Originally posted here

Andrew Nellis of the Ottawa Pandhandlers Union said the group has reached a settlement after filing a $1-million lawsuit against the city last year.

The lawsuit accused the city of violating panhandlers' constitutional rights by putting up a fence at the underpass across from Chateau Laurier. Nellis ended up being charged after he snipped a lock off the fence.

On Tuesday, Nellis said the panhandlers and city reached a deal but an agreement on confidentiality prevented him from going into details. Sounded like the settlement might involve allowing the panhandlers to use some property for a street art gallery.

Nellis is claiming victory.

"It won't be the first victory we have, either," he said.

In the same breath, Nellis said the panhandlers group plans to sue the city again if an updated nuisance bylaw comes into force for roads and sidewalks. The bylaw passed the transportation committee meeting Wednesday.

The University of Ottawa fired Denis Rancourt, a physics professor, renowned researcher, and IWW member on March 31, 2009, while he was speaking at an academic freedom conference in New York City.

The university sought to dismiss him on the basis that he had awarded high grades to a graduate level physics class, which Rancourt says he did in order to remove competition and performance as they are obstacles to learning. The university claimed that Rancourt’s marking damaged the institution’s credibility as an academic institution.

Rancourt has said that the university’s board fired him before an April 1 deadline to submit a legal brief in his defense and that it ignored his submission of his students’ exams as proof that he was evaluating students properly. The university disregarded the union’s collective agreement and the grievance procedure by firing Rancourt without allowing him due process in his defense.

The Association of Professors (APUO), a registered trade union that represents university faculty, has announced it will launch an inquiry and it will likely appeal the firing in court.

The University of Ottawa in Canada is planning to fire Denis Rancourt, physics professor, IWW member, and renowned researcher, today, March 31, 2009 .

The university claims it is firing Denis because he announced that all of his students would get A+ grades on the first day of the physics class so that they could get on with learning, rather than compete and perform for grades. The university claims this educational approach damages its reputation and credibility as well as that of its students. In short, grades equal credibility.

The IWW General Defense Committee Local 6 (GDC Local 6) rejects this pretext as an exaggeration that does not justify the university’s repressive approach, which is a threat against academic freedom and education workers’ rights.

More information about Denis’ case is online at the Academic Freedom and Governance at the University of Ottawa weblog http://www.academicfreedom.ca/

Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW.  The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.

By Dave - originally posted to anarkismo.net, January 27, 2008

(Dave interviewed Ottawa anarchist Andrew Nellis for Linchpin. Andrew is an organizer with the Ottawa Panhandlers Union.)

Q. What is the Ottawa Panhandlers Union and how was it started?

A. The Ottawa Panhandlers Union is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It's a real union. What we do is run by the panhandlers themselves. The IWW has one paid member for the entire union. It's entirely member run. The idea is to empower people on the street to fight for themselves.

Ideally despite coming in as an outside organizer I'll be able to step out of the picture once the organization is up and running and there's a structure in place to ensure that the organization continues. I was on the street myself. I'm not on the street now. So I do know something about the milieu in which I'm working.