All Posts Tagged With: "CUPE"
Are big classes really a problem?
It’s not the size that counts, it’s how you use it.
Having trouble with a difficult calculus problem? Trying to figure out how to draw a resonance structure for your lab report? If you’re a student at the University of Toronto, chances are you’re out of luck. With labs and tutorials packed with more students than the teaching assistants can handle, getting one-on-one time is virtually impossible.
When you’re sitting in a classroom with hundreds of other students, it’s hard to have in-depth discussions about the material—you’re pretty much just showing up to take notes. That’s the whole point of tutorials and labs: filling in the gaps and supplementing the lecture material. The problem is, after a certain number of students it’s not even a tutorial anymore.
CUPE 3902 (which voted 91 per cent in favour of striking on Nov. 30) says 42 per cent of labs and tutorials at U of T have more than 50 students, more than 100 sections have over a 100 students. Additional statistics that paint the same picture: student-to-instructor ratios are terrible, and they’re getting worse.
Simon Fraser student society locks out employees
Union says $30-per-hour average wage is fair
Photo courtesy of stephenrwalli on Flickr
Labour disputes are common at Canadian universities. And when they happen, student unions often take the side of the workers. But at Simon Fraser, the dispute isn’t between the university and a labour union — it’s between the labour union and the student union itself.
The Simon Fraser Student Society locked out its unionized office workers on Monday. The sticking point is wages — $30.48 per hour on average — which the Student Society wants to lower by as much as $10 per hour, according to a union representative. The average hourly wage for all Canadians aged 25 to 54 in June was $24.71 in June, according to Statistics Canada.
Continue reading Simon Fraser student society locks out employees
UManitoba teaching assistants turn down new contract
Vote to authorize strike action
Members of CUPE Local 3909, the union representing teaching assistants, markers, tutors and student instructors at the University of Manitoba, decided to reject the university’s contract proposal and approve strike action in a vote held last Friday, reported the Winnipeg Free Press.
The university’s four year contract offer called for a two year wage freeze while the last two years of the contract included an annual 2.9 per cent wage increase. 97 per cent of the union’s members voted in favour of rejecting the deal.
John Danakas, director of public affairs at the U of M, explained that the offer is similar to what other bargaining units at the university have accepted from the administration.
However, CUPE Local 3909 president Matt McLean argued that some bargaining units on campus will be receiving a wage increase in the second year of their contract as well as increases to benefits.
“We will not accept an agreement which fails to address our basic needs of getting paid for all the work we do, job security, guaranteed hours, and salary increases,” McLean said in a statement.
McLean explained that members typically work 60 to 80 hours each semester and make an average of $3000 for the academic year, according to the Free Press.
Whatever happened to tenure?
The backbone of today’s university is the ill-paid, overworked lecturer
In 2000, 36-year-old Leslie Jermyn went to teach her first course as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto. For $4,550, she taught 100 students a two-month first-year anthropology course. Though Jermyn would go on to teach courses every summer for the next 11 years, the job was never guaranteed, and every year she experienced “gut-wrenching tension” waiting to find out whether she’d won a new contract. “Often I was hired within two weeks of the start time of the course,” she says. For years she had no benefits and worked out of a shared office, furnished with one desk and one telephone. In 2007, after she had been teaching upwards of 800 students a year for three years straight, she argued to the dean that the department needed a regular teaching position. That didn’t work, and Jermyn says she knows why: “I’m cheaper without benefits.”
Jermyn’s lot is similar to that of many North American university undergraduate teachers today. A November 2010 report titled “Employees in Postsecondary Institutions” released by the U.S. Department of Education concludes that the proportion of university instructors who have tenure or are on the tenure track fell below 30 per cent in 2009—a big drop from 1971, when 57 per cent were on the tenure track or had tenure already.
In Canada, the numbers tell a similar story. A 2010 Statistics Canada survey of full-time teaching staff in universities shows that there were 20,685 tenured professors in 2009, down from 26,487 in 1999. Meanwhile, over the same period the number of sessional staff rose from 2,865 to 3,135. Estimates from the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a 65,000-strong academic staff union, say that between 40 and 60 per cent of undergraduate teaching is done by sessional lecturers who often cobble together a living earning between $5,000 and $7,000 for a four-month course, sometimes travelling between two or three universities in one term. The joke in academic circles is they’re “roads scholars.”
