Re: Lessons learned from the CUPE 3903 labour disruption

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To Faculty Council:

We are very pleased to learn that the University and CUPE 3903 appear to have reached an agreement that meets the membership’s demands. As law students burdened with debt and facing uncertain futures, we recognize CUPE 3903’s needs—for affordable tuition, for equitable employment practices, for job security—as consistent with our own. CUPE 3903 struck to create better employment and learning conditions. The university will be stronger for it. We appreciate their efforts.

Throughout the labour disruption the Osgoode Strike Support Committee (OSSC) was pleased to find that our colleagues, the faculty, and the law school’s administration were amenable to our concerns and welcoming of our interventions in the decisions of Faculty Council and the Administration.

In that spirit, we write one last time to share our perspective on the strike and the school’s response to it. We make these points not to re-litigate the issues but in the hope that they may inform Osgoode’s practices in the future, especially going into and during any future labour disruptions.

The Resumption of Classes

Osgoode students walked the picket lines in solidarity with CUPE 3903 members every day of the strike. We were there when people ran the lines with their cars, when women and racialized picketers were subjected to hateful speech, when individuals tried to physically intimidate union members from exercising our legal rights. We were there when someone began issuing death threats and said that he would come back later with his gun.

The picket lines were dangerous, and they became more dangerous when Senate Executive approved Osgoode’s request to resume classes in the midst of the strike.

The decision to re-start classes—while not Osgoode’s alone—shifted the locus of the labour dispute from the negotiating table to the picket line. When classes were suspended the only logical way to end the strike was through persistent, good faith bargaining. When classes resumed, however, a new and troubling question arose: could the University function, adequately as well as ethically, while its education workers were out of work and on a legal strike? Osgoode’s answer, soon followed by York itself, was in the affirmative. This decision focused everyone’s energy on the picket lines: those who wanted to cross had to contend with them; those who wanted to fight for a better contract had to make them stronger.

As observers on the ground we confirm that the change in the dynamic was palpable, real, and sometimes terrifying. No matter the reason justifying the resumption of class, it must be acknowledged that one effect was to subject workers and students to an elevated level of danger.

In deciding to resume classes, Faculty Council neglected to sufficiently consider the effect of their decision on the larger York University community. This effect became apparent both in terms of daily confrontations on the picket lines and a delay in the resolution of the strike. Moreover, it is difficult to say in retrospect that it was necessary for Osgoode to resume classes. It would have been preferable to extend the term by a week or two. The integrity of everyone’s education was affected by the labour disruption: in future, more creative, ethically-attuned measures should be employed to more closely approximate the ideal of equal education for all.

Archiving the Resumption and Remediation Plan

Leading up to, and including much of the strike, there was considerable uncertainty about what the school’s remediation plan would be. By and large we are pleased with the document that was produced following our meeting with Associate Dean Farrow and Assistant Dean Rimon on 13 March. In particular we appreciate the flexible approach adopted to assess students’ continued eligibility for financial aid and the range of options available to students about their exams, assignments, and grades. We do note, however, that the amount of discretion the plan leaves to individual instructors has made the experience of remediation uneven and unpredictable.

Although, as we outlined above, we believe that the school should avoid resuming classes in the midst of future labour disputes, if it does so, it should use the current remediation plan as a template. The current plan should be circulated well in advance of any future labour disruptions to provide inspiration for students, administrators, and Faculty Council. This would significantly reduce the anxiety of students in future disruptions and prevent us from having to reinvent the wheel every few years.

Recordings

The labour disruption proved the inadequacies of the current system for recording lectures. As students who rely on archived lectures have been saying for years, the recordings were spotty, of dubious quality, made available too late, or simply missing too often. Many of us who chose not to cross the picket lines depended on these recordings. As a result of the above failures, the recordings denied us what the Senate’s policy on labour disruptions promised: reasonable alternative access to materials covered in our absence. We are hopeful that professors will a) honour Osgoode’s Resumption and Remediation plan and not examine us on material to which we had inadequate access and b) make efforts to arrange for small-group teaching to help us grasp the material.

The news, however, is not all bad. It appears that the new seminar recording system was a resounding success. We are encouraged to see that the school was able to create a successful system for recording classes on such a short turnaround time. We see no reason that this alternative system for recording material could not also be used for recording lectures. If the school were able to transition to a system that worked by September, that would be one very positive legacy of the strike. Let us also say that it was revelatory to be able to listen to recordings without first having to disclose disabilities to the school. All of us have had to miss classes for some reason or another during our education. All students should have access to their classes’ recordings whether or not there is a labour disruption.

Concluding thoughts

As the tensions that pervade all Ontario universities reach a breaking point—rising tuition, reliance on poorly paid and itinerant labour, market-oriented learning, and fewer secure teaching positions—one thing can be said for certain: there will be more labour disruptions in the future. Indeed, we understand that YUFA members will begin negotiations for a new contract later this year, and that York University food service workers are preparing for the same in the fall. We make these comments with an eye to these horizons, to help equip the school with a perspective that will help it better navigate the challenges and the opportunities that labour disruptions are certain to produce.

In solidarity,

The Osgoode Strike Support Committee 

About the OSSC

We are a diverse group of law students who not only recognize the education workers’ legal right to strike, but also stand behind its democratic exercise. Our principal aims are to inform fellow law students about why the strike is happening, to encourage each and every one of them not to cross any picket lines, and to ensure that Osgoode Hall Law School adhere to the Senate policy suspending all academic activity at York. We believe the best way to justly resume classes is to help TAs, Gas, and contract faculty achieve a fair and reasonable collective agreement—that is, to help them win the strike.

In pursuit of these aims, the OSSC operates on three overarching principles:

We support CUPE 3903’s right to strike.

We call for a fair and reasonable collective agreement to be negotiated at the bargaining table.

We refuse to cross any picket lines for the duration of the strike.

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