The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) is a Canadian student union founded in February 2001 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, which contains about 50,000 CEGEP and university-level students in 25 member student unions throughout Quebec. By its values and positions, the ASSÉ positions itself differently from the other province-wide student unions, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ).
Contents
- Philosophy
- Member associations
- Executive council
- 2005 student strike
- 2012 student strike
- Congress
- Coordination council
- Permanent committees
- Work committees
- Regional councils
- References
The ASSÉ forms the core of the Coalition large de l’ASSÉ (CLASSE), a temporary coalition created to counter the tuition hike and coordinate 2012 Quebec student protests.
Philosophy
The Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante clamors for free education at all levels and for all, abolition of student debt, conservation of quality post-secondary education and the democratization of schools while opposing education commodification.
It considers mass mobilization as a catalyst of social change. It favours local general assemblies as decision-making structures as opposed to referendums, considered less democratic.
It also fights for responsible taxation, minority rights defense, promotes alter-globalization, demilitarization, implementation of public housing policy and the irrevocable right to dissidence.
The basic principles of the ASSÉ lies on the foundations of student unionism as established in Article 1 of the Charter of Grenoble, in 1946. The Charter stipulates that the student is a young intellectual worker. Thus students must be associated on a union basis. The ASSÉ believes in the necessity of fighting to save the gains made by past student movements, as well as to make new gains, through permanent protest. Considering education as a right, rather than as a privilege, the ASSÉ is based on the following principles:
1. For quality, free, accessible, secular, non-discriminatory public education;
2. For adequate financial aid whose aim is to eliminate student debt and to ensure that fundamental needs are met;
3. For a public education network free from private-sector intrusion, including contract manufacturing;
4. For democratization of educational institutions from a perspective of self-management;
5. For union solidarity with all international progressive fights whose aim is society's well-being;
6. Against any and all forms of globalization that support the predominance of profit over the population's well-being
Member associations
Executive council
2005 student strike
On January 29, 2005, confronted to the refusal from then-Education Minister Pierre Reid to negotiate about financial aid reform, the ASSÉ holds a congress at Cégep de Saint-Laurent where it invites non-member associations to create the CASSÉÉ, the Coalition de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante Élargie. In February, the CASSÉÉ launches a series of referendums and general assemblies over the start of an unlimited general strike around three main demands:
- The retroactive abolition of the reform to the Aide financière du Québec;
- The abandonment of all decentralization and market alignment projects of the college network;
- Both demands go towards free education and abolition of student debt.
On February 24, 2005, the first associations start the strike movement. On March 16, 2005, 70,000 students are CASSÉE members, out of the 230,000 students on strike at that moment, the others being FEUQ or FECQ members.
The CASSÉÉ is excluded from the negotiation table by the new Education Minister Jean-Marc Fournier because of its refusal to condemn violent acts posed during the strike. The CASSÉÉ, however, claims that it is to divide the student movement that the minister excluded it, since, shortly after the strike began, on February 16, 2005 at Montebello, students assembled by the FEUQ and the FECQ forced Château Montebello's door with a battering ram to disturb a Parti libéral du Québec caucus, leading to a Sûreté du Québec intervention.
The strike ends after the signature of an accord by the student unions and Minister Fournier, that the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante qualifies of a "bargain accord" and is rejected by a majority of general assemblies, who still vote to return to class after 7 weeks of strike.
2012 student strike
Since summer 2011, the ASSÉ threatened the Quebec government to start an unlimited general strike.
Congress
The congress is the supreme decision-making instance. it is made up of delegates of all member associations and works according to the one member, one vote principle. It normally convenes two or three times a year. In the annual congress, elections to fill the executive positions are held.
Coordination council
The coordination council aims to coordinate the work of the following instances:
Executive council
The executive council of the ASSÉ implements the mandates from the congress and the coordination council.
Permanent committees
Work committees
The task of the work committees is to help the executive council and the member associations in their mandates.
Regional councils
The regional councils serve to coordinate the associations in their union work.