KAREN HOWLETT
Globe and Mail Update
January 29, 2009
TORONTO ? York University students are set to return to class on Monday with the passage of legislation ordering 3,300 teaching assistants and contract faculty back to work.
Bill 145 received third and final reading in the Ontario legislature at 10:30 Thursday morning, bringing an end to the 84-day strike ? the longest running at a Canadian English-speaking university. The back-to-work legislation was supported by the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties after five days of debate during an emergency sitting of the legislature. While it was opposed by the New Democrats, they did not have enough caucus members to block it. Sixty-one MPPs voted in favour of the bill, while only eight voted against it.
The McGuinty government introduced back-to-work legislation last Sunday after talks broke down between York management and the union representing workers. Mr. McGuinty said he had no choice but to intervene and bring an end to a strike that had kept 50,000 students out of class since Nov. 6. But he made it clear that other universities should turn to collective bargaining rather than the legislature to resolve their labour disputes.
?I will encourage all parties involved in these kinds of issues, both at York University and at all other Ontario universities, to understand the consequences of the failure of these kinds of negotiations and to do everything within their power to ensure that these matters are resolved amicably and upfront as soon as possible,? he said in Question Period, minutes after the bill passed.
Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman criticized the government for leaving thousands of students at York in the lurch by waiting too long before intervening.
?You preferred to sit on the fence while students suffered,? Mr. Shurman said in Question Period. ?Well, you know what they say, Premier: ?If you sit on the fence too long you're going to get painful splinters.'?
New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton vigorously opposed the back-to-work legislation because he said it sends a message to other universities where labour contracts are about to expire that they do not have to bargain in good faith.
?All you have to do is stall and stall and stall and the McGuinty government will come in and sweep everything under the carpet with back-to-work legislation,? he said in Question Period.
Both the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats on calling on the government to reimburse students a portion of their tuition as well as compensation for any additional costs now that the school year will be extended.
Training, Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy said the government is looking at providing assistance through the provincial student loan program. But opposition members and York students have said that is not a solution because students will just end up deeper in debt.
While the legislation brings an end to the strike ? the third for the university over the past 11 years ? it will likely take much longer for the warring sides to put aside their differences.
Relations between York management and the union have become poisoned over the course of months of on-again, off-again talks, Canadian Union of Public Employees spokesman Tyler Shipley said in an interview Thursday, while protesting with students on the front lawn of the legislature.
?This turn of events in the last week will only further poison them,? Mr. Shipley said. ?We've dealt with an employer that has refused to take the bargaining process seriously.?
Mr. Shipley accused York administrators of being unwilling to negotiate with the union. Before talks broke down last Friday, he said, the union reduced its initial list of demands from 60 or 70 items to just 16 items. The union also dropped its demand for a wage increase. The key issues are job security for professors on short-term contracts and part-time faculty, he said. And in what he characterized as a further show of good faith, the union also backed off from its threat to challenge the legislation in court, a move that would have prolonged the strike.
Mr. Shipley has made himself highly visible in recent days. By contrast, York president Mamdouh Shoukri has kept a low profile. In a statement earlier this week, he said it was the union, and not management, that has pushed the two sides further apart. The union's last offer was still more than double the university's offer after 40 days of talks, he said.
?That is an impasse by any standards.?