This morning, classes resume at York University following a long and damaging strike. The university's reputation has suffered as evidenced by a 15% drop in first-choice applications for admission from Ontario high school students. It’s too early to know what the affect will be on new admissions (numbers and drop in the grade-average of incoming students) since many who relegated York to something less than first choice may still end-up enrolling at York if they are turned down by other universities or when they decide that York is still the most attractive alternative and labour peace has returned.
The school’s reputation has also been hurt by the perception, even by persons usually sympathetic to organised-labour, that the CUPE local representing sessional professors and teaching assistants is out-of-control. Professor Irving Abella is an expert in the history of the labour movement in North America (thankfully, he tolerated my more right-wing orientation when he was my professor at Glendon College almost 4 decades ago) and one who is not prone to criticize unions. Yet last week he told Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail "The leadership of this union is very ideological and has been for many years,"
Wente went on to write, “Rumour has it that even fiery Ontario CUPE chief Sid Ryan can't calm down Local 3903.” Karen Howlett, writing in today’s Globe, described how the CUPE local rejected the assistance and expertise of the union’s national office and sent everyone with an issue to the bargaining table making it impossible for the university bargaining team to know what it was dealing with or to respond. "They weren't interested unless they got what they wanted, and their goals were unattainable," Prof. Abella told Wente. Then there was the public spat between York University Faculty Association, representing professors and librarians, members and the CUPE local when several hundred members publicly appealed for CUPE to end the strike, despite the pro-forma objections of YUFA. Even the perpetually radical York University Student Federation was split on whether to support the teaching assistants or not.
That graduate student teaching assistants and sessional professors are represented by the same local may be at the root of the problem at York. Certainly, sessional professors receive inadequate recognition, and compensation, for their contribution but they, at least, generally need their jobs and many of them, presumably, would like a full-time, permanent appointment. The teaching assistants, conversely, have little or no attachment to the university beyond subsidizing their post-graduate studies and the care-free lifestyle of “permanent student“. Indeed, many of the local activists have used and are using their participation as subject matter for research and publication. There is little that is ”real“ about the employer/employee relationship for them. At best the strike was a lab experiment; at worst, a game. CUPE Local 3903 needs to get a grip on reality. Just maybe the arbitrator’s report, when it is issued, will be that lesson in reality.
There is little hope that the tensions that have resulted in York’s reputation for labour unrest through the last decade will fade soon. Over-dependence on sessional faculty is a fact-of-life for Canadian universities and will be for as long as they are dependent primarily upon tax-payer funding. In a subsequent column, Margaret Wente went on to explore this aspect of the problem. Universities are not, and are unlikely to return to being, the idealistic places she and I attended (her description of undergraduate life closely parallels mine). For the foreseeable future, taxpayers and governments are not going to be significantly increasing the subsidy for universities and students/parents are unlikely to accept tuition fees at the level that finances non-state-run American universities. Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton can lay blame for the entire problem on inadequate public funding, but his party’s record for funding universities is no better than either of the Liberals or Progressive Conservative governments that preceded or followed the province’s once and only NDP government. When property returns, the subsidy is likely to increase marginally, but there should be no expectation that taxpayers will ever support converting the hordes of sessional faculty to full-time, tenured status. Moreover, many would argue that tenure should be phased out in favour of a system which is both more flexible to meet changing demands in post-secondary education and affordable. Increased government funding is not the answer to the current problems.
The York University Foundation continues to be one of my favoured charities and I remain committed to assisting undergraduate students with the costs of post-secondary education. The university’s reputation critical to sustaining and increasing voluntary funding, so I hope it can recover. 2009 is the 50th anniversary of the founding of York U and it was to be a year of celebration. Pending resolution of the strike, festivities have been on-hold. Maybe a year emphasizing what York has accomplished in half a century will obscure memories of ”the troubles” and, once again, students will be able look back on their years at York as their finest. Even without reading weeks and a spring term that runs until June.
