Jan 26 2009

Why I Voted to Continue Strike

Category: News,Strike Discussion (2008-09) — jonnyj @ 4:39 pm

Article by Eric McMillan, reposted from http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=1406

First a little disclosure:

Although I’m an editor with this newspaper, I am also a doctorate student at York University, which means I am a teaching assistant and part of the strike that has shutdown that institution..

Unlike most of my colleagues there, I’m not entirely reliant for income upon my work and studies at York. But I do have some knowledge of the situation of my fellow teachers and researchers to pass on to readers.

For a start, the strike is not just about wages. The media, taking their cue from the university administration, continually harp on the wage demands. But from what I gather, the difference between what is offered and what we would settle for is small. No worker I’ve talked to has said they would have taken the strike this far over the wage issue alone.

More important is what is loosely called “job security for contract faculty”. I wish the union would stop using this phrase, though. It invites the yahoo responses of “Don’t they know there’s a recession?” and “Nobody has job security these days!”

People, this is not a demand for guaranteed cushy jobs for life.

Rather, it’s recognizing the university has been shifting its teacher funding from full-time professors on staff, with all the benefits and research opportunities, to workers on short-term contracts without the same benefits and research budgets. These contract teachers have to apply every year for each course they teach, never knowing whether or not they’ll be getting a load they can live on. Some have been kept hanging on like this for 10, 15 or 20 years.

Another key demand is reinstatement of benefits and funds to 2005 levels. These are mostly monies established to get teachers and grad students through difficult times and to aid their professional development — something that should be seen as benefiting the entire university community.

No outrageous increase is being sought, only the reversal of a long slide.

I can outline here only the bare bones of the issues. But I encourage politicians and bloggers who want to express moral indignation over the strike to investigate and consider these issues more deeply before proclaiming “Fire them all!” or “Force them back to work!”

But, you ask, what about the poor students who are getting behind in their schoolwork or who might miss their summer jobs because the university is dysfunctional? Don’t those greedy strikers care?

We talk about this among ourselves too. We all want to get back to our teaching and our own studies. We’ve all been students ourselves and we sympathize.

But when we weigh the inconveniences created for students against the long-term problems affecting the livelihoods of our people in their careers. . . . Well, we have to ask: Doesn’t the university care about us or students? Why do they continually walk away from the bargaining table?

These are all reasons why this week, in a forced ratification vote, a solid majority of all sections of our union turned down the last offer, effectively continuing the strike.

You may or may not agree with our decisions. Even within the union, a full range of opinions are expressed. I have to say this is one very educated, intelligent, passionate and socially committed local.

Some commentators have implied this is another so-called case of big unions bullying its members and dictating to the public. Apart from the absurdity of equating the power of unions to that of big business, especially given the current economic mess created by multibillion-dollar corporations, the process that’s occurred in this case belies that rhetoric. If anything, these events have shown in these difficult times we need unions more than ever to preserve the interests of ordinary people.

A group of 3,500 thoughtful and well-intentioned employees at the university have been led to take collective action we feel is needed to protect ourselves, as well as to help other workers, students and the educational system in general.

Agree with us or not, recognizing this should at least give you pause to consider the possibility that we may have a point.

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Jan 26 2009

A One-Sided “Deadlock”

Category: Point of Information,Strike Discussion (2008-09) — jonnyj @ 4:35 pm

January 7th to January 24th Negotiations Timeline

Wednesday, January 7

The employer gives CUPE 3903 a pass that they call a “comprehensive offer” and asks the CUPE 3903 bargaining team to bring it to the membership for a vote. This “comprehensive offer” fails to respond to the reductions in demands CUPE 3903 made that day, indicating it was likely prepared ahead of time as opposed to as a part of the negotiation process.

Thursday, January 8

At a General Membership Meeting, 85% of the members present vote to deem the Employer’s offer inadequate and send the bargaining team back to the bargaining table.


