Every Classroom a Frontline: Reflections on Student Strikes

by whatthefuckamidoinghere

This article is based on a longer report offering strategic reflections on the past two years of student strikes at Concordia. Due to the transient nature of the student population and the lull of organizing in the early COVID era, activists at Concordia found themselves on a steep learning curve to organize effective strikes. We hope these reflections can help pass on some of the political and practical lessons we learned over the course of several multi-day strikes, and can act as an archive to remember our role within the struggle. 

Introduction 

Striking for accessible education is not only a political act: it is a spiritual one, honoring an intergenerational legacy of resistance. We do not act alone, nor just for ourselves. The student radicals of today owe their place in the classroom, and their freedom to dissent, to those who came before—who withheld their academic labour so that tuition fees might someday not be a barrier for future students. To strike now is to honour the courage, sacrifice, and solidarity of past movements. It is to carry forward our collective duty: resisting the commodification of knowledge and protecting the commons of education from privatization. 

Purpose of Strikes 

With our experience at Concordia of several multi-day strikes in the last two years, we have come to see a few major purposes of student strikes. 

First, in Quebec, the threat of a general unlimited strike can effectively pressure the provincial government through the education funding structure. Universities in Quebec are heavily subsidized by the province, which creates a financial incentive for the government to get a “return on their investment” by producing graduates and trained workers. In this context, if a significant number of students go on general unlimited strike to the point of losing an entire year of school and not graduating, a “double cohort effect” would occur, forcing the government to subsidize twice as many students the following year. This threat makes shorter strikes effective—under socialized funding, the government risks major losses when students disrupt the system. 

Second, we see student strikes as a powerful way of disrupting traditional ideas of the university’s purpose. In Canada, universities are targeted by the neoliberal order, which seeks to turn schools into degree granting institutions focused on market productivity and students into individual consumers. Strikes open the opportunity for autonomous student controlled spaces, and create moments of possibility for larger actions by disrupting regular business. By going on strike, we reject our individualization and the commodification of education. We practice taking collective democratic action in the places where we spend our time and energy. Striking forces the institution to acknowledge that we are not passive consumers of degrees. Our labour as both students and as community members is what the university runs on.

Contextualizing Student Strikes 

Quebec’s student movement is rooted in a long and militant history of collective action. Since the late 1960s, students have used strikes as a political weapon to resist tuition hikes, demand systemic reforms, and defend accessible education. Waves of coordinated action have repeatedly proven effective in forcing governments to retreat or compromise—from the early fights for loans and bursaries to the massive mobilizations of the 1990s and 2000s. The 2012 strike, the largest and most sustained in Quebec’s history, galvanized over 300,000 students in opposition to tuition increases. They represented over three-fourths of the student population in the province and inspired a generation of organizers. In 2015, students again mobilized against austerity policies and state repression. Most recently, strikes in 2023-24 responded to sharp tuition hikes targeting both out-of-province and international students, reviving debates about equity, accessibility, and the commodification of education. In the fall of 2024, Quebec witnessed the largest student strike in its history in solidarity with Palestine. Timed to oppose the NATO summit in Montreal, this strike united some 85,000 students across campuses in solidarity against contemporary colonial and imperialist violence. Across decades, these actions form a continuous chain of struggle—a collective memory that reaffirms striking as not only a useful tactic, but a political inheritance. 

Picketing 

Picket lines can either take a “symbolic” approach (serving as a way to communicate information, apprise faculty and students of your cause, or demonstrate solidarity with others on strike) or a “hard-picket” (physically blocking the classroom door so that people are unable to enter). Picketing is how a strike goes from an individual boycott of classes to a political tool that has power to disrupt the institution and win demands. 

Cross Campus Organizing and Coordination 

Cross-campus coordination is essential for building powerful strikes. For example, during the 2023/24 tuition strikes, weekly assemblies brought together delegates from Departmental and Members Associations, faculty, and university-level unions, alongside autonomous students involved in committees. For a student strike to have political power, it must be generalized and invoke the threat of serious disruption. This requires a coordinated student movement, across Francophone and Anglophone institutions. Some Concordia MAs have taken steps in this direction by joining La CRUES, a coalition representing 35,000 students across Quebec, that played a key role in coordinating the November 2024 strike for Palestine. 

Repression 

University administrations and the provincial government have often attempted to undermine or criminalize student strike actions. Tactics have included seeking injunctions to limit protest activities, threatening disciplinary measures, or using police and security to break picket lines. There has also been retaliation against associations for striking, such as McGill University terminating a funding agreement with the student union after their 2025 strike for Palestine. Importantly, any decisions to strike must be made democratically through general assemblies that meet quorum requirements, as set out by an association’s bylaws, ensuring legitimacy and broad participation. Striking can bring higher-ed students into an antagonistic relationship with institutions that they may not be used to—this broadening of antagonism is one of the most powerful impacts of mass student mobilizations. 

Some organizers have adapted to political repression by modifying picketing techniques to encourage anonymity and avoid altercations with security or police. This can include people changing their appearance, covering their faces, and not identifying themselves. It can also involve changing how picketers move around the campus by establishing group minimums, legal observers, and the practice of marching in groups with banners. Ideally, strikes are generalized, making repression more difficult. However, people who are perceived as leaders or “troublemakers” can still be targeted in large mobilizations. The victories of the student movement were won in spite of repression, not in its absence—this is an uncomfortable position for university students who may otherwise be praised for being on a “productive” path. When we strike, we draw on the bravery of those who resisted before us, and we rehearse the conditions for collective bravery today. These acts of dissent and disruption are not detours from education, but the groundwork for a different world.