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Deal or No Deal?

By Hamutal Dotan

As has been widely reported, York University has presented CUPE local 3903 with a new settlement offer, and asked the union to put the deal to its membership for a vote as soon as possible. Unfortunately, any hopes that this may signal the beginning of the end are misplaced. In an interview with Torontoist this evening, a representative of CUPE 3903 said that “bargaining is ongoing” and that any talk of a deal is premature. The union has a regularly scheduled membership meeting tomorrow at which the latest developments will be discussed, but there are no plans to put the administration’s proposal up for ratification at this time. While some progress has been made in this most recent round of talks, union leaders feel that not all issues have been fully addressed—prime among these the need to provide job security for contract faculty. The union representative described the administration’s decision to publicize the offer as “disappointing,” and an unfortunate media ploy. CUPE 3903 plans to present York with a counteroffer later this week.

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  • http://null thewatchmaker

    York’s posturing, and the strategy, is pretty clear. They’ve made some movement toward addressing the needs of graduate students, but haven’t come anywhere near what CUPE’s asking for with regard to contract faculty. But they also know that contract faculty is historically more apt to accept an offer than are grad students – so they’re getting you to publicize this one, ensuring that it’s fresh in the minds of contract profs when they ask the government for a forced ratification vote, say, on the weekend. York knows that the contract faculty will probably accept this deal – because they’re more tired, they’re older, established, and tend to have families – which removes them from the bargaining process and quickens things in their negotiations with the grad students.
    And why do i think i can see the future? Because i’m actually just recounting the past – this is what happened around this time, with a similar build-up, 8 years ago.

  • Lands Down

    Is it true that only 22% of the union participated in the vote to strike and only 75% of that group voted to strike?
    How can such an apathetic group of people hold close to 50,000 students hostage by their inaction? How radical is CUPE 3903′s leadership that the majority is cowed into following them or not participating at all? How can CUPE honestly refuse to at least put this before their membership? I mean, from the looks of it, most of them won’t show up to vote anyway. It’s mindboggling.
    Unions have kneecapped the university, apathy has given an ideological fringe the power to shut down the school for over two months. CUPE members, please do something!

  • http://null yorkugrad

    It’s quite obvious that the administration was, and still is, using a cynical strategy to minimize the actual bargaining and negotiation. They only started negotiating seriously in the past week when it was clear that the members of CUPE are tired of striking and won’t offer as much resistance as they would have a month ago. Was it really impossible for York to give this offer in November and negotiate? Playing this game on the backs of employees and students (both undergrads and grads) is a shame for an institution that is supposed to be educational.

  • http://null smcky

    “Holding students hostage” is a catch-phrase that’s outlived its usefulness. It applies equally to either side. One difference, however, is that gains made by CUPE will benefit students down the road. Any student who wants to go on and do more school will someday be a TA, and any TA who wants to continue teaching will someday be a contract or sessional teacher.
    What looks like apathy is really more like genuine ambiguity. What would constitute putting students first: getting them back to class, or securing them better career prospects for the future? It’s not an easy question.

  • http://undefined David Topping

    You shouldn’t have to get the latter by preventing the former.

  • http://null thewatchmaker

    Given that the number of people collecting strike pay for work in support of the cause greatly outnumbers the number of people who voted to go on strike at that particular meeting, it seems fair to suggest that those that voted on that one day and within that two-hour voting window weren’t the only people who supported the call for a strike. It happened during a school night, meaning that some people had to work or parent, and it happened at York, which is hardly that accessible for the people who live off campus.
    And the reason for not presenting the offer should be obvious: it’s not good enough and it’ll fail. The new proposal dramatically cuts the number of tenure-stream conversions, the benefits still aren’t indexed to post-2005 growth, and it’s a 3 year deal. Individually, these might be deal-breakers – together, they’re a non-starter. And really – if you honestly think that the majority of the union is being somehow compelled to participate in a strike they don’t want but couldn’t be bothered to avoid, why do you think they would be bothered to vote en masse?
    York will put it to forced ratification some time in the next week. Contract faculty might accept it; grad students will reject it, thus shooting your theory about a ‘silent majority’ to hell. And it’ll finally be resolved in less than 14 days, during which you’ll have plenty of opportunity to continue to absolve the university of any responsibility for their strategic refusal to negotiate and for badly mishandling the whole process.

  • http://null smcky

    The union meetings have been packed out to standing room only.

  • http://null smcky

    I know that undergraduate students, and especially foreign students, are getting the worst of this whole thing, and the worst, in some cases, is really pretty bad. I’m not happy about any of it, and I don’t think there are many other CUPE members who are enjoying this. But pretty well everything I’ve seen about the strike in the media has been inaccurate. It’s a complex and ambiguous situation, and complexity and ambiguity don’t go over well in sound bytes. Which, combined with the fact that neither side wants to publicize their strategies in any kind of detail, works in favour of the administration.

  • Lands Down

    Maybe the union should rent out bigger halls then. Your general meeting yesterday only drew 600 people – only 20% of your union figured it was important enough to attend that meeting in the third month of this strike.
    Of those 20%, 450 voted against accepting the new York offer (sorry – ‘pass’). So a few hundred people (from a union of over 3000) are preventing 50,000 students from returning to class. Packed rooms don’t mean anything.

  • Lands Down

    Tyler Shipley, CUPE 3903 representative, on the student request that deadlines be set:
    “Bargaining takes place between CUPE 3903 and the York administration – there is a reason the students aren’t at the table – it’s because they aren’t stakeholders in the actual contract we’re negotiating, so this is not going to dictate how we proceed in bargaining.”
    Unbelievable. Source: http://www.excal.on.ca/cms2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6664