afransen
Senior Member
Does York have a summer term? If not, they could let the union twist in the wind until August without causing any worse harm.
|
|
|
- Thread starter Whoaccio
- Start date
Dilla
Senior Member
and here's a picture of the union after the "no" vote, you can see the level of concern for the students they're screwing over in their faces...
They look like they think they've won something here, but I'm not sure what that could be...
They look like they think they've won something here, but I'm not sure what that could be...
Last edited:
ducati0000
Active Member
and here's a picture of the union after the "no" vote, you can see the level of concern for the students they're screwing over in their faces...
They look like they think they've won something here, but I'm not sure what that could be...
Cant say all unions dont care but their "entitlement" to high wages compared to the public sector is getting out of hand.York students are going to lose their year and the problems go deeper.They have to rethink their rental leases,they have to refinance any loans,they have to push back the new group of student waiting to get in and worst of all the part time jobs they have will have to be extended to pay the extra cost.During these economic times unions are a easy target since they ALWAYS whine about not getting treated fairly and dont get respect,well if you stop asking for wages beyond the normal wage caps and do a better job for what you are paid for maybe people will show some compassion towards your causes.
cdr108
Senior Member
Both my nephew and neice attend York U and this has adversely affected everything ... their school year, graduation, summer job, etc. It pushes back alot of plans by a year ... shameful.
And to add insult to injury, I can't believe there is no provision at York U. to refund students their tuition for the semester at least.
urbanfan89
Active Member
Can York students launch a class action suit against the university for not abiding by the tuition agreement, then? It would net each student about $1000.
jks
Continuous Lurker
^^ except it's not the university's fault. As I pointed out earlier, if the university was to accept this agreement, they would need to raise tuition fees to pay for it. That's not a good plan either. I really do think these students need to be compensated in some way, I just don't know how.
bleeepbluuup
Active Member
I have read that applications to York have dropped already -- seems they're gaining a reputation for labour strife. If I were a York student, I'd be trying to transfer out of there ASAP. Even if they do settle it, I wouldn't want to hand a single penny more to the lot of them. Imagine, paying thousands of dollars up front for any other product and then getting only a mere fraction of what you expected. That's just unacceptable.
SP!RE
°°°°°°
The numbers of York students trying to get into other universities is huge.
I think this is one of those rare cases where I actually hope that the students at York sue the shit out of that union (who is mostly responsible) and perhaps some part of the university.
This is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE and there is nothing fair or even what I would consider "legal" about it-- these students paid for their education and food plans, and housing, etc. etc.--- now give it to them.
I think this is one of those rare cases where I actually hope that the students at York sue the shit out of that union (who is mostly responsible) and perhaps some part of the university.
This is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE and there is nothing fair or even what I would consider "legal" about it-- these students paid for their education and food plans, and housing, etc. etc.--- now give it to them.
Dilla
Senior Member
What are overeducated people like this unionized for, anyway? A union for people with masters degrees and PhDs was probably the punchline of a joke not long ago.
If they're so downtrodden, surely they have enough skills to shop around for work elsewhere? It's crazy to me that you can sign up for a job which requires a post graduate degree in 21st century Canada, and then say "ok, I don't like how this works - at all. I'm not getting enough, and we have to change large swaths of what goes on here." Why did you sign up for the job in the first place?
And why won't they go to an arbitrator, as York has offered? It would seem they know they're being unreasonable.
If they're so downtrodden, surely they have enough skills to shop around for work elsewhere? It's crazy to me that you can sign up for a job which requires a post graduate degree in 21st century Canada, and then say "ok, I don't like how this works - at all. I'm not getting enough, and we have to change large swaths of what goes on here." Why did you sign up for the job in the first place?
And why won't they go to an arbitrator, as York has offered? It would seem they know they're being unreasonable.
Last edited:
AKS
Senior Member
York has summer term but I don't see that would help. The summer term would get canceled if it doesn't get settled. I think the unions deliberately pick near end of winter term to strike because that's the most harmful to students. Those that are usually graduating at this time won't be able to. They will complain to the government or whoever and the govt will have to help deal with it. I heard one student (probably others also in the same boat) who was trying to get into graduate law school. But they're getting delayed in the bachelor cuz of the strike and can't apply. And all those who are graduating and looking for jobs can't because they haven't really graduated yet and no degree. For those not graduating I guess it has less affect. They can just slack off or take a vacation. It hurts the final year grads the most.
lordmandeep
Banned
Believe in what kind of idealistic bull shit about Unions and how they are for the good of the worker and the people.
