National Union of Students

Just as Canadian workers are becoming more politically aware as economic problems increasingly plague Canadian society, Canada's students are showing more interest in promoting social and political change in their country. The recent upsurge in Canadian student activism creates a stark contrast to the relative complacency of their counterparts in the United States. The gradual radicalization of the students has played a crucial role in the left-wing politics of Canada, because students provide an important academic base for the working-class movement and help legitimize left-wing demands.

The National Union of Students (NUS) is one of the cornerstones of student radicalism. The union officially represents 350,000 students from all over the country and has an operating budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which comes from dues paid by individual chapters at most colleges and universities. The union, run by a Central Committee of 11 members, goes beyond simply looking out for students' interests by connecting student issues with the broader question of structural reform of the Canadian economy.

Consider, for instance, some of the NUS demands: increased student aid until all student fees are abolished, systematic national planning of education, elimination of financial barriers preventing international students from studying in Canada, greater affirmative action policies in the realm of education, and the elimination of unemployment in Canada through government creation of jobs. These issues, especially the demand for full employment, indicate a concrete student-worker alliance that may have great ramifications in Canada. In many West European nations? particularly Italy and France--it is this alliance that has effectively challenged the idea that capitalism is the best way to get things done. Of course, this alliance has sprung from the high unemployment among Canadian academics and the high number of college graduates who have been forced, upon graduation, to take dull, mindless jobs or go without work. The influx of these college graduates into the class of people with little control over their jobs has most certainly had a consciousness-raising effect on the Canadian working class in general.

Demands, however, are easy to make, but hard to back up through student protests and demonstrations. The success with which the NUS has organized student marches is truly its most impressive feat. Last month students at 30 junior colleges took part in a general strike to force the government to accede to their demands: free tuition, free books, and grants, not loans, to pay for student living expenses.

The solidarity of these students shows that they see themselves as a common economic class with common problems. Quite a contrast with the situation on many American campuses--especially Ivy League campuses--where students perceive real or imagined class divisions and divergent interests. Along with a boycott of classes, the Canadian strike was marked by succesful and well-organized marches. On November 23, 1500 students marched through the streets of Montreal and occupied the offices of the provincial minister of education until he agreed to meet with representatives of the students. The NUS was an important force behind the march.

The NUS has four full-time field workers to organize students around issues. Twelve other employees do research and secretarial work. The NUS also constantly lobbies legislators to support student interests.

NUS organizers say they realize the need to organize each college or university around issues specific to that institution. For instance, one NUS researcher said, if the toilet paper issue currently inflaming Harvard students came up at a Canadian college, NUS field owrkers would organize protests but would also try to link up the issues with a greater social question like the reasonableness of demands for basic goods without being ripped off by store owners who inflate prices. In this way the NUS uses little issues to illuminate what it sees as inherent problems in an economy dominated by large private corporations.

Of course, one of the main objectives of the NUS is to allign students with campus employees like dining hall workers, instead of allowing divisions between the two groups to undermine student-worker solidarity.

Herbert Marcuse, onz of the gurus of the '60s U.S. student movement, proposed a student-worker alliance as the stepping stone to economic change in the United States. But when hard hats began bashing hippies during demonstrations everyone realized the idea had no future. The NUS in Canada is trying to make the idea a reality. Maybe the Canadian climate will be more hospitable to the possibility than the U.S. was.