Related: Small town universities and tenure
But for undergraduate students, who paid 15 per cent more in tuition last year than in 2006, and whose debt has risen 20 per cent over the past decade, it’s no laughing matter. Many in the nation’s academic community say the cheap labour is shortchanging students who are being taught by overworked, underpaid lecturers, who, though often excellent teachers, aren’t the cutting-edge researchers universities would have you believe are instructing kids.
“When you’re substituting full-time professors with teachers with longer hours, and higher workloads, it basically undermines the whole profession,” says James Turk, executive director of CAUT. “They earn half to a third of what a regular faculty member will earn, and have to teach ridiculous amounts to earn a modest living. They’re not paid nor expected to do research, [which] limits their ability to have a career as an academic.”
Take Teressa Fedorak, 39, who, since 2003, has worked as a lecturer at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. She teaches 80 to 100 students a semester and estimates she spends 60 hours a week teaching. The rest she spends at her other two jobs: as an elementary school teacher and gym trainer. She says it’s the only way she can earn enough to pay her mortgage and keep her academic career on track. “I’m trying to achieve the tenure track position—you can’t let it slip,” says Fedorak. But, she says, it may be a fruitless quest. “You’re working, working, working just to pay your bills,” she says. “You have no access to professional development or the time to do that.” And she says the university “likes to hold us in this pattern because it’s such a money-making device.”
For tenured profs, it’s equally frustrating. Thanks to a drop in government funding and a rise in corporate partnerships, says James Compton, an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario and president of the faculty association, “there’s increasing pressure on tenured faculty to look for those sources of money, and to do more research to get that money.” Along with the pressure to hunt down lucrative research grants, profs are burdened with a disproportionate amount of administrative work, because sessional lecturers exclusively teach.
The idea of tenure is a relatively recent one. Fifty years ago, says Michiel Horn, professor emeritus at York University and author of Academic Freedom in Canada: A History, CAUT became concerned about codifying secure tenure and the separate but related issue of academic freedom. “Professors started to insist that there be documents outlining terms of their appointment, and terms at which they could be dismissed,” says Horn. Universities acquiesced because it made them more attractive to job-hunting academics, then in short supply. “It was important for institutions to show that if you took a job at fill-in-the-blank you weren’t in danger of being sacked because the departmental chairman didn’t like your suit,” says Horn.
Political boycotts continue with hummus
You can’t solve Israel-Palestine crisis by watching what you eat
There’s a scene in the movie Brüno where Sacha Baron Cohen’s character shares a table with former Mossad chief Yossi Alpher and former Palestinian minister Ghassan Khatib. Cohen turns to Alpher and asks, “Why are you so anti-Hamas? I mean, isn’t pita bread the real enemy?” Bewildered, Alpher replies, “You’re confusing Hamas with hummus, I believe.” Khatib pipes in: “You think there’s a relation between Hamas and hummus?”
Unmoved, Cohen continues to probe. “Was the founder of Hamas a chef?” he asks.
“Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas,” Alpher explains. “It’s a food, OK? We eat it. They eat it.” “It’s vegetarian,” adds Khatib. “It’s healthy.”
Despite these merits, some students at Princeton University in New Jersey (who probably didn’t make it to the end of this scene in the movie) have decided to wage a political war on the chickpea dip. The Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) has created a Facebook event called “Boycott Sabra Hummus” and held a referendum Monday calling for alternatives to the Israeli brand of hummus being sold around campus. Yoel Bitran, the group’s creator, wrote that the PCP objects to the fact that “students who wish to eat this traditional Arab food are forced to buy a product that is connected to human rights abuses against Arab civilians.”
Sabra indeed provides care packages of dips and sports equipment to Israeli soldiers, but unless we consider these packages “weapons of ultimate deliciousness,” the connection between Sabra and human rights abuses is a weak one. Further undermining PCP’s position is the fact that there are other hummus alternatives available on campus, as pointed out by the Daily Princetonian staff.
So why is there so much fuss over food? Well hummus is just the latest target in a long line of commercial and ideological boycotts targeted at the Israeli government. Not simply an American movement, Canadian students have also actively supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) campaign, which was initiated in 2005 with the intention of pressuring the Israeli government to “end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and “[recognize] the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
Heather Kere was a vocal campaigner for the BDS movement when she was vice-president of education for Ryerson’s student union back in 2008, for example. Kere moved to rid Ryerson of Starbucks coffee, alleging that “The CEO and chairman of Starbucks (Howard Schultz) is a financial supporter of the state of Israel, an oppressive state that violates many UN resolutions, and so by supporting Starbucks, we’re supporting the apartheid system in Israel.” Starbucks has flatly denied the claim.
