in much the same way it’does in other workplaces.

Struggle against schoolwork at university When we recognize that i going to school is work for us, it's possible to.be— gin to understand the varioé as ways we have been strug— gling both against work and to gain access to some money or a wage for that work.

Our struggle against sch— oolwork at university also

takes on a variety of forms. 1

It involves skipping classes using the same essay for

several courses, helping fe—-

110w students with assignme- nts. *

The avoidance of schoolw- ork can also be a pleasant love affair, long conversaé tions in pubs with friends, reading the wrong book at the right time and the right book at the wrong time.' Th- ose of us who have enough money frequently buy term papers from essay companies.

One of the most tangible results of students's strug—

a' 1 mmme

us over the past 10 years lms been the steady erosion M the grading system. Sch— mls, employers, and the mate use the grading system m check the "quality" of me products of the school wstem. As long as it func- fions, grading forces stude— nts to work harder and com- Mte with each other for 10bs or places in graduate sChool. .

Increasing criticism by Wudents of authoriarian harming and the refusal to k a lot of schoolwork has fignifiCantly reduced the We of the bell curve, and u3dE«levelsghave risen st- Eadily. gabisii'x 1:.)

Now thesuniversitiesxco- Mdain that most first year atUdents lack basic reading 'flTiting, and mathematics 8kills, despite adequate gr-

ades in high. pupal. ,. .

\y'

w.

grades have lost much of

atheir usefulness to employ-

ers in assessing job applic- ants. ‘ ‘ - School authorities desc- ribe this phenomenon as "gr— ade inflation". From our

_viewpoint, when we struggle

for higher grades for less work, we_are making a simil- ar struggle for more money and less work is called. "wage inflation" by the state. ‘

‘ We students have not only been struggling against sch-r oolwork; we have also been fighting for money in vario- us forms. ¥

In the late 60's federal and provincial authorities were faced with a widespread refusal of university stude- nts to pay back their stud— ent loans. By 1970, more than 50 per cent of outstan— ding loans were not being ‘ repaid. In this way, stud—

- .ents were refusing the disc- - ipline and the pressures

that a huge debt ereates to' quickly find a job after graduation. '

Since then, student loan regulations have been tigh— tened up to prevent students from simply taking money for schoolwork by refusing to repay loans. ‘

In the last few years, university students have be- en organizing around how much money they get from the state for schoolwork.

In 1976 already there have been large demonstrations of students at Queen's Park,

rat the New Brunswick legis-

lature and at the University of Calgary over grants and loans.

In a threevweek Quebec wide strike by Community college students last year, students demanded that their parents income should have no bearing on student grants, and that all studen- ts should get a guaranteed annual wage equivalent to welfare for a single person.

‘ The fact that even getting

welfare would be a big gain

-shows how little our work

is valued at present.

In effect, the Quebec students were demanding wa- ges for schoolwork, without being quite so coherent, It should be noted that commu— nity college students in Quebec pay no tuition, so they already had a signific- ant amount of leverage or power to reduce the level of indebedness that wage- lessness usually means for students. '

These recent actions by

“ Canadian university students

demonstrate that we already .receive a form of wages for

.schoolworkgthrough the grant,

system. Other categories of students alsg.receive a

LThe Cadre, March 30, I976, Page 2

fifiauufl.

form of wages for schoolwork. Thousands take Canada Manpo- wer Training Programs, and receive a subsistence wage while at school. High sch— ool students who leave home can get welfare if they stay. at school. Also, the Canad— ian Armed Forces pay univer- sity students to go to sch— ool if they enroll in offic- er training programs.

The difference between a all these forms of wages for schoolwork and an explicit wage for schoolwork is that they all assume that school—

'ing is a privilige rather

that work, so we should be glad to receivesless than welfare and accumulate

large debts. When we demand wages for schoolwork, we make clear that schoolwork is a job like any other job, and that we want a lot more

‘ money than mere subsistence.

Wages for schoolwork

Although we and other students have been struggl— ing against schoolwork in all kinds of ways, as well as getting some money, our weakness has been the fail- ure to fight for wages for schoolwork in a direct way. When high school students drop out, they are forced by the lack of power that comes with wagelessness to take jobs for the minimum wage ( although they sel- dom remain tied to them).

V When we finish univer- sity with large_debts, our wagelessness forces us to find a job quickly. Freq-

‘uently we even have to lie

about our education in order to get temporary jobs in offices and factories.‘ Our power to date has been built through our refusal of schoolwork and our limited

:success in getting some mon- 'ey. But we need wages for

schoolwork to further dev- elop our power to decide how much work we do at school and whether to take

'part-time or full—time jobs

after graduation. -

In this way, we will be able

of the clouds.

to take time off from scho- olwork without having to .feel guilty. Wages for sch- oolwork will also remove much of the anxiety we exp— ,erience about having to wo- rk hard and perform well in school in order to get a go—

-od job. ‘

Wages for schoolwork will not only mean having the

.power to refuse part—time -and summer jobs in addition

to schoolwork, but will also enable us to reduce much of our schoolwork.

The idea that we should get wages for schoolwork is not something that fell out It emerges

precisely at the time when the state is trying to imp-

‘ose more work for less

money on all workers, waged and wageless - through tra-

rnsit fare increases and re—

duced services, daycare cu- tbacks, rising food prices and energy prices, and wage controls.'

As we examine all the

.unrecognized and unpaid

work we do at school, we

‘shouldn't forget that other

workers are struggling to get paid for all their work too. When women, for inst—

_ ance, struggle for more and .cheaper daycare, lbwer food

prices, or the availability Of safe abortions and birth

'control, they are struggling

over the amount of work they are forced to do.

‘And now women are organ- izing for wages for house— work — not only in the home,

'but all the unpaid work they

do outside the home too.

And when men workers strug- gle for more money and

less work, as they've been doing in record numbers and with "alarming" success in the last few year, they are fighting for wages for all the work they do both on and

' off the job.

Thus, while the state is trying to get more schoolw- ork for less money from us, we are not alone in wanting more money, morextime and less’work”f3r”5urselves.