That picture of the York union people clearly show what unions have become.
A place for rather well off people to defend themselves from change, competition and most importantly reality.
That picture of the York union people clearly show what unions have become.
A place for rather well off people to defend themselves from change, competition and most importantly reality.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Sessional instructors are "rather well off" people? Not to say I don't have sympathy for the York students (nor do I think strikes are the answer to this issue) but do you realize that universities have been using sesionals for a good chunk of the undergraduate heavy lifting (vs. actual professors, which are even more expensive) - plus for instructing CE classes, which are vertifable cash cows?
AoD
PS: Well, at least it's over
McGuinty recalls legislature to end York University strike
Premier advised by government-appointed mediator there's 'no reasonable prospect' for a negotiated settlement
Jan 24, 2009 09:59 AM
Tanya Talaga
Queen's Park Bureau
Back-to-work legislation will be introduced tomorrow to bring an end to the York University strike.
This morning, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said in a statement he will recall the Legislature at 1 p.m. tomorrow to introduce the legislation.
"I am asking MPPs from all parties to provide unanimous consent for immediate passage of the bill so that students can get back to school this week," he said. The premier will hold a news conference at mid-day today.
Earlier this week, McGuinty appointed labour mediator Reg Pearson to "bang a few heads together" and come up with a solution one of the longest strikes in York's history. The strike shut down the York campus on Nov. 6, when 3,400 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants walked off the job.
"Earlier today I was advised by Mr. Pearson that there is no reasonable prospect of a negotiated settlement between York University and CUPE Local 3903," McGuinty said. "The sides are in a clear deadlock, and despite our best efforts to bring the sides together, that has not changed."
On Thursday the union made a counter-offer the day after Pearson was appointed. It was the fifth "significant" counter offer made since the strike began, Tyler Shipley, spokesperson for Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903, previously told the Star.
The key issues the two sides differed on are job security for professors on short-term contracts, full-time openings for part-time faculty, length of contracts and better funding for grad students.
However, in these challenging economic times, delaying the education of 45,000 people is simply no longer an option, McGuinty added.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/576708
AoD
PS: Well, at least it's over
McGuinty recalls legislature to end York University strike
Premier advised by government-appointed mediator there's 'no reasonable prospect' for a negotiated settlement
Jan 24, 2009 09:59 AM
Tanya Talaga
Queen's Park Bureau
Back-to-work legislation will be introduced tomorrow to bring an end to the York University strike.
This morning, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said in a statement he will recall the Legislature at 1 p.m. tomorrow to introduce the legislation.
"I am asking MPPs from all parties to provide unanimous consent for immediate passage of the bill so that students can get back to school this week," he said. The premier will hold a news conference at mid-day today.
Earlier this week, McGuinty appointed labour mediator Reg Pearson to "bang a few heads together" and come up with a solution one of the longest strikes in York's history. The strike shut down the York campus on Nov. 6, when 3,400 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants walked off the job.
"Earlier today I was advised by Mr. Pearson that there is no reasonable prospect of a negotiated settlement between York University and CUPE Local 3903," McGuinty said. "The sides are in a clear deadlock, and despite our best efforts to bring the sides together, that has not changed."
On Thursday the union made a counter-offer the day after Pearson was appointed. It was the fifth "significant" counter offer made since the strike began, Tyler Shipley, spokesperson for Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903, previously told the Star.
The key issues the two sides differed on are job security for professors on short-term contracts, full-time openings for part-time faculty, length of contracts and better funding for grad students.
However, in these challenging economic times, delaying the education of 45,000 people is simply no longer an option, McGuinty added.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/576708
Last edited:
jks
Continuous Lurker
The union will obviously not be happy about that!
lordmandeep
Banned
Well people are saying Dalton should of done it earlier.
However any wise person knows you want to stay out these kinds of problems if possible.
The province had no choice as the mediator went in and found no common ground and no resolve to end this problem.
It was the only option.
Anyways 15% fewer people applied to York these year and they all went to Ryerson and UFT...