Then there was the more sensational attempt by the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 2009, which passed a motion calling for an academic boycott of Israeli lecturers. “We are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general,” Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario said in a release. After someone slipped CUPE a note saying, “Hey, umm . . . that’s a little reminiscent of totalitarian demands of subservience and thought control . . .” CUPE revised its position to focus on Israeli academic institutions, not individuals. In any case, I’m still waiting for CUPE to demand all visiting Russian lecturers explicitly condemn Putin’s targeting of Chechnyan separatists.
Either way, these boycott attempts have been largely unsuccessful, especially considering the umbrella objective of persuading the Israeli government to change its tactics. For one, the campaigns to boycott products often backfire, as was the case in April 2009, when a protest and boycott of Israeli wine at a Toronto LCBO resulted in the entire stock being bought out by supporters of Israel. Secondly, these boycotts often focus on non-essential, “superficial” products of Israel, such as face cream or hummus, and ignore products such as the Given Imaging swallowable camera pill used to diagnose gastrointestinal disorders worldwide, a device which was developed in Israel. Why are we not boycotting hospitals that use the “Zionist” device?
Thirdly, and perhaps most fundamentally, I would argue that the Middle East crisis at its most raw boils down to a clash of ideology; ideology that is impervious to external pressure. Economics, borders, government, allies aside–Israelis and Palestinians disagree on fundamental values rooted in faith. Not buying fruit juice from one side or the other is not going to throw off anyone’s religious claim to land.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt that impassioned students will continue to try to dry up the Starbucks wells on campus or demand only clear-conscious chickpeas be available at universities. In any case, can’t we just agree that pita bread is the real enemy?
University unions cry blackmail amidst economic downturn
UGuelph denies it threatened closure, says all universities are being hit hard
Unionized university staff say they are being pressured to accept pay and benefit rollbacks as their institutions cope with pension and operating shortfalls, according to this story in the Toronto Sun.
CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan says unionized workers are increasingly becoming the scapegoats for the economic downturn. In a press release issued Monday, he said the University of Guelph, whose pension fund has a shortfall of $260 million, recently told its workers to open up their collective agreements or face the closure of their university.
“The University of Guelph is…blackmailing employees and threatening closure if they don’t open up collective agreements and give concessions,” said Ryan. “Universities can’t just threaten to close if workers don’t bow down to their demands.”
Alastair Summerlee, president of the University of Guelph, says there are absolutely no plans to shut down the university and no request has been made to re-open staff collective agreements. However, he did concede that union representatives have been asked to meet with human resources to discuss ways to address the university’s $16 million operating deficit with as little impact on jobs as possible.
“Everybody is in this kind of financial challenge — not just the higher education sector,” he says. “We’ve been working to try to do this without involuntary layoffs, so we’ve had an early resignation and retirement package, and so far we have been successful.”
According to Summerlee, all universities are currently struggling with the effects of the economic downturn on endowment funds and pension plans, which has been combined with the strains of increasing enrolment on operational budgets.
Despite facing a similarly large shortfall in its pension fund, Duncan Watt, Carleton University’s vice-president of finance and administration, told the Ottawa Citizen the school has no plans to ask unions to re-open contracts.
Job Security and Tenure
Unless they do something really wrong or stupid, tenured professors can’t be fired
One of the truisms of labour is that employees who are difficult to replace are least vulnerable to exploitation. Highly skilled employees can negotiate from positions of strength and can defend their individual interests. Less skilled employees, however, are very vulnerable. They need to band together in order to protect their interests – notably security in their employment. This is very often the biggest issue in disputes. Job security is one of the basic motivators of the labour movement.
Some time ago I wrote a piece about the strike at York, and outlined various issues that I feel aren’t properly understood. I think I need to add something new to that list. Casual instructors at York are making demands about job security. Some interpret these demands as insistence on status approaching tenure. I think this is a horrible misunderstanding of the situation, and I’d like to address that idea.
Tenure is a very specific basket of rights and protections enjoyed by professional academics. One of the most significant features is the kind of job security most people can only dream about. Short of doing something really wrong or really stupid (sometimes even then) it’s very hard for a professor to get fired once he or she has tenure. There are historical reasons for this, based around intellectual freedom. The idea is that professional academics should be free from any concern about the popularity or the public perception of their research and work. So even the fear of losing the job itself is eliminated as a constraint.
