Traffic backed up, elevators kaput, as students and staff struggle to get to class.
Though they have just thirteen members in their union, striking mainteance workers at Cape Breton University are doing their best to disrupt academics at the Sydney campus. Picketers slowed by did not completely block access to traffic at the university’s two entrances today, backing up traffic for miles. To make matters worse, CBU shares its main entrance with the Marconi campus of the Nova Scotia Community College, so students and staff at both schools are affected.
I managed to navigate through picketers at about 8:15 this morning, only to find the elevator in the building “Out of Order.” In my ten years at CBU, I can recall that elevator being out of order only once, so the timing of this malfunction is remarkable. Either it is a stroke of luck for the picketers, whereby fate is pointing out just how much they are needed, or it was a deliberate act of sabotage, which would be pretty mean-spirited considering that handicapped students and faculty rely on that elevator to get to their classes and offices.