From:
YUFA in solidarity with CUPE 3903 [YUFA-CUPE@YorkU.CA] on behalf
of
Lorna Erwin [lerwin@YorkU.CA]
Sent:
November 28, 2000 1:24 PM
To:
YUFA-CUPE@YORKU.CA
Subject:
Questions asked by NDP MPP Francis Lankin about the York CUPE
3903
strike
The
following is a Hansard transcript of a questions asked by NDP MPP
Francis
Lankin about the York CUPE 3903 strike of
contract
faculty, teaching and graduate assistants.
-------------------------
Hansard
November
27, 2000
UNIVERSITY
LABOUR DISPUTE
Ms
Frances Lankin (Beaches-East York): My question is to the Minister of
Colleges
and
Universities.
I want to ask you to take responsibility for keeping York
University
students out of
classes
for four weeks and teaching assistants on strike. You have taken
the
unprecedented step, for
a
government, of pressuring a university to strip away tuition
protection
in order to promote your
agenda
with respect to post-secondary education. You slashed $1.4
billion
in operating funds, you
deregulated
tuition, you forced tuitions to increase by 60%, and you
forced
student debt to double.
At
York, you want to sink teaching assistants below poverty wages by
stripping
their tuition
protection.
As it stands, TAs earn $850 a month. When you subtract the
tuition
they pay, they are
left
with $700 a month to live. You want them to earn even less. How can
you
justify pressuring
York
to take tuition protection away? That's the sticking point in these
negotiations.
How can you
defend
actions that have kept students out of classes and away from
their
TAs for weeks now?
Hon
Dianne Cunningham (Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities):
I
wish the
honourable
member actually hadn't read that note, because it's not
factual.
Our government is
spending
more than ever on our universities and colleges. Our focus has
been
to put the money into
supporting
students and accessibility--I could go through the list.
We're
getting ready for 88,000 new
students,
and we've spent $1.8 billion along with our private sector
partners.
I would like to chat with
the
member later and clarify what she is talking about, because if this
is
what she believes, then no
wonder
people are upset.
With
respect to York University, the member knows, because she was a
minister
herself, that
universities
are autonomous institutions, and I don't think she wants me
to
get involved in this. I would
like
to hear further from her with regard to what the real problem is.
They're
autonomous and have to
deal
with their labour relations, and that would be my expectation,
knowing
my colleague in the
opposition.
Ms
Lankin: Minister, the problem is that everyone in the York community
believes--and
it's been
reported
in the newspapers--that your government has interfered. Of
course
we don't want you to;
we
want you to get out of the way of a settlement.
These
workers are fighting for their survival. If your government has
intervened,
you're forcing a
situation
where they will be left to live on less than $700 a month, and
those
are poverty wages.
You
like to talk about the brain drain, Minister, but you refuse to face
the
hemorrhage this situation is
causing.
We need to retain and support the brightest and most
hard-working
of our university
students,
these TAs.
If
you honestly deny that you're pressuring York University to strip
tuition
protection from TAs, will
you
make a public statement promising the government will not interfere
in
Ontario's university
negotiations?
Will you issue a public statement to the York University
community
that the government
has
no opinion about tuition protection or any other item in the
collective
agreement of the teaching
assistants?
Hon
Mrs Cunningham: This is not a problem. We're not involved in this
dispute
in any way. I don't
want
to comment on anything that has anything to do with people working
together
to get an
agreement.
It is as simple as that.