York students press for legislation to end strike

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Louise Brown

Fed up with a "ridiculous strike" they say is putting their studies at risk, hundreds of York University students held a rally today on campus to push Queen's Park to end the work stoppage by teaching assistants and contract faculty that has entered its third week.

"We just want classes to start tomorrow and we want to take action, not just cry on Facebook," said kinesiology major Catherine Divaris, who helped organize the rally of students who gathered this morning at Vari Hall, a meeting room in the university's main academic building.

"We wanted to let York's 50,000 students know they can make a difference in this ridiculous strike," she said. "Every day that the strike goes on could shorten our summer holidays and reduce our chances of working."

With anti-strike signs painted on bed sheets from Wal-Mart and a bake table by dance students hoping to rent an off-campus venue to mount their big show, the rally was a grass-roots action by students who want the province to enact back-to-work legislation - something Ministry of Labour spokesperson Bruce Skeaff said the province is reluctant to do.

"Any time there is a disruption, it's of great concern to everyone and we would strongly urge everyone involved to get back to the table," said Skeaff. "But we live in a free society with collective bargaining, and our position is that it's up to the partners involved to work out a resolution."

The rally was planned by undergraduates who first connected on Facebook over the strike by Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903, which represents about 3,340 teaching assistants, graduate assistants and contract faculty at York who walked off the job Nov. 6 in a dispute over wages, benefits and job security.

The group, called "Yorknothostage.com," has collected 500 signatures on a petition asking Premier Dalton McGuinty to force the parties back to work. The university has offered a 9.25 per cent raise over three years; the union is seeking a two-year deal with more job security, more benefits and a raise of 11 per cent.

Conservative MPP Peter Shurman represents Thornhill, where he says many York students and their parents live and have been calling him out of concern that the strike is interrupting studies.

Shurman attended the student rally to join the call for back-to-work legislation, which he repeated today at 1 p.m. in the Legislature.

"The government needs to get the lead out and end this strike - I agree with students that they have been held hostage by a union that's looking for an 11 per cent raise over two years - a pretty hefty chunk of change," said Shurman in an interview. "Look, it's 2008, our economy is in shambles and we're into the third week of this strike with no end in sight. What's wrong with this picture?"

Shortly after the anti-strike rally, members of the student unions at Ryerson University and the University of Toronto attended York picket lines to show support for CUPE.

But fourth-year business major Narbe Alexandrian said he went to the anti-strike rally because "I want our classes back. I'm not anti-union; I'm just pro-classes," said Alexandrian, president of the Schulich School of Business' undergraduate business council.

"It's kind of scary - they're saying that if we miss more than 80 days of school, the whole year will shut down and they'll re-start it all over from scratch next year," said Alexandrian, who already has lined up a permanent job for next fall.

But university spokesperson Alex Bilyk said the university has not yet decided how it would extend the year or compress the curriculum, and dismissed rumours that each day the strike continues means one less day of summer vacation.

For performing arts students, the strike packs an immediate punch, with several theatre productions put on indefinite hold.

Dance student Rachel Turbett was one of five students in a third-year choreography course who sold home-baked muffins and cookies at the rally to raise money to rent a hall off-campus, where they can still mount the big dance show Nov. 29 for which they have been preparing for almost three months.

"Our class has been creating dance works for three months; 17 of us as choreographers creating works for a total of 42 dancers in a show that was supposed to be run over four nights on campus at the end of November, but it's been cancelled indefinitely because of the strike," said Turbett.

"Even though we won't get marked on it now, and we don't have any teachers to help us on lighting or effects or arranging the room, we want to go ahead and put the show on anyway - but it has to be off-campus."

They are looking for a hall and possibly a sponsor, but they took their first fundraising steps today, with the proceeds of their bake table - $120.