Dennis Bayazitov | Assistant News Editor
Featured image: CUPE 3903 believes York rejoining the table was to publicize their willingness to bargain, rather than present a satisfactory counter-offer. | Basma Elbahnasawy
After refusing the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) York local 3903’s requests via a conciliator to resume negotiations, and ignoring two written Union counter-offers following CUPE 3903’s final offer meeting, York returned to the bargaining table on Tuesday morning.
The Union and York agreed on six proposals, says CUPE 3903 Unit 2 (contract faculty) Vice-President Julian Arend, noting none were core priority issues, and were mostly non-monetary.
“The employer issued an ultimatum: capitulate on all important issues, or York walks away from the table,” said Communication Officer Maija Duncan in her March 20 statement on the local’s official site.
The labour disruption will continue until York returns to the bargaining table to negotiate in good faith, adds Arend, saying York refused to address Unit 3 job cuts altogether—a central issue made clear in the initial bargaining session over six months ago.
“Despite the Union making significant moves on 20 of our proposals, the employer refused to bargain,” says Arend.
“Instead of responding to our moves with reciprocal moves, they demanded the Union capitulate completely on its core demands as a condition of any further bargaining taking place and walked away from the table again, shutting down bargaining.”
The consensus amongst striking members is York was more interested in publicizing their return to the table, rather than extending a satisfactory counter-offer.
York’s respective March 21 labour update confirmed the two parties “remain far apart on wages and two significant issues, which York sees as critical to our fundamental principles of academic excellence and our students’ academic success.”
Those issues are: the number of conversions of contract faculty to full-time tenure stream positions, and funding for graduate students.
A March 19 York Senate Executive Committee communication mentioned assessed grades will be available for undergraduate graded and Pass/Fail courses on the week of March 26, for which students must have completed 70 per cent of assignments to qualify.
The final date to withdraw from full-year or winter-term courses will be the last day of classes on the original or schedules revised post-disruption for courses still running.
Students who withdrew from full-year or winter courses using the Withdrawn from Course option will have the “W” notation retroactively removed from their transcript.
Pass/Fail grades eligibility does not apply to major or minor, outside-the-major required, or General Education or Certificate courses, but the deadline has been extended to the last day of classes, on original or schedules revised post-disruption still running.
Meanwhile, one picket captain at the Founders Road picket line says city media coverage, solidarity from various supporters, and from NDP leader Jagmeet Singh—who attended a picket rally last Friday—does positively affect picketer morale.
A first-year PhD Communication and Culture student and car talker at the York Boulevard main gate entrance says picketers have enjoyed the support of sister locals and related unions: “There’s the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association. U of T local 3902 has come out, Western 2361, McMaster 3906, and Ryerson 3904. The York University Faculty Association and York University Staff Association are here too.”
Despite the majority of commuters now more understanding and patient as to being blocked off, there are still instances with drivers bypassing cars, mounting curbs and medians, and trying to bypass the line of cars through the incoming lane, says a Unit 1 teaching assistant with the Department of History and car talker.
“If they do that, we have no choice but to turn it into a harder wait, because we can’t let anyone out in, and can’t let anyone in out.”
Arend likewise points to a colleague of his, “whose daughters my toddler attends daycare with, was hit in a hit-and-run by a driver who was angry they were delayed a few minutes on their way to class,” at The Pond Road entrance last Friday.
He mentions the payroll period for members is on the 25th of every month, and that a prolonged labour disruption strains further personal and financial hardship on picketers, while prospectively saving York an entire pay cycle.
Arend adds: “The strike is often misrepresented as being about wages when really it’s much more about the pitfalls of precarity.
“It’s about working, teaching, and learning conditions: we want them to improve for everyone—the administration opposes that in the name of cost-cutting, but no one seems to be talking about that.”
