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As the strike at York University moves into its third month, the university has moved to force a vote on their latest offer, against the wishes of the union they have been negotiating with.
Under Ontario law, the university may call a vote on an offer on the table once during negotiations. The Ontario Labor Relations Board will now make arrangements for the vote, which is expected to take place in the next seven to ten days. It has been estimated that it will take 72 hours to reopen the university after any agreement is reached.
Each of the three striking units — Teaching Assistants, contract faculty, and Graduate Assistants — will vote separately on the plan, with a majority “yes” vote required to approve the contract for each unit.
York used the same tactic in a similar strike eight years ago. Then, contract faculty approved the offer but TAs rejected it, negotiating a separate settlement.
Update: Here are the university’s statement on its decision to force a vote, and the union’s response, taken from its strike blog.
Second Update: This post is just one in a growing series of studentactivism.net posts on the York University strike, but somehow it wound up with pride of place in Google. To keep tabs on our ongoing coverage of the strike, check out our Labor category archives or our main page.
Here’s the latest on the strike at Toronto’s York University, which has largely shuttered the campus since November 6:
The striking union rejected the university’s latest offer last night, and negotiations are set to resume today. Some university community members have called on the Ontario legislature to force the strikers back to work, but the legislature is currently in recess, and will be for another month.
And here are some local resources on the strike:
A student blog that describes itself as “a neutral atmosphere for discussions about the strike.”
The website and facebook group of a group calling for binding arbitration to resolve the dispute — a position the university endorses and the union opposes.
The official websites of York University and the striking union local, and the union’s strike blog.
To keep tabs on our ongoing coverage of the York strike, check out our Labor category archives, or just bookmark our main page.
In recognition of the death of Senator Claiborne Pell, the Obama transition website change.gov is hosting a discussion of the cost of attending college.
At this writing, the thread stands at 254 posts.
Former US Senator Claiborne Pell died on New Year’s Day, at the age of 90.
Pell wrote the laws that created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, but as his New York Times obituary noted, he is best known as the father of Pell Grants.
Pell Grants, federal need-based grants to college students, today provide assistance to almost one-third of all those who attend American colleges. Claiborne Pell was the Senate’s greatest champion of the program, and an editorial appreciation of Pell Grants appeared in yesterday’s Times as a tribute to him.
But the Pell Grant program, passed by Congress in the summer of 1972, was not simply the product of Pell’s vision. It was also the first great victory in the American student movement of the 1970s.
On June 30, 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing the vote to Americans between the ages of 18 and 20. With the lowering of the voting age, college students became a significant voting bloc in American politics. In the 1970s, for the first time, students could exercise political power not just in the streets, but in the voting booth as well.
A new kind of student politics demanded a new kind of organizing, and so 1971 also saw the creation of the National Student Lobby, America’s first national student-funded, student-directed, professionally-staffed student lobbying organization.
Created by students in the service of the students’ interest, NSL was a milestone in American student history … and the passage of the Pell Grant program was its biggest priority.
In an effort to cut costs without reducing programs, colleges around the nation are cutting back to four-day class schedules.
Plans for four-day weeks have been announced at colleges in New York, Missouri, Georgia, and other states. The idea is even being considered at a few high schools.
The shift is expected to reduce heating and maintenance costs, and reduce commuting expenses for students, faculty, and staff.
On colleges with large on-campus student populations, a four-day week could make it easier to schedule student events and meetings. On commuter campuses, it could have the reverse effect.
studentactivism.net 
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