Quote:
Originally Posted by nino
They also wanted security...I lol'd at that one.
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Nothing really to "lol" at with that one.
What many people do not understand is that it wasn't just the TAs who went on strike. CUPE local 3903 represents "the contract faculty, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants at York University" (
http://www.cupe3903.org) and that was the union on strike.
While TAs may have no need for job security, contract faculty sure does. If what the union was saying is true, they are hired on an 8-month basis so basically every 8 months they have to hold their breath and hope they get hired again. While in previous years it may have been a given that they would get hired, in today's economy this is not a certainty anymore. The request for job security is, in my opinion, a valid one.
I also think the university's offer to create I believe 20+ new full-time faculty positions was more than fair. While the union may represent a heck of a lot more than 20 contract faculty, they can't reasonably expect the university to offer all of them full-time positions in one fell swoop.
Furthermore, the union requested a two year contract. This is interesting since the norm is a three year contract, as CUPE has at other universities. As many have pointed out in the articles and discussions have read, this is seen as a mostly political move on the part of the union. Most of the contracts at other universities end in 2010, so what has been speculate was that CUPE was planning on striking at multiple universities across Ontario to force the government / university administrations to put up more funding.
Now to the TAs. They may have been just innocent bystanders. Remember, if you're in a union and the union votes to strike there can be repercussions if you don't go with what they say. There were TAs that were complaining about not getting enough money for the perceived value of their work (both course related such as marking and running tutorials as well as research related). I have a very big problem with their stance. In the real world, outside the cushy world of academia, no one is paid "fairly."
One of their complaints was that they work more hours than they are contracted to (some were saying they work upwards of 200 hours per term when they are contracted and thus paid for only 100-150 hours). To that I say:
welcome to the work force. I worked, and still do part time, for one of the largest IT companies in the world. My work week was, on paper and in my paycheque, 40 hours. Apart from my first week, when I was still getting used to and learning the ropes, every other week saw me working 50-60 hours at the office not to mention the time I spent at home researching. If I wasn't in the office, I was logged in from home and still working and I wasn't the only one. So you'll forgive me if I don't pity TAs.
One of the issues relating to TAs that I heard (well read) thrown around was that they weren't allowed to take on more than one contract (i.e. TA more than one course). I'm not sure if they were also not allowed to have a part-time job as many of their undergraduate students have. While I read this mentioned in some comments, I never heard this to be a strike issue. In my opinion, they should have requested a waiver of this clause.
In terms of pay raise, the university's last offer was a 10.7% increase over 3 years. Given the economic state we are in, I would consider this a huge raise. Of course, there's that 3 year term again.
The government, in my opinion, should have stepped in much earlier than they did. The union is now flaunting the fact that they didn't take the government to court over the back-to-school legislation. Talk about sore losers!