There are two completely different topics here. The first is job security in context of labour relations, intended to protect the employment of more vulnerable employees. The second is job security in context of intellectual freedom, intended to protect academic integrity. The result may look somewhat similar, but the rationale is completely different – even opposite in some ways. Professional academics are among the least in need of job security for the traditional labour-based reasons, as they are not easily disposed of or replaced. And contract instructors have no need of tenure security for the typical reasons either, as they are not employed to conduct research anyway.
It’s important to point all this out because we need be clear about what contract instructors are actually seeking. Observers get very confused over this and sometimes it seems even the unions speaking on behalf of instructors aren’t very clear. Contract instructors want job security. They want it not because they imagine they deserve something like tenure but rather for all the same reasons that any employee wants job security. They want to not be exploited. And surely that’s understandable.
Tenure is a quirky and specific sort of privilege. And it is a privilege. Those who turn to contract instructors and say, “you haven’t earned that” are quite right, in many ways. But essential job security should not be something that only the privileged few receive. The entire labour movement is geared toward avoiding that. It’s a mistake to imagine that every demand for security is a demand for tenure. Tenure doesn’t have a monopoly on the concept of secure employment. In fact, it’s a tiny exception to the general trend that security of employment is most important for the less privileged.
I’ll add that some find it difficult to think of contract instructors as vulnerable employees, but the fact is that they are. Tenure-stream positions are hard to fill because they are reserved for the most accomplished people in the various fields and there is great competition out there to recruit the best. But contract teaching very often goes to anyone with a PhD and the ability to teach a basic class. The fact is there’s a great oversupply of such people. And so these PhDs, despite their high levels of education, are in fact vulnerable to exploitation. It’s an obvious danger, when there’s a line of qualified people waiting to take your job away, and very little to distinguish between any of you.
Make of all this what you will. Not everyone feels the same way about organized labour, job security as a right, or even the institution of tenure. But please, if you want to understand what’s going on in higher education, don’t confuse demands for job security with demands for tenure. They are not the same thing at all, and never were.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even those I don’t address here will still receive replies.
York union backtracks on back-to-work lawsuit
Won’t challenge McGuinty government in court
In an abrupt change of tone, the union representing striking teaching assistants and contract faculty at York University has declared it will not challenge a forthcoming back-to-work order from the provincial government.
In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, CUPE 3903 spokesperson Tyler Shipley said the local union has decided “not to pursue a legal challenge to Premier Dalton McGuinty’s back-to-work legislation at this time.”
“Our members have shown tremendous determination, but they are tired of waiting for York to take the process seriously,” said Shipley. “It is time for someone to take responsibility for getting campus life back to normal.”
More from CUPE 3903′s release:
The Liberal government should not imagine that back-to-work legislation resolves any of the key issues in the strike, particularly the reliance of universities on underpaid, contingent workers to do most classroom teaching.
“Our concerns are not going away, they are systemic and go well beyond the York campus,” noted Shipley, adding that the local will continue to address the trend to insecure teaching jobs, the need for minimum funding guarantees for graduate students, and the value of coordinated bargaining through other channels.
“These issues are still alive at York and across the province. We’ll be working with our sister locals to make sure they are addressed in ways that protect the interests of workers, students and hardworking parents who are being asked to shell out more tuition fees every year,” said [CUPE 3903 Chair Christina] Rousseau. “Unless administrators change their priorities and the Ontario government invests in our universities, they should brace themselves for more job actions in the coming years.”
York University union prepares for legal battle
Union can only launch suit once government back-to-work bill passes
The union representing striking workers at York University says it’s preparing a legal challenge of provincial legislation that would force teachers back to work.
CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan says the government-backed bill, which is expected to pass Thursday, won’t make the issues at the heart of the strike go away.
He says union lawyers are prepping their case, which can only be launched after the bill is passed.
Premier Dalton McGuinty wouldn’t say whether the government has a plan to deal with the potential roadblock.
Outside the provincial legislature, about 100 students and half-a-dozen parents held a rally calling on the province to get classes resumed quickly.
The spectre of court action didn’t seem to faze the students, many who said they’re confident they’ll be back in class Monday.
