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The York University strike is coming to a head.
For two and a half months, Canada’s third-largest university has been closed by a strike of CUPE local 3903, representing teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and adjunct faculty. The university has invoked a provision of Ontario labor law to force a one-time vote by the union membership on York’s latest proposal, and that vote will take place this Monday and Tuesday.
If all three units of the local approve the proposal in majority votes, the strike will end immediately and classes may resume as soon as the end of this week. If one or more units reject it, the strike will continue.
The two sides are wrangling over pay increases and job security, but some observers believe that the length of the new contract may be the crucial sticking point. Labor agreements at half a dozen other major Canadian universities expire in 2010, and the two-year deal CUPE is pushing for would allow them to join a multi-campus strike that year, should one develop. (The university is insisting on a three-year contract.)
There has been speculation that the provincial government may attempt to end the strike with back-to-work legislation, but the legislature is in recess until mid-February. The longer the strike goes, the more likely it is that an entire semester will have to be canceled, costing the university millions in lost tuition payments and throwing students’ progress toward degrees into disarray.
Voting begins tomorrow morning, and continues through early evening on Tuesday. Results will likely be announced that night. Check back here for more updates as the story continues to unfold.
January 20 Update: CUPE’s membership rejected the York offer by a decisive margin.
A morning grab-bag of stuff on the York University strike…
- Our post from last night on the announcement that a date has been set for the contract vote.
- An article from the Globe and Mail newspaper about an anti-strike Facebook group.
- A union parody of the York University website.
- The York Federation of Students has established a strike relief fund.
- The Toronto Star is running a series of profiles of students affected by the strike.
To keep tabs on our ongoing coverage of the York strike, check out our Labor category archives, or just bookmark our main page.
The two sides in the York University strike have each released FAQs on the upcoming union referendum. The university’s document is this Supervised Vote FAQ, while the union calls its FAQ Forced Ratification 101.
According to CUPE’s strike blog, they have requested that the vote be held this Thursday and Friday, January 15 and 16, while the university is calling for a vote next Monday and Tuesday, January 19 and 20. The Ministry of Labour is expected to announce the timing of the vote today or tomorrow.
We’ve been getting a lot of traffic over the last few days from folks looking for the latest information on the York strike, and we’re going to do our best to pass that info along as we receive it.
To keep tabs on our ongoing coverage of the York strike, check out our Labor category archives, or just bookmark our main page.
Update: The York Federation of Students, the university’s student government, has created a strike relief fund for students suffering financial hardship because of the university closure. According to their website, applications for relief funding will be available online tomorrow.
The leadership and bargaining team of CUPE Local 3903, the union representing strikers at Toronto’s York University, have released a statement to their membership urging them to reject the university’s latest contract offer.
“Once the membership rejects not only this offer,” the letter says, “but also the offensive manner in which it is being forced on us, we will be in an exceptionally strong position to come to a speedy resolution of the strike.”
To keep tabs on our ongoing coverage of the York strike, check out our Labor category archives, or just bookmark our main page.
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.
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