A Hostage Situation

Since Thursday, November 6th, 2008, classes at York University have been suspended because of a labor dispute between Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903 and the university. CUPE 3903 members consist of teaching assistants, graduate assistants, research assistants, and contract faculty… so anyone who teaches, but isn’t a tenured professor; they cover over fifty percent of the teaching at the university. The union is asking for, not only increases in wages, but better job security for the contract profs, two-year contracts, and some other things that I that I’m not entirely clear on.

So, for 17 days, there have been no classes, labs, tutorials, studies, or other academic activities lead by TA’s (student-run groups that don’t count for credit, however, are still fair game). During this time, approximately 50,000 undergraduates who attend school here have basically been held hostage, especially those in residence (…i.e. me). On top of that, in my case, I’m in a joint program with another college, Sheridan College, so I (and my fellow design majors) had to schlep out to Oakville once a week and attend classes there while none of our other classes were going on. Pretty much all of the kids who were living in res, the ones that could go home and be back at York in a reasonable amount of time should the strike end unexpectedly, left. Those of us who still had classes in the GTA, or who were from really far away (say… Hong Kong, or even places like P.E.I. that required a flight to and from), had to stick around and wait. In light of the fact that my classes will be over Wednesday, I am going home for American Thanksgiving (something hadn’t previously been possible because I had a midterm and concert scheduled that day).

However, there is a constant threat that I’ll have to book last minute tickets and book it up to the GTA if the strike ends. Apparently, the union is meeting with a third party arbitrator sometime soon and adjusting their demands, which could lead to a meeting with both sides soon (I’ve heard from various sources that the last meeting lasted either two hours or fifteen minutes… either way, no agreement was reached).

Though I’m worried about cutting my breaks and subsequent time at home short, I’ve decided to remain fairly neutral about this; I have taken the stance that… there isn’t much I can do, other than start picketing with one of the sides, which isn’t really appealing to me for many reasons (including the fact that the temperature hovers around the freezing mark every day). Not surprisingly, OTHER undergrads have A LOT to say about it. For example, the main student-focused protest group, the York University Anti-Strike group (facebook), is taking the stance that CUPE 3903 is asking for too much and not considering the undergraduates' positions at all. The York Federation of Students, our student union, is siding WITH the union, I believe based on the idea that better working conditions for them will produce better education for the undergraduates here.

That’s all I really have to say about this topic. For those curious for more information about the strike, and strike updates, here are some links:

For ridiculously biased updates from the university, see:
http://www.yorku.ca/web/index.htm
http://webapps.yorku.ca/negotiationsupdates/Updates.aspx?a=CUPE3903

For slightly less biased updates from CUPE 3903, see:
http://www.cupe3903.tao.ca/

For bitter, possibly accurate updates from York Not Hostage, see:
http://www.yorknothostage.com/

For outside, not-necessarily-thorough updates, I check The Star:
http://www.thestar.com/search?t=&q=York%20University%20strike&r=&ll=&type=&dp=&PageNumber=&OrderBy=