Lorna
Marsden, President
York
University
November
5, 2000.
Dear
Lorna:
I
urge you to use the powers of your office as President, and your own
personal
authority and influence, to settle the CUPE strike as soon as
possible
during this coming week. I know that the administration is only one
of
the two sides that must agree to a settlement. But I truly believe that a
quick
settlement is within reach that will satisfy concerns on both sides,
and
that the best and perhaps only means of ensuring that this settlement is
achieved
before irreparable damage is done to the 2000-2001 academic year
are
your own initiative and determination to make it happen.
That
York has entered into yet another labour dispute that threatens to
undermine
the educational mission of our university is deeply discouraging
and
demoralising for all of us. Whatever the differences in the way we
perceive
and seek to achieve this mission, we are all educators in the first
instance
who place the intellectual development and respectful treatment of
our
students as our highest priority. Continuing this dispute one day
longer,
when ways of bridging the differences are so clearly in view and can
benefit
the interests of both sides, would signal a deep moral failure and,
I
believe, would not reflect the good intentions of either side.
I
do not wish to present myself as highly knowledgeable on the issues that
led
to the breakdown of these negotiations. Having been on YUFAıs
negotiating
team many times in the past, I know that the obstacles to a
settlement
are often more complex than can be fully conveyed in the midst of
a
dispute. However, with regard to one major obstacle to settling this
dispute,
the indexing of tuition fees for incoming graduate students, I urge
you
to consider that your own concerns for the future of York University are
not
jeopardised, but rather supported, by satisfying the concerns that CUPE
has
put forward.
How
can it not be in the interest of York University to be able to attract
the
best and most suitable students to our graduate programmes? Having been
a
graduate director in the past, I know that many students who see York as
their
preferred place of study, often accept the offers of other graduate
schools
in the end because the financial incentives to do so are too great
to
resist. Universities such as U. of T., McMaster, Queens, McGill and UBC
have
routinely snatched the best students from us simply because they have
been
able to provide better scholarships and bursary supports. Particularly
in
recent years as tuition has been deregulated and steadily increased, the
fact
that the York-CUPE collective agreement has provided countervailing
benefits
to our graduate students through tuition indexing and better rates
of
(over)
remuneration
for the incredibly important work they do as teaching
assistants,
is a tribute to the forward thinking efforts of the
administration
and the union in the past. Moreover, since York and other
universities
have increasingly relied upon contract and part-time faculty
members
to maintain high quality teaching programmes in the context of
underfunding,
it is to Yorkıs credit and advantage that our scales of
remuneration
and employee benefits are at a level that comparable academic
employees
at other institutions envy. Providing these colleagues with the
security
of their jobs as recompense for the exceptional and sustained
service
they have provided is not only a fair and just exchange but also a
means
of retaining for York the high value of skills that these colleagues
have
honed over many years.
In
the language of the times, these aspects of York-CUPE contracts are
Yorkıs
competitive edge. It is not at all surprising that administrators of
other
universities would want to reduce this edge. Continuing to support
them
gives substance to your stated intention to preserve and enhance Yorkıs
longstanding
effort to provide the highest quality education to our
students,
particularly in the face of government funding policies that have
disadvantaged
us relative to other universities, many of which have had
greater
financial resources to draw upon in the first place.
Lorna,
this term I have two of the best classes of students that I have had
in
several years. I and my teaching assistant were just beginning to feel
the
engagement of our students with us, with each other and with the course
material.
I feel utterly dejected that this disruption has taken place,
especially
at this time in the academic year. As
you know from your own
teaching
experience, it becomes almost impossible to accomplish later on in
the
term, the coming together of a class and the movement toward learning
that
begins to take shape at this stage. I
know other teaching colleagues
in
YUFA and in CUPE who feel the same way and who also feel that nothing is
to
be gained that is in the interest of the students of York University
both
present and future by a prolonged strike or by a failure to quickly
reach
a fair and just accommodation of the outstanding issues that remain
unresolved
in this dispute.
Thank
you in advance for giving your attention to what I have said.
Professor
Janice Newson,
Department
of Sociology
York University,
4700
Keele St.,
North
York, Ontario
M3J
1P3