Friday, January 9

When the employer shows up at the bargaining table, they announce they will be asking the Ministry of Labour to run a forced ratification vote on the January 7th offer. No Movement from Employer

Friday. January 9- Tuesday, January 20

No bargaining because of call for forced ratification. Employer Unwilling to Bargain

Monday, January 19 and Tuesday, January 20

CUPE 3903 membership rejects (once again) the employer’s Jan 7. offer by a 63% vote.

Tuesday, January 20
The employer announces to the media that they will not be negotiating any further.

No Movement from Employer

Wednesday, January 21

Morning Dalton McGuinty announces he is appointing his lead mediator—Reg Pearson—to bring both parties back to the bargaining table.

1:00pm CUPE 3903 bargaining team returns to the bargaining table. Employer’s bargaining team does not show up. CUPE 3903 Ready to Bargain

Thursday, January 22

CUPE 3903 bargaining team gives the employer a memorandum of settlement offer that cuts demands from a 10.8% increase to a 9.4% increase over 2 years. Movement from CUPE 3903


Friday, January 23

1:30am The mediator (after having kept CUPE 3903 waiting at the table for a response) announces that the employer will not have a response until the morning.

10am The employer’s bargaining team sends back its next pass which is identical to the offer from January 7 except that it has a new cover page and changes one word. No Movement from Employer

3pm CUPE 3903 bargaining team communicates to the mediator its willingness to further narrow demands to a few key priority areas, representing a cut of more than fifty proposals and a decrease from a 9.4% increase to an 8.3% increase over 2 years. Movement from CUPE 3903

5pm: The mediator returns with the Employer’s response: they are unwilling to move on any issues. No Movement from Employer

Saturday, January 24

Midnight: The mediator tells CUPE 3903 bargaining team that he will be calling McGuinty at 7am and that he expects to hear from them by 2am whether they will agree to binding arbitration rather than face back to work legislation.

2:30am: CUPE 3903’s executive and bargaining team vote to reject binding arbitration. CUPE 3903’s bargaining team requests, via the mediator, to continue negotiations with the Employer on Saturday. CUPE 3903 Ready to Bargain

3:30am: Mediator informs CUPE 3903 bargaining team that the Employer is only willing to continue negotiations if CUPE 3903 will agree to the Jan. 7 offer made by the Employer. Employer Unwilling to Bargain

Noon: Dalton McGuinty announces that he is calling the legislature back for a 1:00pm Sunday meeting to legislate CUPE 3903 back to work because of deadlocked negotiations. He ignores the fact that the “deadlock” is one-sided and that the employer is being significantly rewarded for refusing to bargain for seventeen days.

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Jan 26 2009

Statement from CUPE 3903 Executive Committee on the Outcome of Negotiations so far

Category: Point of Information,Strike Discussion (2008-09) — jonnyj @ 4:01 pm

To the members of CUPE 3903:

Early Saturday morning, January 24, 2009 the Bargaining Team and the Executive of CUPE 3903 held an emergency meeting. We voted, by a substantial majority, to reject binding arbitration and to offer to continue to bargain.

York University made it clear that they had no intention of bargaining. The mediator indicated that York held their position on the basis of both economic feasibility and principle. Although we significantly lowered our demands, York made no movement and offered the same pass that members rejected by 63% in forced ratification.

At midnight, the mediator made it clear that if 3903 did not accept binding arbitration, then they would be contacting Premier Dalton McGuinty, and the outcome would be back-to-work legislation. We feel that it was inappropriate for the mediator to set us this impossible choice between binding arbitration and back-to-work legislation, with a 7:00am deadline. Although we have no way of knowing how the employer was treated, from our point of view, the responsibility fell on our union to decide between two unpalatable choices.