Over 8000 applied for Ryerson and 11,000 at UFT!!!
Shocking how fast Ryerson is growing. Its location is great, that why...
However any wise person knows you want to stay out these kinds of problems if possible.
The province had no choice as the mediator went in and found no common ground and no resolve to end this problem.
It was the only option.
Anyways 15% fewer people applied to York these year and they all went to Ryerson and UFT...
Over 8000 applied for Ryerson and 11,000 at UFT!!!
Shocking how fast Ryerson is growing. Its location is great, that why...
jn_12
Senior Member
I'm a York grad student. I'm not a member of the union though I do support much of their cause.
A few things to address:
1. The media coverage for this strike has been horrible. They've made a much larger deal of the discrepancy in wage raises than any other issue, when if this entire thing was over a couple percentage points they easily would have met in the middle and solved this thing months ago. It's all about reducing the number of part-time profs by creating more tenured positions. This would increase the quality of education in a couple ways. First, research begets more research. Part-timers don't get paid to do research, and the opportunities for students to do research is limited by this problem. More tenured profs means more paid research and more opportunities for everyone to receive valuable funds from many sources. The reputation of the school would improve quite a bit with more tenured profs doing top notch research.
Second, due to the nature of contract work part-timers don't know whether they'll be teaching a course until a couple months before the course starts (if they're lucky). This means they don't necessarily have the time needed to prepare for the course, and order/find readings. Often, courses are taught without the required text books for weeks, and I've even been in classes (at Trent) where a required text wasn't in the bookshop until 3 weeks before the end of the semester. Most students at that point ordered elsewhere. The quality of readings (and therefore, education) is often dependent on accessibility, and with such limited time to prepare, courses taught by part-timers aren't meeting their full potential. What's necessary is longer contracts for part-timers, and more tenureships within the university. What York was offering during these "negotiations" was pathetic in both of these areas.
Why can't they offer more though? Well, York is a massive school, but it's relatively new. It doesn't have the endowment funds that Mcgill, Queens and U of T have, so they don't have the money to invest in professors.
2. There's the issue of 2010. All of CUPE's branches throughout the province have coordinated common end dates for their CBAs. If 3903 succeeded at getting a 2 year contract, the province would then find themselves with the most powerful part of the union on board with a potential province-wide strike. York got a lot of pressure from other schools and the province to do whatever it took to make sure this would be a 3 year deal and not a 2 year. The Union has even conceded many points with the hopes of making this CBA a 2 year deal. This is something I'm okay with. I think a province wide strike would be amazing. It would bring a lot of attention to issues in post-secondary education and we'd probably see some changes that would impact positively on students for years to come. Most of the anger over this issue is rather selfish I think. Sometimes there are bigger things than our own endeavours, and personally I'm willing to go through a strike if it pays off in terms of better funding for students and maybe even some debt relief for the thousands who are in debt from their education.
3. This strike isn't over yet. The NDP are on the Union's side and will fight the BTWL. This could take a week or two. By then we're looking at the 1st or 2nd week of February. Once it passes, it could get really messy. Based on a prior court case in BC where a union was forced back to work (despite not being an essential service), but then took their case to the supreme court and won, there could be a court case in the making when the legislation passes. I was surprised McGuinty wanted to chance this. I think he gave in to some public pressures and that he knows the courts could side against him. It's more about providing the public with the idea that they've at least done everything they could. It could come down to whether university education is considered an essential service, and I think there's a huge debate that could follow with regards to the private/public nature of universities. This in itself could lead to some big changes in how we look at post-secondary education.
4. York really hasn't done much of anything throughout the negotiating process. The Union has done more reaching than York has, while York hides behind the "economy" card as their reason for being unable to offer more. York has won the PR war. I think McGuinty and York being in cahoots goes back to before the x-mas break. You can connect the dots and see that York knew they didn't have to budge because BTWL would be enacted eventually. The best sign of this stems from the other night when the President of York finally met with some unionized students who took over his office in December. They were demanding a meeting with him and were ignored until all of a sudden he showed up Friday when the mediator declared things weren't going well. Why would he meet so suddenly, other than if he knew the strike would be over by the end of the weekend? This whole thing was steeped in strategy that would ensure that the union didn't win this one. I think democracy lost a bit in this strike.
