Canadian PhD students,postgrads plan mass walkout over low pay

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in Canada are planning a walkout on 1 May to protest against stagnant government-funded salaries.

Edugist source in Canada reveals.

Recall that since 2003, salaries have remained the same, while there has been a 50% inflation rate over the same period, according to Sarah Laframboise, a biochemistry PhD student at the University of Ottawa and executive director of Support Our Science.

The group is organizing the walkout to demand higher pay for graduate students, who earn either $17,500 or $23,000, and PhD students, who earn either $23,000 or $35,000, as well as $45,000 for postdoctoral fellowships. Laframboise states that many researchers are in a precarious financial position due to low salaries.

A survey conducted by Laframboise and her colleagues found that out of more than 1,000 Canadian graduate students, almost half of the respondents frequently struggled to make ends meet or had to make sacrifices to afford necessities. Additionally, 30% of the respondents had considered leaving their studies because of financial hardship.

Samy-Jane Tremblay, president of the Quebec Student Union, is also organizing the walkout at six institutions in Montreal. Tremblay believes that the government’s failure to invest in research in Canada is resulting in a loss of talent during a labor shortage.

Many researchers are either leaving research or going to the US or Europe, where pay is better.

Canada’s science minister,François-Philippe Champagne is yet to make a statement.