- The Canadian Press
York University union threatens suit
CUPE president says back-to-work bill would violate legal rights of workers
According to The Globe and Mail, the union representing striking workers at York University is set to launch a legal challenge against the Ontario government’s proposed back-to-work legislation if Premier Dalton McGuinty does not get the two sides back to the bargaining table.
Sid Ryan, Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says the back-to-work bill introduced by the government at an emergency sitting of the legislature last weekend will likely pass into law on Thursday.
Once that happens, he said, the union’s lawyers will be instructed to take “any and all legal action.” According to Ryan, CUPE’s lawyers believe the legislation would violate the union’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He says their suit would have a “strong possibility” of success.
Regardless, the provincial government has said it will move ahead with the bill. Last weekend, McGuinty said he is confident the legislation would survive a legal challenge because mediator Reg Pearson had declared negotiations to be deadlocked.
“I’m convinced now, based on the advice that we received from Mr. Pearson, that clearly the parties are in deadlock,” he said. “That’s one of the conditions that has to be met and we have confirmed that on our own.”
Arrests at York University union rally
Hundreds march on provincial legislature; police confirm one arrest
Union officials say at least four people were arrested today at a rally calling on the Ontario government to restart contract negotiations at York University.
At least a dozen police cruisers were called in after an apparent confrontation with a police officer as some 200 people marched to the provincial legislature after rallying outside Labour Ministry offices. The march, organized by the union, was briefly stalled before continuing to the legislature.
Police would confirm only one arrest.
Premier Dalton McGuinty recalled the legislature on the weekend to introduce a bill aimed at ending the 12-week strike at Canada’s third-largest university.
The government-backed bill is supported by the Opposition Progressive Conservatives, but the New Democrats oppose it.
That means the legislation may not become law until Thursday, and students will have to wait until next week to return to class.
The union, CUPE Local 3903, says McGuinty should use the time before the bill passes to restart the bargaining process.
Some 50,000 students saw classes cancelled on Nov. 6 when 3,400 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants walked off the job.
About 5,000 students were able return this week to attend courses taught by tenured professors under a special deal with the university.
- The Canadian Press
York back-to-work legislation: Day 2
Minister calls for speedy passage; NDP continues to delay
The New Democrats say they won’t agree to a marathon debate in the Ontario legislature that could see legislation aimed at ending a long strike at York University passed more quickly.
The Liberal government says it’s willing to debate the back-to-work bill until midnight at the Opposition’s request, but the NDP says it will oppose a night sitting.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton says he’s not playing games by refusing to go along with the legislation.
He says he wants to debate the bill because Ontarians need to know about the chronic underfunding of the province’s universities and colleges.
The Progressive Conservatives slammed the Liberals in the legislature for failing to take action sooner to help end the 12-week strike.
With the premier absent from the legislature, it was up to Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy to call on all parties to pass the back-to-work legislation quickly.
The Liberals and Progressive Conservatives had hoped for speedy passage over the weekend but the New Democrats voted against the bill.
The strike has kept about 50,000 York students out of classes since early November, but about 5,000 students have been allowed to return under a special deal with the university.
The government says it’s unlikely students will return to school this week unless the New Democrats have a change of heart.
The Liberals say Thursday is the earliest the legislation could be passed – so the school likely won’t reopen before Feb. 2.
— The Canadian Press
What you probably don’t know about the York strike
Three rarely-talked-about facts make this strike unique
I was interviewed by a writer for the National Post today for my views on the strike at York, and the threat of other actions elsewhere. I’ll link to the story when it appears (here it is now – they spelled my name wrong) but for now I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve had in connection with the strike. Some ideas came together for the interview that I hadn’t previously sorted out.
For complete OnCampus coverage of the York University strike, click here
I’ve said before that many people don’t understand what’s going on with this strike. I won’t claim I’ve got a monopoly on understanding it, but I do firmly believe it’s a unique kind of strike. It exists on the boundary between labour law and politics, and educational policy and politics. It can’t really be understood from only one of those two perspectives. I’ll illustrate why with a view to three key issues.
Issue One – It’s About the Cost of Education
Viewed only as a labour action you’d certainly tend to think this strike is about compensation for work, wouldn’t you? Not for all the graduate students on strike, it isn’t. This strike includes teaching assistants, research assistants, and contract faculty all in the same bargaining unit. With the exception of the last group, they’re almost all graduate students. These aren’t ordinary workers on strike. These are students in their own right. And they have all the same concerns common to all students, including the cost of their education.