The Bargaining Team and the Executive feel that our demands are fair. The mediator asked us to reduce our demands to a few key priorities. We dropped our demands on wage increases in response to feedback from the membership at the January 21 General Membership Meeting. We withdrew over 40 outstanding proposals. We continue to emphasize that minimum guarantees, job security, and child care funds are essential to our members. Because York offered a three-year deal with a two-year funding structure, with poor back-to-work protocol, we were unable to accept their offer. At the same time, York has made it clear that regardless of how often we lower our demands, they dismiss the value of our members, and refuse to give our members the respect they deserve. We are convinced that by rejecting binding arbitration, we are keeping members’ best interests in mind. We lose very little by refusing binding arbitration. We have rejected binding arbitration since bargaining began, and it would be inappropriate to accept it now. We considered carefully the larger political implications of our decision. We want to continue to bargain on our own terms. We refuse to undermine the dignity of our members by accepting an offer that our members already rejected.

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Jan 24 2009

Can the Government Pass Back to Work Legislation to End the York Strike?

Category: Point of Information,Strike Discussion (2008-09) — jonnyj @ 3:16 pm

The following article has been reposted from Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog

So, the University, in its’ wisdom, has now elected to resume classes for about 5000 students, but to leave the other 45,000 students at home. I really can’t fathom why this was thought to be a good idea, since it is sure to really piss off the 45,000 excluded students, to create a sort of 2 tier system in which some students complete their courses, while others don’t, and no doubt to stir up difficulties on the picket line, as thousands of students now will need to cross the lines this Monday (barring a surprising settlement over the weekend). The other little nugget is that no student is actually required to come to class, and they can’t be punished for not doing so. Classes will be recorded, so presumably, students who opt to avoid the hassle and stay home can simply listen to the recording from the comforts of their living rooms. I would. And I have no idea how this will benefit students who will see only some of their classes resume. They will now have two different time lines for completing their courses, won’t they? For example, in my courses, which are now scheduled to resume, I have students from Arts, where classes are not starting up. So will these students actually be in two terms at once, finished some of their fall classes, but not all, and beginning some of their winter course, but not all? This all hurts my brain, but its not my administrative problem, so I will let others worry about it.

But I’d rather not write about the nightmare the university has just created by this decision to resume some classes, but not most. I was intrigued by the provincial governments’ position yesterday that it would not legislate an end to the strike because they think it will violate the Charter. Say What?! What in the heck are they talking about? Governments can’t pass back to work legislation? Since when?

This is a point I have raised several times before, especially during the whole debate about whether the TTC should be ordered back to work. Here’s the legal issue in a nutshell. Section 2(d) of the Charter guarantees “freedom of association”. But in 1987, the Supreme Court decided that freedom of association does not include a right to strike or a right to collective bargaining. Therefore, governments are free to order strikers back to work, since the workers don’t have a guaranteed right to strike.

Then came Health Services in 2007. That case did not deal directly with the right to strike. However, the Court did rule there that it is was wrong when it ruled that Section 2(d) did not include a right to collective bargaining. In fact, it does. But the Court was clear in noting that it was not dealing with the right to strike. So why does the government believe that back to work legislation at York would be challenged, and maybe successfully, by CUPE?

The answer lies in two things. One is a general trend in the Supreme Court towards expanding the scope of Section 2(d) protections which has been creeping into decisions for a while, but most notably in Health Services and Dunmore, the case involving the exclusion of agricultural workers from protective labour legislation. The second factor is the statement made in Health Services that Section 2(d) should be interpreted to provide “at least the level of protection” provided by international labour conventions that Canada has ratified. Canada has ratified Convention 87 of the International Labour Organization, and while C87 does not expressly include a right to strike, that right has long been read into the Convention by the ILO’s expert bodies. That is important, because the Supreme Court directed us in Health Services to the decisions of those expert bodies to find out what C87 means.

Well, if Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter provides at least as much protection of freedom of association as does C87, as interpreted by the ILO’s expert bodies, and those bodies have found C87 includes an extensive right to strike, then, logic would follow, Section 2(d) protects a right to strike. (This is an argument I have explored in more detail in this paper, if you are interested) Unions are waiting in the wings for the right case to come along to make this argument. McGuinty’s people have warned him that this could be the case. Why?

