Dagmar Kanzler's patience ran out last week.
Dagmar Kanzler and her son, Nicholas Ross, check out the Facebook group she has created.
Dagmar Kanzler and her son, Nicholas Ross, check out the Facebook group she has created.
For 10 weeks, her 19-year-old son's studies have been idled by a strike at York University, and it suddenly became clear to her that it was never going to be settled. On Sunday, with her son's help, she set up a Facebook site and a blog to urge a resolution of the bitter labour dispute involving contract faculty, tutorial assistants and graduate assistants.
Ms. Kanzler is making a few points on behalf of the 50,000 York students whose classes were interrupted 10 weeks ago with no sign yet of when they will resume. She wants classes to resume as quickly as possible and a way found to complete the academic year without extending it to the summer. And, oh, she has something to say to parents who are contemplating sending their children to York.
“If I was talking to another parent face-to-face, I would say really think long and hard about York before deciding to send your kid there,” she said.
It's a timely message: Tomorrow is the deadline for Grade 12 students in Ontario to submit their enrolment choices for next year. It is also an increasingly common message. There are a number of Facebook sites (in addition to Ms. Kanzler's) that are attracting thousands of supporters by spreading the message that enough is enough.
Lyndon Koopmans has attracted more than 4,500 people to sign up to his site with his call to end the strike soon because both York and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have forgotten about students. “We're being used as bargaining chips here,” he said. “Both parties say, ‘We want to get them back in school,' but they use it as leverage against the other one.”
It takes a certain amount of skill to build up this kind of ill will, but York, which was established in the wilds of suburban Toronto 50 years ago, has been equal to the task. It has a strong activist tradition that has often made students the meat in the sandwich. Twice in the past 12 years it has had to lengthen its school year to deal with the effects of a strike.
The current dispute isn't terribly complicated. York is offering a 9.25-per-cent wage increase over three years as well as improved benefits and job security. CUPE has rejected the offer as inadequate and has asked for 8 per cent over two years, a crucial demand because it wants its deal to expire in 2010 along with those on many other campuses.
York, which had hoped to establish itself among the front rank of research-based universities, has done (in Ms. Kanzler's words) “a stellar job of damaging its reputation through this.” Its new president, Mamdouh Shoukri, has been largely invisible, and it has now gambled by asking the Ontario Labour Ministry to supervise a vote on its latest offer, which is likely to be very similar to one that had earlier been rejected by CUPE. This vote – the bargaining equivalent of a Hail Mary pass in football – is unlikely to be held until next week, and it's not clear what will happen if the union turns down the offer.
As for CUPE, it is enough to note that its Ontario section is run by Sid Ryan, a publicity hound who last week apologized for comparing Israeli bombings of academic institutions in Gaza to actions by Nazis in the Second World War.
There seems to be little concern in the Ontario government that York is crippling itself at a time when the economy needs more “knowledge workers.” Universities Minister John Milloy acknowledges the strike is “unfortunate,” but says he can't intervene in the bargaining at an autonomous institution. “There is a process which is unfolding and we're going to see what happens,” he said.
It's a response that doesn't please Ms. Kanzler's son, Nicholas Ross. “I speak for a lot of students when I say we're just fed up with this.”
