York University students have their classes cancelled because their TAs and other contract academic staff are on strike.  Do you get that? Some 40% of classes are being taught by professors who are not on strike, yet class is cancelled for all.  The people who are doing the lecturing presumably aren’t lecturing because the people who are doing the marking and running the labs are on strike.  Ridiculous.  Even more ridiculous is the fact that some classes have a professor that’s not on strike and don’t have TAs. These profs aren’t giving lectures too. Terrible!

You really have to feel sorry for York students.  They deserve to be in class.  Yet, classes are cancelled and their term is in jeopardy.  This is especially problematic if they happen to be in their final term.

Yet, on the other hand, you have to wonder why any fair minded student would ever choose to go to York (full disclosure: I’m a prof at Western and I am doing a bit of institutional ribbing!).  This happens all the time at that university!  They were once locked in a labour dispute for 12 weeks.  That’s a lot of time for students to be twiddling their thumbs and not learning.  How this hasn’t hurt York’s institutional brand is beyond me.  Down at the University of Toronto, who have their TAs on strike right now too, classes there are still proceeding.  How wonderful!

My views on this hijacking of the school year are particularly soured . While on one of my early career sessional instructor gigs, I remember going to the union meetings (believe it or not, I went).  I remember the union leadership plotting a calendar and noticing, with some glee, that the expected strike vote was to happen sometime in the middle to end of March.  They were counting on student pressure to convince the administration to cede to the union’s demands.  The whole thing made me sick. I remember not wanting any part of it.

Then I had the fortune of serving in Ontario’s 40th Parliament. Admittedly now, I can tell you that I was close to finishing legislation that called for the adoption of a student’s bill of rights.  Among the key points of this draft legislation was a commitment to the student’s right to unfettered access to his or her education.  In the event of a labour dispute, the bill would have required colleges and universities to remain open for students, and classes held if the professor isn’t on strike.  It would have respected the right of the bargaining unit to strike, however, it would have deterred what I call the piggyback strikes from occurring whereby other unionized workers refuse to cross pickets out of solidarity to their union brethren.  This is likely why all classes are cancelled at York.

I don’t begrudge somebody for not wanting to cross picket lines, but if that’s the choice they want to make, then find a suitable offsite location to conduct classes and pay for it.  There are institutions that impose this expectation.  That’s why legislation, similar to the bill of rights that I was working on, is needed.  It would apply the basic principle found at some schools to all of them.

More importantly, it would send students an important message: we think they should be learning! We don’t think they should be pawns in a labour dispute.  The sad thing is that they are pawns – on purpose – and that’s wrong.  Somebody write the bill, quick!