York Students Protest At Queen's Park While Work Stoppage Lingers On

Tuesday December 2, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff

A staff strike that's brought a halt to York University classes for more than a month moved downtown Tuesday as dozens of picketers clad in Santa hats protested in front of the Ontario legislature at Queen's Park.

More than 50,000 students are being kept from class due to the strike, and most recently the school's student union has demanded some of the $160 million raised in the York To The Power Of 50 campaign - a fundraising effort attached to the school's 50-year anniversary - go to closing the gap between school and teachers' union, thus ending the walkout.

Still, no new talks are planned between the two sides. Mediated discussions broke off over the weekend.

Now, students are calling on the provincial government to step in and end the strike.

"We're hoping to get the premier's attention with this," York student Catherine Divaris (pictured) said in front of Queen's Park Tuesday.

"We need the legislature to enact back-to-work legislation for this strike because it's entering the fourth week now and there's been no action from either side ... this is unacceptable."

One Tory MPP, Peter Shurman, did state Tuesday that he plans to introduce a private member's bill pushing for back-to-work legislation. However little has come from the Liberal side on the matter and it's unlikely such a bill would pass on its own.

Representatives at York have suggested plans are in the works to communicate with students regarding a strategy to help make up for lost learning time.

The last strike at York - eight years previous - stretched on for 11 weeks.