In Context: 5 Web Perspectives On A Story In The News

York University strike

(Toronto Star) The deans of York University urged union members to accept the university’s latest contract offer in an open letter on Thursday. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 –- representing teaching assistants, graduate assistants and contract workers at York -- has been on strike since Nov. 6 and the university has cancelled most classes. York has 50,000 students. “We believe the offer is a responsible effort to meet the needs of contract faculty and graduate students in an extremely difficult economic climate," stated the deans’ letter. The union is urging members to reject the offer. Next Jan. 18 and 19, the province will supervise a forced ratification vote. If union members accept the deal, the university says classes could resume as soon as Jan. 21.

1.

CUPE 3903 strike from the front lines

CUPE Local 3903 strike blog
This blog details the day-to-day activities of striking and picketing union members, including the TAs and graduate assistants holding a sit-in outside York University President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri’s office. It’s a valuable insight into the front lines of the labour dispute, and while it has an obvious bias, it’s often pretty entertaining. There are occasional video blogs, including a spoof of MTV’s show Cribs giving a tour of the Ross Building. The dispatches from the sit-in, which refer to Shoukri’s office as “the Bat Cave/Office” and meticulously describe every rare sighting or encounter with the president are funny too, though their general attitude is perhaps a questionable public relations move. The sit-in has been going on for 17 days, though not continuously -- the students took two weeks off for holidays.

2.

Students against the strike

YorkNotHostage
YorkNotHostage is a group of York undergraduate students who feel unrepresented in the bargaining process between the university and CUPE 3903. The group says it has 4,700 supporters. “YorkNotHostage is neutral regarding the substance of the bargaining. We will not take a stand on wages, benefits, working conditions, or any other part of the university’s latest offer to the union. However, we are not neutral on the strike,” writes the group. The site is regularly updated with YorkNotHostage’s response to new developments in the strike and offers a number of links to anti-strike documents, some of which are more critical of the union than others.

3.

Class-action lawsuit by students could have a shot

Slaw - Canadian law weblog
Slaw is a three-year-old collaborative weblog about Canadian law. In this post, Omar Ha-Redeye, a law student at the University of Western Ontario, considers whether or not York students could file a successful class-action lawsuit against York over the strike. The students wouldn’t be without in-house experts, as the strike also affects York’s Osgoode Hall law school. Ha-Redeye points out that a 2001 suit against the school over lost instructional time was unsuccessful because the judge wouldn’t connect lost instructional time to financial losses. “If law students (and others) can indicate that the tight deadlines around legal jobs and licensing requirements do have a direct financial impact, is it possible that the court could rule different in the future?” wonders Ha-Redeye.

4.

Ontariowide strike possible in 2010

The Ontarion - University of Guelph student newspaper
The University of Guelph’s student newspaper interviewed Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the Ontario Workers Coordination Committee in CUPE. The article was published on Thursday and states that CUPE plans “to have all their local chapters' contracts expire in 2010, putting all of Ontario's university workers in a legal position to strike at the same time.” CUPE 3903 is currently asking for a contract that would expire in 2010, while York’s counter-offer contract lasts a year longer. Folk-Dawson says the 2010 strategy aims to get a funding formula for Ontario universities. “We had to help out the situation with post-secondary education and get adequate funding into the system,” she says.

5.

Longest faculty-association strikes in Canada

Toronto Star
The sidebar to this Star article lists the longest faculty-association strikes in Canadian university history. York’s previous record is 78 days in 2001, though at day 72, the current York dispute is getting close. Canada’s longest such strike in recent years was the 38-day strike and lockout in 2007 at Fredericton’s St. Thomas University.  The country’s all-time leader is the University of Quebec, whose faculty association went on strike for 123 days in 1976-1977. The article itself discusses the options -– and limitations –- for schools seeking to avoid losing academic years by extending the semester or intensifying the workload.