Dec 3, 2008
Written by BY David Ros ,News Editor (Excalibur)
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
More than 60 students brave the cold to push for back-to-work legislation
Students frustrated with the lack of progress in contract negotiations between striking part-time faculty and York University administration took to Queen?s Park to address their concerns. The undergraduate students organized by the YorkNotHostage.com group were at the Dec. 2 rally to demand that the provincial government table back-to-work legislation to end the impasse, which has seen classes cancelled for nearly a month. ?Talks have broken down again, and we see no end to this strike,? said rally organizer Catherine Divaris.
?We?re asking the government to enact back-to-work legislation by or before Dec. 11 because that?s when [the Ontario legislature] goes on holidays, and if we?re not back in class by then, our year may be in jeopardy.? Thornhill Conservative MPP Peter Shurman was on hand to support the student rally. Earlier that day, he proposed the government put forward back-to-work legislation, forcing the striking workers back into the classroom and the contract dispute into binding arbitration. ?I was proud to stand in the legislature this morning and put to the premier in front of all of you, and in front of the television cameras, the question that is on your minds,? Shurman told the rally.
?This is a month now as of tomorrow that the strike has been in effect, [and] there is no sign of a settlement.? That afternoon, Shurman tabled a private member?s legislation that, if passed, would force Ontario Labour Minister John Malloy to enact back-to-work legislation upon CUPE 3903, the union representing the striking part-time faculty. ?It?s unfortunate that an ambitious MPP is trying to play with the lives of 50,000 students,? said CUPE 3903 representative Tyler Shipley. ?We?ve asked the university to come back to the table. We think if the university comes back to the table, we can reach an agreement.?
Shurman said that although he isn?t against unions and is in fact a member of one, he doesn?t like that students are being taken advantage of in this situation. ?[Undergraduate students] don?t even have a voice at the table, and that?s why I feel it?s necessary to represent [them] and be [their] voice,? he said. ?Many people have contacted me in support. A few people have contacted me saying, ?You know what, you?re a politician and you?re basically taking advantage, you?re using this to your own advantage,? ? that?s not true. If I can?t use my position to advantage on behalf of people who are my constituents ? and I have so many York staff and York students living in Thornhill [ . . . ] then I don?t know what I should be using it for.?
Some students took the opportunity to put forward their concerns about how the strike has affected them. Rally organizer Lyndon Koopmans, however, said that more people would have attended the rally if they hadn?t gone back to work part time just to make ends meet. Still, he said, far more students had attended the rally than he expected. ?We anticipated a small, strategic, well-orchestrated demonstration and we?ve got a fairly well-sized demonstration,? he said.
Some students said they feel the union isn?t taking this situation seriously enough. ?I live just off of York University in The Village, and I see the protestors walking around,? said sixth-year business and mathematics student Sanjaya Kondapaneni. ?Whenever times are slow, I see them playing soccer, I see them laughing, dancing around on the streets so I don?t think they?re taking this issue very seriously.? York teaching assistant Datejie Green said that while she sympathizes with students? concerns of possibly losing an entire school year, she said the student demonstrators are misinformed about the current situation.?We understand their concerns,? she said. ?They?re frightened for their school year. We would much prefer they engage us on the issue.
?There is a lot of misinformation being circulated.? Koopmans said he takes offense to this accusation. ?What I think is completely unacceptable ? and this offends me every time it?s done ? is CUPE [3903] is telling us that we don?t know the facts,? he said. ?That?s a load of crap, that?s not true, we do know the facts, we look at their facts, we read their facts off their website. ?Don?t tell me what I don?t know.? Rally organizer Matthew Geigen-Miller said this strike has taught students a lot about collective bargaining. ?I don?t think that it?s really productive to have that patronizing, head patting, ?Oh, don?t worry your pretty little head,? kind of attitude,? he said. ?The reality of it is that whatever students didn?t know about the collective bargaining process and about strikes, they?ve learned pretty quickly.? ?I think the people who came to this demonstration understand the strike a lot more clearly and understand this strike a lot better than some of the people who are on the extreme ends of the issue.?