Why Kingston, Ontario’s Rising Costs-of-Living are at the Centre of a New Strike at Queen’s University

Graduate students at Queen’s University say they are going on strike because they can no longer afford rising costs-of-living in Kingston, Ontario given what the city’s biggest employer is paying them.

The strike began last week after a breakdown in negotiations with the employer. The union, PSAC 901 Unit 1, which represents graduate student workers, including research assistants, and teaching assistants, is seeking fair wages, tuition minimization, enshrined protections against discrimination and guarantees from their employers about addressing the University’s impact on housing.

The Union Local represents around 2,000 workers at the university.

Jake Morrow, PSAC 901 President, says the union had been bargaining with the school for around a year, but the school’s offers failed to address their concerns so thoroughly that negotiations veered into being “disrespectful.”

“In terms of monetary packages, what we’ve been getting from the employer is just disrespectful low offers for the value we bring to the university,” Morrow told PressProgress.

Morrow said the amount graduate students make each year does not cover the cost of living in Kingston.

“I’m making $23,000 this year, minus the $8,000 that we have to pay back in tuition,” Morrow said. “That’s $15,000 I make in a year to work for Queen’s University.”

The financial constraints on graduate students are made worse by the cost of housing, which for graduate students can be on or off campus.

“Queen’s is not just the largest employer in Kingston Ontario, it’s also the largest landlord and landholder,” said Morrow. “The rental market in Kingston is set by Queen’s University.”

Morrow said people living in graduate student housing will receive a 10.5% increase in their rent in September, and then will receive another 7.5% increase the following year. Even if graduate students were renting from the school directly, Morrow noted many of them were renting a property owned by a professor or administrator at Queen’s.

“It’s a company town through and through,” Morrow said. “The university has exacerbated the cost of living crisis in Kingston, Ontario – full stop.”

Kingston’s city council recently called a food insecurity emergency in the city, after public health officials reported one-in-three people in the region had experienced food insecurity.

“Last year, PSAC 901 gave out $100,000 in gift cards for emergency food funding,” Morrow said. “We are seeing members accessing food banks, we are seeing members who are experiencing homelessness, the food insecurity problems are outrageous.”

Morrow added that the undergraduate society’s food bank on campus primarily services graduate students.

“Last year there was a $100 million donation to the school of engineering… 40% of graduate student workers who access the food banks on campus are engineering students,” Morrow said.

Morrow said striking workers have received lots of support from the community and other unions. Postal workers and other unions on campus showed up to bolster the PSAC 901 strike. Morrow added that the Kingston District Labour Council is also showing them support.

Despite a strong display of solidarity for the strike, this has not stopped some faculty members from attempting to circumvent the strike.

“We heard about a department head in mechanical and materials engineering who was pressuring bringing post-docs to take on scab labour and encouraging our Unit One members to continue working and scabbing,” Morrow said. “Our members asked us for support, so we showed up with 300 people and we circled that building and we let that professor – that department head – know we were there and there’s no more labs in that building going on.”

On top of this, there are already non-unionized undergraduate students also working as TAs at Queen’s.

“There are certain departments that have undergrad TAs,” said Morrow. “They are not currently unionized, but through this process – the longer this drags out – the more undergrads I’m talking to about unionizing.”

In addition to their other demands, PSAC 901 is looking for enshrined protections for its members against caste-based discrimination. However, Morrow says that Queen’s has not moved to add this to the collective agreement.

“Queen’s is incredibly reluctant to add the words ‘and caste’ to the list of protected grounds of discrimination and it is entirely unclear why.”

“Queen’s likes to hold up itself as this place of specific values, but it betrays them at every step of the way,” Morrow said. “It put out a statement saying it wouldn’t divest from the Israeli genocide, but started with a land acknowledgement.”

“That’s what Queen’s University is.”

Morrow said that union members are ready to go, and that Queen’s wasn’t prepared for their strike.

“People with families are struggling to feed their families and that’s what we’re fighting for and that’s what we’ll win,” Morrow said.

In response to questions from PressProgress about the union’s concerns, Queen’s University provided a link to a blog containing press releases about the strike.

“The work of PSAC 901 Unit 1 bargaining unit members is highly respected and the University remains committed to reaching an agreement that both parties can ratify,” says the most recent press release.