Subject: Re: email protest info in support of U of T grad strike
Date: 	Sat, 29 Jan 2000 00:54:14 -0500


On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 22:43:21 -0500 Christopher Bolster <cbolster49-AT-hotmail.com> 
wrote:

> Dear Kelly,

> I'm interested to hear your story. I am an editor/writer of an undergraduate 
newspaper in British Columbia.  Right now i am attending the Canadian 
University Press National Convention in Winnipeg. I was wondering if I could 
interview you and write a story to run on the national news wire?

> If this is cool, please get back to me

Hi, Ken here.  We're fielding all interviews through the information committee 
- you can contact them here:

info-AT-CUPE3902.org

If you put Information Committee in the subject heading, it will get to one of 
our "press agents."  Or you could just ask me a couple of questions, since I'm 
a member of the sub-info-committee known as "Solidarity."  It might be better 
to try to hook up with Mikael Swayze though, since he's the chair of the local. 
Of course Kelley seems to have most of the details too...

By way of an update, the Labour Board ordered the union and the administration 
back to the table... about 36 hours ago.  They've been locked in a room 
together ever since.  I'm completely *smitten* by the supportive responses 
we've received in the last few days - students from Yale, Harvard... from 
the Canadian Autoworkers Union (who've been out there every day for the last 
couple of days handing out sandwiches, coffee, hot chocolate and soup) the UofT 
Faculty Association who launched the *successful* lawsuit that shaved the teeth 
of the admin's threat to restruct courses by Feb 4 (which would have eliminated 
all 2400 jobs!), letters from alumni, like Maggie Atwood... support from 
students in unions all around the world, Canadian Steel, the student 
federation...  We're going to win this fight.  The administration depends on 
their TAs, and we're demonstrating through our withdrawal of labour and our 
direct action, that the university simply cannot function.  But there is 
nothing to celebrate here.  The administration has illustrated, beyond 
reasonable doubt, their malevolence. They have absolutely *no* interest in 
democratic and public education.  Their wildcard tactics, punishing of 
individual members of the union, and their manipulation of the undergrads is 
simply diabolical.  We don't just want a raise, we want to raze the 
administration.  $8000 for a donut shaped ice rink in front of Simcoe Hall (the 
admin building). "We'll burn your fucking ice rink!"

ken