The executive and programme committees of the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities/Société canadienne des humanités numérique (CSDH/SCHN) announced today that, as long as there are picket lines on campus, researchers in the digital humanities will not attend the annual Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities at McGill University this June.

“It’s time for McGill and the Federation to fish or cut bait,” CSDH/SCHN president Barbara Bordalejo said in announcing the decision. 

“Researchers in the Digital Humanities, many of them unionized workers, know the importance of respecting picket lines,” Bordalejo said. “By agreeing to host Congress at McGill this year, both the University and the Federation of the Social Sciences and Humanities took on a duty to make sure that researchers from all disciplines can attend in good conscience. This is impossible as long as there is an ongoing labor dispute,” Bordalejo said. 

The Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities is the largest conference in the Canadian academic calendar. It brings thousands of researchers from across the disciplines together in a different location each year to exchange the latest research. It is organized by the Canadian Federation of the Social Sciences and Humanities, which represents over 91,000 academics in Canada. 

The 2024 Congress is scheduled to be held at McGill from June 12-21. The annual meeting has been overshadowed by an ongoing labor dispute between the University and the Association of McGill Professors of Law/Association McGillienne de professeur.e.s de droit (AMPL/AMPD). After 500 days without a first contract, the union began an unlimited strike on April 24.

“Respect for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization (EDID) requires that we respect the collective bargaining rights of unionized academic workers,” Bordalejo said, noting that Congress has been overshadowed repeatedly in recent years by similar controversies involving the failure of the Federation to live up to its EDID commitments. 

“The Federation must now act on its principles and pressure McGill to settle with its striking workers while supporting member societies as they make alternate arrangements to respect the AMPL/AMPD picket lines,” Bordalejo said. 

“This needs to be settled now,” Bordalejo said. “Member societies should not be asked to choose between respecting the rights of their colleagues or attending an annual meeting.”

The Canadian Society for Digital Humanities/Société canadienne de humanités numériques (CSDH/SCHN) is the national society for researchers and teachers in the Digital Humanities, a field that researches the intersection of computation and humanities topics. 

Contact:

Barbara Bordalejo, President: barbara.bordalejo@uleth.ca

                                                   +1 (306) 371 0578

Dan O’Donnell, Spokesperson: daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca 

                                                  +1 (403) 393-2539