Making Connections: The Campus as an Organising Site

Canadian Experience and Australian Questions

By Carla Lipsig-Mumme

The university union building are a potential source of thousands of members but the trade union presence (as opposed to the student union) is invisible at a university, whilst signs of corporate activity and advertising are everywhere.

Trade union people sometimes give guest lectures or lunchtime talks but that's about it.

Unions and student organisations share some of the same goals so what if unions became not only visible, but declared allies to students and their organisations, over the issues of education as well as workplace justice? What if the campus created a "safe space" for student workers to learn about their rights on the job, and connect with trade unions. She goes on to discuss the first national working youth conference held in Canada in 1998 when 250 young people from Anglophone and francophone backgrounds, First Nation peoples and refugee and immigrants came together including many school students. Over the next 3 years 3 Working Student Centres were established. She went on to discuss youth employment issues, the lower levels of young peoples membership of unions and the organising gap that appears in Canada and Australia. The specific issues to be dealt with in organising a university campus were discussed and the way the campus as a privileged space can be an incubator for unions.

(Paper to the ARCWS Seminar 13 July 2002)