The real cost of education isn’t only tuition. It includes however much it costs to live and support oneself while learning. This is an entirely uncontroversial claim, I hope. Every funding model I’ve ever seen takes into account cost of living, so I’ll assume we can agree on this much.
The pay that graduate students receive for their work as TAs and RAs is part of their funding package for school. These jobs come as part of the support that is guaranteed to every graduate student. The wage they receive, by the hour, isn’t remotely about the real value of the work they do. It’s just an indirect way of defraying the cost of graduate education.
Graduate students in their 20s-30s are living on about $14k/year, after the cost of tuition, books, etc. They almost certainly are, in many cases, assuming additional debt in order to get through their graduate degrees, or else living in poverty to avoid that. I’m not out to promote a position on whether this is a reasonable circumstance or not, because I appreciate it’s a controversial question. But it’s very important to understand that to graduate students this is the issue – how much it costs them to go to school.
So issue one is that this is a cost-of-education strike disguised as a labour action. And undergraduates, screwed by this as they may be, might pause to appreciate the elegance of the move. If undergrads could somehow get away with striking under the Labour Relations Act, in order to lessen the costs of their education, I do imagine they’d jump at the chance.
Calls grow for back-to-work order in York strike
Toronto newspapers blame union for impasse, urge McGuinty government to step in
Montreal mayor Camillien Houde said that to lead people, you first had to know where they were going.
If the editorial boards of Toronto’s newspapers are any indication, public opinion—centre, left and right—has run out of patience, and wants an immediate end to the strike by teaching assistants, research assistants and sessional lecturers at York. Canada’s third-largest university has been shut down since November.
This morning, all four Toronto dailies called for the government to pass back-to-work legislation. The editorials sometimes invoked common images—metaphors like “held hostage;” reminders that a premier who called himself “the education premier” should be troubled by the inability of 50,000 university students to get an education—but there were subtle differences in the way each argued the case for government intervention, as well as whom they blamed for the impasse.
According to the Sun (headline: “McGuinty fiddles while York burns”), York students are victims of a “fraud”, which it says “has been perpetrated by labour and management at York, aided yesterday by Premier Dalton McGuinty.”
“It’s fraud because students are not getting the education they were promised and for which they paid, in advance, in good faith.” The Sun called on the government to “recall the legislature and pass back-to-work legislation.”
The Globe and Mail, surprisingly, delivers an editorial that is a blistering screed against the union. Whereas the Sun said students were victims of a fraud perpetrated by both sides, The Globe opens its editorial with the following: “In the midst of a recession, tens of thousands of young people looking to further their education are being held hostage by the country’s most well-paid teaching assistants, who are unwilling to accept a pay increase beyond what most workers expect in the current climate. The interests of organized labour have overtaken those of students. York University has now been shut down for 11 weeks only because of the needs of striking teaching assistants, graduate assistants and contract workers.”
The Globe says that “the university’s initial offer of a 9.25 per cent pay hike over three years was reasonable; its revised offer, which tacked on additional benefits and wages, was better.” The Globe also notes that the union is trying to strengthen its hand in the future by pushing for a two-year deal (instead of past three year deals) that would expire in 2010, at the same time as many other collective bargaining agreements. “That strategy,” writes the Globe, “should be an incentive to Dalton McGuinty, the Ontario Premier, to draw his own line in the sand. Forced to wade into the dispute this week after months of steering clear, Mr. McGuinty appointed mediator Reg Pearson to “bang a few heads together.” But the time for mediation is over. To discourage CUPE from shutting down more campuses when it can, the Premier should heed the Opposition’s calls to promptly legislate an end to the strike.”
More than 5,000 York students set to resume classes
Four programs taught by tenured faculty are set to resume Monday
The executive committee of York University’s Senate has announced, in a posting on the York website, that over 5,000 students will resume classes Monday.
Classes will resume for undergraduate business students, students in the School of Administrative Studies, education students in the full-time consecutive program and graduate students in the Master of Public Policy, Administration & Law program.
These programs, with the exception of some courses in the education program, are taught by tenured professors represented by the York University Faculty Association.
In the statement released late Wednesday, York University says the Ontario Teachers’ Federation has lifted its suspension of in-classroom practica. The Federation is the umbrella labour union for all public teachers in the province and normally suspends practica as a show of solidarity during labour disputes involving university faculty.
This is the largest resumption of classes by the university since the strike began 11 weeks ago. Classes resumed for students at York’s Osgoode Hall law schools and special classes were also held in December for exchange students.