The reason lies in understanding precisely what the ILO says about C87. Here’s a good article describing its approach. In short, it allows back to work legislation, or other legislative restrictions on the right to strike, only in cases where a strike “would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population” (ILO, 1983b, para. 214). Does this include university classes? I highly doubt it. This is why the ILO expert bodies have ruled Canadian back to work legislation violates C87 many, many times, as this report describes, including legislation ordering teachers back to work. In fact, Canada has been specifically singled out by the ILO for its persistent failure to protect the right to strike in the way that our governments like to rush to back to work legislation whenever the public gets pissed off by a strike.

So there is little doubt that, if McGuinty ordered a legislated end to the York strike, the government would face a new complaint before the ILO, which it would no doubt lose. This hasn’t frightened governments in the past, because the ILO’s only power is public embarrassment, and our governments have not cared about that. But now the stakes are raised, because in addition to the ILO complaint, the McGuinty government could also find itself facing a Charter challenge. Were the government to lose that argument, and the Court find that Section 2(d) protects a right to strike, governments across Canada could then find themselves unable to use back to work legislation in other cases–garbage strikes, transit strikes, etc.

Of course, it is possible that the Court could recognize a constitutional right to strike, but still permit back to work legislation. This could happen if the Court ruled: (1) there is a right to strike under Section 2(d); (2) back to work legislation violates that right; but (3) limiting that right is justified in the circumstances under Section 1 of the Charter, which allows violations of Charter rights when it is justified “in a free and democratic society”. But I can understand why a government might be concerned about getting into that sort of debate in regards to a university education strike. If I were the government, I’d prefer to fight that sort of battle in a case involving something like, say, public transit or health care, where the implications of a strike are huge to the public well-being and/or the economy. Compared to a hospital strike or even a TTC strike, a strike by a few thousand university instructors in North Toronto doesn’t seem all that significant in the big picture.

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Jan 20 2009

Yes We Did! U2 Makes History as 59.3% Vote NO

Category: Events,Strike Discussion (2008-09) — Bob Hanke @ 10:31 pm

CUPE 3903 in the Media — January 21, 2009

A message from the CUPE 3903 executive to all units:

We, the executive of CUPE 3903, are pleased that 1466 of our teaching assistants, graduate assistants and contract faculty have voted against the employers’ latest offer in a forced ratification vote. This number represents 799 in Unit 1, 363 in Unit 2, and 304 in Unit 3, for a total of 63% voting NO to this offer. The membership of this union has stood strong against an employer who has done the bare minimum in terms of bargaining and who has refused to recognize our key demands during a strike that has so far lasted 77 days.

This deal has been recognized as one that is not adequate in terms of addressing the priorities as outlined by our members, and we are disappointed that York University’s administration felt the need to waste 11 days of bargaining on an offer that they knew our members would reject.

The defeat of forced ratification is a victory, but our work as a local is not done. Our challenges are real and many. They will not be met easily, but they will be met. We need to get back to the table so that we can all go back to work with a deal that is fair and equitable. Our members have outlined key priorities again and again: We will not give them up for the sake of expedience.

There are some who have questioned the scope of our demands and the scale of our ambitions. They think we are asking too much. But these criticisms fail to take into account all that this union has already accomplished through years of collective bargaining.

But there is much yet to be gained

For contract faculty we want to see the integrity of our conversions program maintained, and also have job security for these members.

For teaching assistants and graduate assistants in our local we need to see the issue of graduate funding addressed in a way that takes into account the needs of our members.

For all our members we need to see an Extended Health Benefits Fund that takes into account the real and serious health issues that our members face each day. We need to have a fund that is ample enough in terms of assisting our members with childcare needs.

All this we can do, and all this we will do.

Over the course of this strike we have been amazed at the level of commitment our members have shown to this local and to our key priorities. We have been awed by all the hard work and countless hours people have put in day after day. We are confident the solidarity that has been shown over the past few months will remain through to the end and beyond the strike.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that we as members will stand strong in solidarity and win a fair settlement through the democratic process of collective bargaining.

Solidarity Forever,

The CUPE 3903 Executive Committee

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