Obviously these are just some small things that I wanted to say. I could go in further depth and whatnot, but it's long enough. I think the media has done a poor job of reflecting the reality of the situation rather than looking at the larger underlying issues, and its a shame that it turned out this way, because post-secondary education should have been under the microscope for the last 3 months instead of the media being used as the medium for a PR war.
A few things to address:
1. The media coverage for this strike has been horrible. They've made a much larger deal of the discrepancy in wage raises than any other issue, when if this entire thing was over a couple percentage points they easily would have met in the middle and solved this thing months ago. It's all about reducing the number of part-time profs by creating more tenured positions. This would increase the quality of education in a couple ways. First, research begets more research. Part-timers don't get paid to do research, and the opportunities for students to do research is limited by this problem. More tenured profs means more paid research and more opportunities for everyone to receive valuable funds from many sources. The reputation of the school would improve quite a bit with more tenured profs doing top notch research.
Second, due to the nature of contract work part-timers don't know whether they'll be teaching a course until a couple months before the course starts (if they're lucky). This means they don't necessarily have the time needed to prepare for the course, and order/find readings. Often, courses are taught without the required text books for weeks, and I've even been in classes (at Trent) where a required text wasn't in the bookshop until 3 weeks before the end of the semester. Most students at that point ordered elsewhere. The quality of readings (and therefore, education) is often dependent on accessibility, and with such limited time to prepare, courses taught by part-timers aren't meeting their full potential. What's necessary is longer contracts for part-timers, and more tenureships within the university. What York was offering during these "negotiations" was pathetic in both of these areas.
Why can't they offer more though? Well, York is a massive school, but it's relatively new. It doesn't have the endowment funds that Mcgill, Queens and U of T have, so they don't have the money to invest in professors.
2. There's the issue of 2010. All of CUPE's branches throughout the province have coordinated common end dates for their CBAs. If 3903 succeeded at getting a 2 year contract, the province would then find themselves with the most powerful part of the union on board with a potential province-wide strike. York got a lot of pressure from other schools and the province to do whatever it took to make sure this would be a 3 year deal and not a 2 year. The Union has even conceded many points with the hopes of making this CBA a 2 year deal. This is something I'm okay with. I think a province wide strike would be amazing. It would bring a lot of attention to issues in post-secondary education and we'd probably see some changes that would impact positively on students for years to come. Most of the anger over this issue is rather selfish I think. Sometimes there are bigger things than our own endeavours, and personally I'm willing to go through a strike if it pays off in terms of better funding for students and maybe even some debt relief for the thousands who are in debt from their education.
3. This strike isn't over yet. The NDP are on the Union's side and will fight the BTWL. This could take a week or two. By then we're looking at the 1st or 2nd week of February. Once it passes, it could get really messy. Based on a prior court case in BC where a union was forced back to work (despite not being an essential service), but then took their case to the supreme court and won, there could be a court case in the making when the legislation passes. I was surprised McGuinty wanted to chance this. I think he gave in to some public pressures and that he knows the courts could side against him. It's more about providing the public with the idea that they've at least done everything they could. It could come down to whether university education is considered an essential service, and I think there's a huge debate that could follow with regards to the private/public nature of universities. This in itself could lead to some big changes in how we look at post-secondary education.
4. York really hasn't done much of anything throughout the negotiating process. The Union has done more reaching than York has, while York hides behind the "economy" card as their reason for being unable to offer more. York has won the PR war. I think McGuinty and York being in cahoots goes back to before the x-mas break. You can connect the dots and see that York knew they didn't have to budge because BTWL would be enacted eventually. The best sign of this stems from the other night when the President of York finally met with some unionized students who took over his office in December. They were demanding a meeting with him and were ignored until all of a sudden he showed up Friday when the mediator declared things weren't going well. Why would he meet so suddenly, other than if he knew the strike would be over by the end of the weekend? This whole thing was steeped in strategy that would ensure that the union didn't win this one. I think democracy lost a bit in this strike.
Obviously these are just some small things that I wanted to say. I could go in further depth and whatnot, but it's long enough. I think the media has done a poor job of reflecting the reality of the situation rather than looking at the larger underlying issues, and its a shame that it turned out this way, because post-secondary education should have been under the microscope for the last 3 months instead of the media being used as the medium for a PR war.