So here we are. Day one of Acadia University’s second strike in as many contracts. And though I’ve been teaching here for 11 years, this is my first strike.
        When AUFA went on strike in 2004, I was about 12,000 miles away, quite literally on the other side of the world. I was on a research trip in Alice Springs, Australia, trying to track down an Aboriginal Elder whom I needed to interview for my book project. It was an exciting trip. It had taken me more than a month to find Rex by telephone because he lives in a remote Aboriginal community. In fact, I only managed to contact him because I had learned that we was in the Alice for medical treatment. After getting his agreement to submit to an interview, I booked my ticket and made my way to the centre of the Australian continent by rail. And I arrived in the desert city just in time to learn that Acadia had locked out the faculty. Of course, it was difficult to find out what was going on because when I arrived, I discovered that my Acadia email account wasn’t working. I contacted my friend Richard by my alternate address, only to learn that my email wasn’t the only thing that had been cut off by the University. So had my pay, and so had my research funds. I shifted immediately to a six person room at a youth hostel and began living off peanut butter (yes, it’s harder to come by than vegamite, but I hadn’t quite acquired the taste for that murky Australian staple yet) and flat bread. I lost about 10 lbs on the trip and invented a new miracle diet.
        Of course, being 12,000 miles away during the strike was difficult on another level. I felt that I was missing out on the camaraderie of the picket line. And by all accounts, I did miss out. When I returned to Canada, some of my senior colleagues said that the strike had been one of the highlights of their long academic careers. I returned to a faculty that had a much stronger sense of itself and of its common interests than it had had when I left. And I benefited directly from that newfound solidarity. I’m pleased to report that my colleagues didn’t forget about me on the other side of the world. I was granted strike pay, though I wasn’t walking the streets of the Alice with a placard. And when the strike ended, AUFA negotiated the return of sabbatical salaries as part of the back to work protocol. Fortunately, people on parental leave and long term disability leave–yes, both groups had been cut off financially–had also been remembered.
        Clearly, in the first strike, the university was digging itself a hole in cutting off the most vulnerable of its faculty, those who couldn’t actually carry a picket for strike pay. They were showing AUFA members what they were capable of should the union fail in its endeavours. And, not surprisingly, given that the person at the head of the administration is the same person who led us to strike last time, they are digging the hole even deeper this time. I might even say they’re digging a hole to China. Because, not only have they once again cut off the most vulnerable of Acadia’s faculty with the rest of our merry, picket carrying band, but on the day before the strike, our illustrious President, Dr. Gail Dinter-Gottlieb, saw fit to leave the country, travelling some 12,000 miles (or thereabouts) to China–on full pay of course, and I suspect, in first class–on a recruiting drive where I’m sure she will demonstrate her remarkable diplomatic skills by not mentioning the strike at all.
        So here we are again.

        After a night of sleep picketing, I woke up to do the real thing as picket captain of team number one, shift one, Monday, 15 October 2007. It was an exciting day. Faculty turned out in great numbers for the 8:30 am shift, even though many would also have to take the line later in the day for scheduled shifts. They just wanted to be there, amongst their colleagues, when it all began. They just wanted to show the administration and the community the strength in our numbers. And they did it all with a bouncy walk and a smile, even in the rain, showing where Acadia University’s class is…and it ain’t in China.