They say there’s strength in numbers—and today, that strength was on full display.
As graduate Teaching Assistants, Research Assistants, and Teaching Fellows—all represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) 901, Unit 1—hit the picket line for their 10th day on strike, they were ed by some familiar faces: faculty from across Queen’s. The strike, now about to enter its third week, began on March 10 after negotiations between PSAC 901 and the University broke down with no tentative agreement reached.
Organized by concerned professors, the “Faculty Day of Action” on March 21 saw around 50 faculty marching from the Yellow House to Richardson Hall, home of the Office of the Principal and Provost, chanting “Education is a right, profs and students must unite.” There, they met over 100 PSAC 901 who marched from their picket outside Stauffer Library.
READ MORE: 2,000 graduate student workers walk off the job
The group held a teach-in outside Richardson from 11:30 a.m. for around two hours, calling on the University to return to the bargaining table. Faculty, many of whom are ed by graduate students in their teaching and research, stressed the essential role these workers play in the daily functioning of Queen’s and the University’s academic mission.
“What we’re doing today is we’re making a better University,” said Margaret Pappano, associate professor and graduate chair in the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, to the crowd. “I want to say to [Principal] Patrick Deane and [Provost] Matthew Evans: get our students back to class. This isn’t normal. Students on the picket line isn’t normal. It’s not business as usual. It’s wrong.”
Pappano criticized the University’s last-minute offer before the strike began on March 10, calling it “sloppy,” “unprofessional,” and comparable to “a student submitting a ChatGPT essay.”
“Do it over,” she said, urging the istration to return to the bargaining table in good faith and negotiate a contract that reflects the value of graduate student labour.
A concern expressed by faculty was the contradiction between the University’s long-term aspirations and its present-day treatment of graduate workers.
In January, the Queen’s community received an e-mail from Principal Deane outlining the University’s bicentennial vision—a strategic roap that includes a commitment to becoming a more research-intensive institution by 2041, the year of Queen’s 200th birthday. For many faculty, those ambitions don’t square with the precarious conditions graduate students currently face.
“If we follow Deane’s desire to become an even more research-intensive university, consider who does research and what research is,” Pappano said, pointing to the inadequate funding packages that force many graduate students to live below the poverty line.
University leadership, or the lack thereof, was a recurring focus at the teach-in.
Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies, Ayca Tomac, responded directly to a campus-wide email from Principal Deane sent on March 19, which warned free expression must be accompanied by “civility and mutual respect.”
Tomac pushed back on that framing, arguing it echoes a long history of efforts to delegitimize labour action.
“There’s nothing more uncivil than exploitation,” Tomac said. “Respect is earned by standing in solidarity with those who make this university function, not by dismissing their concerns or framing their demands as threats.”
Other faculty spoke directly to their colleagues who didn’t attend the action. Susan Lord, acting head of the Department of Gender Studies, was disappointed by the silence and inaction from her colleagues across the university, saying she wishes more had shown up to their graduate students.
For Lord, solidarity isn’t just about presence—it’s about refusing to cross picket lines, declining to take on the labour of striking workers, and using every available tool to resist the normalization of austerity on campus.
She warned against scabbing in all its forms, calling on faculty to think critically about whether grading papers, redeg courses, or stepping in to replace tutorials amounts to undermining the strike. These actions, she argues, weaken the collective effort and send a message that the University can continue operating without fairly compensating its workers.
Julianne Okot Bitek, an assistant professor in Black Studies and Gender Studies, encouraged her colleagues to see the fight for graduate workers as fundamentally connected to their own.
With Queen’s University Faculty Association—the labour union that represents faculty, librarians, and archivists—set to enter negotiations ahead of their collective agreement’s expiry on June 30, 2025, she emphasized in an interview with The Journal that the outcomes of PSAC 901’s strike will set the tone for what’s to come.
As the strike continues with no new bargaining dates confirmed, graduate students were reminded not to get discouraged.
“Raise your voices and demand what’s rightfully yours, because history is on your side,” Tomac said. “And if history has told us anything, it’s that those who fight win.”
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