Teaching assistants, research assistants and contract faculty at York University, one of three universities in the City of Toronto, have been on strike since the beginning of November, shutting 50,000 students out of class.  Strikers want better job stability and longer contracts (currently, they have to reapply for their position every year). Their demand may not sound unreasonable, but this strike is hurting the students.  The students have been out for twelve weeks including the December holidays, the equivalent of a semester at the school. 

Since these students have been out of class since November, should the strike end in the next few days (this is probably unlikely as the union has just rejected the latest offer), the school year will have to be extended by several weeks to compensate for the lost time.  As of Thursday, January 22, only 5,000 students, those taught by tenured faculty, have been allowed back in class.  Students already have had their Reading Week (mid second-semester break) cancelled, just to accommodate teaching time.  An extension means that they might even lose the chance of getting a summer job because they will not be able to start on time.  Other students might already have been given conditional offers, and the only requirement is that they graduate.  If York cancels the entire year, these people might lose their offers.

Many students have been protesting against this situation since it started, even protesting in front of the Provincial Legislature.  So far, the only thing the government has done is to appoint a mediator.  The legislature hasn’t even had its first sitting of 2009 yet.  And it doesn’t look like they would come back for another few weeks.  York isn’t one of Canada’s “older” schools, institutions which have been around for more than a century.  It is very much still a baby, founded in the early 1960s, right before the baby boom generation started university.  I wonder if this strike occurred at the older schools such as the University of Toronto or Queen’s University in Kingston, whether the Ontario government would have legislated them back to work already.

A parent has started an anti-strike group on Facebook and even wrote on a blog, urging high school students not to apply to the university.  There are also student-run groups.  It looks like this has worked.  Newspapers have reported that applications to York students have dropped by 15%.  Even 17-year-olds are smart enough to realize that a strike like this can ruin one’s reputation.  It’s sad, I think.  York University has, for a long time, been the butt of people’s jokes.  It was a last chance U for many years.  In the past decade or so, its reputation improved significantly.  However, this strike is taking any improvement back.  After all, this is the third strike in twelve years (though the last strike, which occurred in 2001, didn’t cancel all classes).

This situation is just mad.  It is bad to place students’ futures at risk and put them in this hostage situation.  Students should consider suing for missed class time and the tuition money they’ve lost by not being in class.  Of course, this would likely be not successful, since union lawyers are extremely powerful.  However, legal action like this would gain major media attention, and hopefully can bring a sense of urgency to the situation and hence a more speedy resolution.

UPDATE: The Ontario Government has been called back to end the 11 week strike.  (links to a Globe and Mail article)