More News From Canada

Four hundred and fifty secretaries and clerical workers at Concordia University staged a half-day strike on Monday in protest of their sixth year without a pay raise, the Montreal Gazette reports. Many of them are angry about the “$1-million-plus parting gift to outgoing president Claude Lajeunesse,” the reporter, Peggy Curran, writes. She quotes André Legault, head of the union representing support staff at Concordia’s Loyola and Sir George Williams campuses, as saying, “If Concordia can find $1.6-million to pay off a president who worked here for only two years, why is the administration insisting on treating its least-paid employees in such shabby fashion?”
Meanwhile, Karen Birchard has the latest on the lockout at St. Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on The Chronicle’s News Blog. Read more.