Globe and Mail joins calls for McGuinty to order CUPE 3903 back-to-work
Thursday’s editorial is now online: “the time for mediation is over. To discourage CUPE from shutting down more campuses when it can, the Premier [McGuinty] should heed the Opposition’s calls to promptly legislate an end to the strike.” I’m expecting we’ll see more of the same on the editorial and opinion pages of the other [...]
Thursday’s editorial is now online:
“the time for mediation is over. To discourage CUPE from shutting down more campuses when it can, the Premier [McGuinty] should heed the Opposition’s calls to promptly legislate an end to the strike.”
I’m expecting we’ll see more of the same on the editorial and opinion pages of the other Toronto-based papers as they upload overnight.
York University strike will continue
Union members reject university’s offer, no sign of back-to-work legislation
Students at York University learned late tonight Tuesday that they will not be returning to classes anytime soon, after members of CUPE 3903 rejected the university’s latest contract offer in a vote supervised by the Ontario Ministry of Labour.
Poll: What should York students do about the university’s ongoing strike?
Mediator named in last-ditch effort to end York University strike
The contract offer was rejected by 61.7 per cent of teaching assistants, 59.3 per cent of contract faculty, and 70 per cent of graduate and research assistants. The vote was requested by York University and ballots were cast over the past two days.
Now, students are left waiting as both sides are sticking to their positions and the government says it will not intervene to return students to classes anytime soon.
CUPE 3903 hailed the vote as a victory in a statement posted by the executive on the CUPE 3903 strike website, “The defeat of forced ratification is a victory, but our work as a local is not done.”
“We need to get back to the table so that we can all go back to work with a deal that is fair and equitable.”
York president Mamdouh Shoukri said in a statement tonight that university’s offer was final and the university has “no intention of negotiating for the sake of appearance… it is up to the Union and its members to reconsider their demands and step back from the brink.”
The university says will not offer a two-year contract to allow CUPE 3903 to join in a potential province-wide strike in 2010. Shoukri said the university is not “prepared to subject our students to another strike in 2010.”
Ontario’s official opposition was quick to respond to the news.
“Dalton McGuinty must act now,” said John Tory, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. “He should move to immediately recall the Legislature, introduce back-to-work legislation and save what is left of this school year for York University students.”
“Not doing so would be irresponsible, disrespectful and would further compromise the education these students, their parents and taxpayers have already paid for,” added Tory.
The government rejected the opposition’s call for back-to-work legislation. “We understand the mediator is in touch with both parties, encouraging them to get back to the bargaining table,” Annette Phillips, spokesperson for Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities John Milloy wrote in a email statement. “The Minister’s position from the beginning has been that the bargaining table is the place to resolve this matter. He will continue to urge both parties to come to an agreement in the best interest of students.”
All this comes as the deadline for cancelling York summer session quickly approaches. Once the summer session is cancelled, it will only be a matter of weeks before students face the prospect of losing their current academic year to the strike.
Gov’t rejects calls for back-to-work order in York strike
Opposition says students’ school year on verge of being lost; government says it wants negotiated solution
An Opposition demand to recall the Ontario legislature to order an end to the strike at York University was dismissed Tuesday when the government said it preferred the two sides reach a negotiated settlement.
The 3,300 striking contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at the Toronto university will vote on the latest contract offer next Monday and Tuesday in secret ballots arranged by the Labour Ministry.
Under Ontario law, employers can ask for a vote of union members on a contract offer just once in each round of bargaining – something the university asked the government for last week.
The strike, which began Nov. 6, has left some 50,000 full-time students without classes.
Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman said students can’t afford to wait another week to find out if the striking staff will accept the deal and return to work.
“The strike has to be ended now, and it has to be ended by the legislature of Ontario,” said Shurman. “This is a situation without end unless the government gets involved and ends the strike legislatively.”
However, a spokesman for Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday that the government still thinks the best contract settlement will come from negotiations, a position echoed by Universities Minister John Milloy.
“I appreciate the frustration of the parents and the students,” Milloy said in an interview.
“I’ve urged and encouraged both sides to resolve it as quickly as possible, and we continue to do that.”
Shurman said he was worried the school year could be lost if the politicians don’t step in soon to end the walkout, now in its tenth week.
“I believe that it is in jeopardy, but I can’t get anybody – and I’m well connected to the university – to give me a drop dead date,” he complained.
