University of Manitoba students from the Southeast are being affected and having classes cancelled as a result of the the faculty strike which started Tuesday morning.

U of M Faculty Association (UMFA) President Mark Hudson says negotiations started in May and, after a round of mediation, the crucial points they are looking for include protections against increased workloads for the 1,200 UMFA members, assurances of fair and accurate performance evaluations, and job protections for instructors and librarians who don't currently have the same protections as the professors.

Picketers slowing down traffic early Tuesday morning."Instructors and faculty members are facing increases to their teaching loads, increases to their administrative loads, and we have nothing in our agreement right now that protects against that. Having over-stressed, overworked professors who are teaching larger and larger, and more and more classes is really not good for students or education."

Hudson notes they have been back and forth with the university on salary issues and thought they were coming to a compromise. He says then the U of M told UFMA last Thursday the province had mandated a 0% increase and a one-year extension on the contract. Hudson adds salary is obviously a complicated factor so in the mediation process UFMA decided to negotiate on non-monetary issues and were still not able to come to an agreement.

Many classes have been cancelled due to the strike, but there are classes still in session. A list of classes can be found on the University of Manitoba website.

Steinbach resident Tori Morin is in the Faculty of Business and says the strike is affecting one of her classes.

"The thing that bothers me the most is that we have a syllabus at the beginning and that's kind of like our contract with the professor, and so now, they're kind of going against that in a way."

Pamphlets are being handed out to passers-by by those striking at the university.

Amy Unger from Steinbach says two out of her four classes in the Faculty of Science are currently affected by the strike and, though it means no classes or communication with her professor, she notes the reasons behind the strike are understandable.

"If you take a step back and realize what they're actually trying to accomplish; nobody goes into education just for the fun of it. They go into it because they care about students and they want to share knowledge and teach," notes Unger. "I think at the core they actually just want U of M to be a good university and they want people to be able to come here and get a good education."

Unger says a big part of what UFMA is fighting for is reduced workloads for professors which would help them focus on teaching better and be able to dialogue with students more, meet with students more, and help students. She adds, depending on how long it takes to come to an agreement between the university and UFMA, there has been discussion of classes being extended into the January winter term.

Meanwhile, Jackson Brandt lives in Niverville and says three out of his four classes have been cancelled and the class still in session has been moved off-campus to a library.

"Some classes will be going forward," adds Hudson. "Now students, of course, have the choice as to whether or not they want to cross the picket line. If they choose not to cross that picket line and not attend the classes, even if they are running, the university does have an obligation to accommodate those students. It's a constitutional protected characteristic to choose not to cross a picket line and the university is obliged to accommodate that decision."

Hudson says their goal is to make the university a good place for their students now, but also for their students five or ten years in the future. He adds it's a disappointing reality, but it's about long-term integrity of the U of M.