CREW Solidarity with the Midnight Kitchen
Raised by Nicole Farrell
Passed with support by the General Assembly, October 9th 2025
On Wednesday, October 1, the Students’ Society of McGill University voted to close the Midnight Kitchen Collective, a solidarity collective and student service providing free meals on the McGill campus. This vote fired the staff and locked them out of their kitchen facilities, which is a clear violation of labour laws. The Midnight Kitchen and The People’s Potato shared an official statement to their instagram, which elaborates:
“The entire Midnight Kitchen staff [was locked] out of their kitchen and office under the guise of ‘restructuring’. Although it is ‘absolutely mandatory’ to provide one week’s notice of termination of union employees, no such attempts were made by the SSMU to notify the union of their decision to let go of MK employees. This is a blatant disrespect of labour laws.
The SSMU claims that they will be replacing the MK team with one new ‘general kitchen manager’ who will single-handedly oversee the coordination of a free lunch service to McGill students… It is simply impossible to serve upwards of 500 students a day with one consistent staff member, let alone continue to provide meals for the dozens of student groups and community members who rely on the Midnight Kitchen for free solidarity meals.
The decision to overhaul the Midnight Kitchen with no clear plan, no personnel, and no clear timeline when Midnight Kitchen was already in the process of expanding its capacity for service is a blatant attack on student food security at a time when the cost of living and food prices are soaring at an astronomical rate.
The SSMU’s choice to gut the Midnight Kitchen solidarity servings and replace them with a ‘catering service’ is also a clear attempt to undermine and depoliticize an essential service that has adamantly stood against the SSMU’s longstanding austerity and corruption. The proposed restructuring severs irreplaceable relationships with urban farmers and disregards the dietary needs of their students, demonstrating just how little they value their members. It is disgraceful”
Midnight Kitchen is a sibling project to Concordia’s free food kitchen, the People’s Potato. The People’s Potato are working alongside the Midnight Kitchen Collective to inform and organize the McGill student community through an Instagram information campaign.
As a labour union, a motion of solidarity was passed at our previous General Assembly which states:
“Whereas Article 5 of the CREW Union Constitution defines among the Union’s objectives to “ally itself with similar union organizations”,
Whereas although the Midnight Kitchen Collective is not a union in its organization, its purpose as a solidarity collective and student service is similar to the Union’s in “the examination and improvement of the social, professional, economic and political interests of its members,” who are students themselves.
Be it resolved that CREW shares a public affirmation of solidarity”
CREW wholeheartedly supports the staff of the Midnight Kitchen in their fight for autonomy. For more information about what the Midnight Kitchen is combatting and how you can help, check their Instagram