“It looks like we’re approaching it, and I’m talking about within the month of January.”
Shurman called the situation urgent, and said at the very least the government should force an end to the strike and send both sides to binding arbitration.
The university is working on plans to extend the school year if necessary so all the York students can complete their courses. That has raised concerns about students missing out on summer jobs and having to find apartments for a longer school year.
Milloy said it was too early to talk about any kind of help for students and he didn’t want to discuss the possibility of tuition refunds.
“If the school year is extended, we’d be happy to work with students and the university in terms of the support programs that we have,” he said.
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves right now. Hopefully everything can be done within the current time frame.”
Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 is recommending the York workers in three bargaining units reject the offers, saying they are “substandard” and take workers in the wrong direction.
The union is demanding contract faculty be awarded five-year contracts instead of the eight-month contracts they have now.
— The Canadian Press
If York strike ends next week, the year is not lost
York says if union accepts its offer, the 2008-09 academic year will resume. But if strike goes on longer…
If striking teaching assistants and contract faculty accept York University’s contract offer in a vote next week, the 2008-09 academic year will be quickly restarted, according to a senior York official. By immediately returning to work and holding classes without a break until May, the university says it can end the 2008-09 academic year on time.
Bob Drummond, Dean of York University’s Faculty of Arts, tells Maclean’s the university “will not cancel the Fall or Winter terms” unless absolutely necessary and only after it has cancelled summer classes first. He says that is not something the university is close to doing at this point.
However, a look at the calendar shows that if the strike continues for several more weeks, it may only be possible to complete the regular fall/winter, 2008-09 academic year by extending it into June or even July. That could mean the cancellation of the summer term.
The ongoing strike threatens to damage summer employment opportunities and interfere with professional certification exams for the university’s 50,000 students. The 10-week-old labour dispute is on the verge of breaking the York record for longest work stoppage, set when CUPE 3903 hit the picket lines for 11 weeks in 2001.
Striking TAs and contract faculty will cast their ballots next Monday and Tuesday on a contract offer from the university in a vote requested by the university and supervised by the Ministry of Labour.
Depending on the results of that vote, classes at the suburban Toronto campus could resume “as early as Thursday or the following Monday, depending on the decision of the [York] Senate Executive Committee,” says Drummond.
If classes resume, “there will be 13 teaching days to finish the first term and 10 days of exams prior to the beginning of the second term.”
He said the winter term will begin immediately following first term exams, without any break. The term will be 11 weeks long, followed by 10 to 12-day exam period. The university will begin summer courses “as soon as possible” following the completion of the regular academic year, according to Drummond.
Back-to-work legislation for York? Don’t hold your breath
It’s awfully quiet at Queen’s Park
This morning I awoke to lots of chatter about the possibility that the Ontario government will recall the provincial legislature in order to pass back-to-work legislation designed to get York students back into their classrooms.
Apparently, CUPE sent out a message last night to its members saying they’ve heard from a “Queen’s Park leak” who says “the Liberals are preparing the legislation” to order them back to work and is preparing to recall the legislature to pass a back-to-work order.
At this time, CUPE has not put forth any public statements that include this information, though it has already publicly called for supporters to mobilize against back-to-work legislation.
CityNews Video: York students lose the most in strike standoff
Read Facebook discussion on the York University Anti-Strike group
So what’s going on at Queen’s Park? Nada, apparently. The legislature is not scheduled to return until February 17, and my sources at Queen’s Park say they’ve heard nothing about an early recall. Apparently nothing has changed since the legislature left for its winter recess in mid-December. And no recall of the legislature means no back-to-work order anytime soon.
This is politics, and the government must factor in political considerations. It will take a minimum of 24 hours to recall the legislature and will take the better part of a week (if not longer) of sitting in the house to pass back-to-work legislation, which will also face opposition from the NDP.
While the legislature is in session, the government will have to face Question Period and the press gallery every day. The questions posed to them will be simple and uncomfortable. The toughest question: If it was going to act, why did the government wait until now, instead of acting a month ago?
No government wants to put itself in that position.
CUPE’s statement is designed to mobilize its members to counter growing public sentiment in favour of government action. CUPE is correct in stating the government is preparing legislation. It would be irresponsible of the government to not have legislation prepared.
But tabling that legislation? Recalling the house? Doing it all in the next few days or even weeks? Unlikely. Preparation isn’t the same as action, something CUPE likes to point out about its 2010 plan.
