More student union-busting

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by Craig Segal

Like the swiftly spreading winter flu, another student union controversy has hit Montreal. UQÀM's biggest student union dissolved following a referendum at the end of November, when 60 per cent of students voted it out of existence. But the union--which represented social sciences, arts, communications, and languages and literature --calls the vote a sham.

"There were irregularities," says Thomas Chiasson-LaBelle, VP-External of the defunct union. "The administration ran the election. Students voted by mail, but not all the students received ballots," says the 21-year-old sociology student. "And when the administration received the letters, they stamped some with the wrong date and some votes were disqualified. We have no way of knowing which votes were good and which were bad."

Chiasson-LaBelle says the union's relationship with the university was in "constant conflict." Recently, the union was criticizing perceived cutbacks to education, like increasing the average number of students per class from 34 to 42. "It's their role to criticize the university," he says.

After dissolving the union, the university administration divided its student groups into mini-unions, and appointed their leaders. "From my point of view, those kinds of actions show there's a real will to block the student autonomy in the student organizations," Chiasson-LaBelle says. "They are trying to shut the voice of students. Students have a right to participate in the decisions of the university."

The defeated union may contest the referendum results.