Peto, have been a staff member at the University of Toronto since 1999. While I am affiliated with USW local 1998 - a local that has expressed support for the CJE - I spoke at the rally on my own behalf about my experiences as an individual who worked in Simcoe Hall for several years. I expressed my concerns over the fortification of the building in recent years, including the locking of all doors except the main entrance, the hiring of staff to monitor access to the building at the only open door and the installation of bars on windows in the basement that blocked the only alternate fire escapes in the office where I used to work.

I also spoke of the efforts of senior administration to wedge distance between workers and students by placing Simcoe Hall on 'lockdown' during protests and warning staff not to leave the building unless it was absolutely necessary. This attempt to break traditional alliances between labour and students is particularly evident and alarming in this situation where the Fight Fees 14 stand accused of unlawfully confining university workers. As a supporter of the CJE and a university worker, I came out to strongly condemn senior administration for trying to pit workers against students and for the repression of dissent at the University of Toronto.

I, Mary-Jo Nadeau, am a contract faculty member not employed at UofT, but who works at several Ontario universities.

I was one of over 112 faculty members who signed the CJE petition, 1/3 of whom were U of T faculty members. The remaining 2/3 were faculty from 18 universities across Canada, 3 colleges and 2 non-Canadian universities - an interesting fact, it would seem, that faculty from so many universities would share concern about these issues at UofT.

In response to cutbacks over the past decade, Canadian universities have generated revenue on the backs of their lowest-paid workers and from the pockets of students who are paying exorbitant fees. It's a two-for-one deal for university administrations who then deploy these ill-gained revenues to corporatize, de-democratize and criminalize at these public institutions we work and/or study in. This is why I signed the petition, and this is why I volunteered to speak in solidarity at the student-worker-faculty rally. As the petition signatures attest, cross-campus activism is an expected outcome of these conditions of a campus-wide system of exploitation and repression of dissent. Thanks to student activists, campus workers and groups like the CJE, space is taken to keep these issues on the agenda and venues are made available for faculty to speak out in solidarity with students and other workers.

Jenny Peto, UofT staff & member of Labour for Palestine

Mary-Jo Nadeau, contract faculty & member of Faculty for Palestine