Meggie Macdonald

As a former graduate student of York University, I have been following news updates on the CUPE strike with some regularity.  For those who have not been watching, contract faculty and graduate students working as TAs and RAs walked off the job November 6th 2008, demanding more pay and job security.  Represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 3903, two deals offered by the university in the hopes of ending the 10-week-long strike have failed to pass a popular vote.  A third is currently on the table and now the university’s back is up against the wall.

A petition signed by 282 faculty members has been delivered to CUPE, voicing their opinion that this deal should be accepted to send students and staff back to work.  Because of the length of the strike and the extent of press coverage and public outrage, York’s reputation as a centre for higher learning is now at stake.

I sympathize with the contract faculty, who are struggling for a place at the university and are trying to support themselves and their families during this global economic crisis.  Job security is incredibly important and, so far, they don’t have it.

However, I have little sympathy with the graduate students demanding pay raises for TA and RA positions that they were guaranteed upon admission.  Being a hopeful future academic who has failed on three occasions to secure enough funding to begin my doctoral studies, the guarantee of funding by most institutions in North America is not to be taken lightly.  This is not to say that grad students should accept with gushing gratitude whatever they’re offered, but rather that considerations within the context of current events is key.

I wholeheartedly sympathize with the 50,000 panicked students who are on the verge (if not already past it) of losing the academic year.  Time to completion is everything, and students without any hope of a definite graduation date are pitiful beings indeed.  International students, whose funding is so precariously tied to course length, must be beside themselves by now, unable to do anything but hope that the worst is not yet to come.  Graduate students trying to hand in projects, particularly a final thesis, that will allow them to graduate in a given year are also in the hurry-up-and-wait category.

I also agree with parents demanding accountability and, in many cases, reparations for services they have paid for but not received.  As much as tuition is subsidized in Canada, $6000 each year (and sometimes more) to pay for courses alone is a significant investment.  When Iceland threatened that they would be unable to guarantee repayment of investments made in the country when the financial crisis hit full stride, there was nearly an international incident.

CUPE may argue that the press has turned public opinion against them and the plight of their union members, but it is clear that public opinion was turning against them long before any member of the press shoved a microphone in someone’s face.

This strike needs to end.  Students need to be able to go back to school.  Parents should be getting what they have paid a lot of money for.  Everyone looking to hold on to some job security should be working:  working to ensure they are in a good position – professional and politically – to preserve their jobs.  And CUPE needs to stop acting like it’s the turn of the twentieth century.  It’s 2009.  Wake up and start working.