What do contract teachers at York University in Toronto have in common with the wretched gold miners of Tanzania? More than you might think. According to CUPE Local 3903 (which represents the teachers), both groups are foot soldiers in the eternal class warfare between capital and labour. If you doubt the university's malign intent to put the jackboot to the workers, CUPE has the proof. The chair of York's board of governors, it points out on its website, is a well-known capitalist named Mickey Cohen. Mr. Cohen also sits on the board of Barrick Gold, the company that exploits the wretched gold miners. So there!
This dopey, pseudo-Marxist mindset is the only reason Canada's third-largest university has been shut down for nearly three months, at ruinous cost to 50,000 students, their parents and the university's reputation. You will have heard (from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, among others), that both sides are to blame for this sorry mess. Don't believe it. The self-styled Education Premier is seeking protective cover for his unseemly delay in passing back-to-work legislation.
This strike was not about nothing. At stake are serious issues that plague universities across North America. Unfortunately, Local 3903 isn't interested in tackling them. "The leadership of this union is very ideological and has been for many years," says York professor Irving Abella, the widely respected labour historian. Rumour has it that even fiery Ontario CUPE chief Sid Ryan can't calm down Local 3903.
Insiders say the union was spoiling for a strike from the start. It issued a ridiculous set of wage demands (even though the cruelly exploited teaching assistants make $37 an hour, more than any others in Canada). It demanded that many of its part-time staff be given full-time tenure status, based only on seniority - a move that would cost millions and also strip the university of the right to hire who it wants.
The union also insisted on shortening the contract, so that universities across the province would be on the same bargaining timetable. The dream was of a general strike, circa 2010, that would cripple the entire system. "They weren't interested unless they got what they wanted, and their goals were unattainable," Prof. Abella says.
If you believe the union's supporters, this strike isn't merely over job security and more pay. At stake is academic freedom itself. Without tenure, they argue, academics will be afraid to speak out against oppression and injustice. One human-rights professor (not from York) warns that ordering the contract staff back to work is an offence to international human-rights law and very likely a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These arguments demonstrate that nobody is more self-important than academics.
But there is a serious issue, and it's this: For two decades, universities across North America have been steadily replacing expensive tenured professors with cheaper contract labour. Most undergraduate students today are taught by itinerant PhDs, a highly educated underclass who scramble to make a living as they search for jobs on the tenure track. Now the recession has bit hard, and those jobs are even scarcer. York's endowment and pension funds, like many others, have been hammered, and many schools face a serious funding crisis.
The long-term issue is an even bigger challenge. In the face of shrinking resources and exploding demand, what's the best way to deliver higher education to the children of the lumpen middle class? And who, pray tell, is going to pay for it?
Meantime, as workers across Canada contemplate wage freezes and cutbacks, there's precious little sympathy for the plight of the knowledge serfs at York. It's our dollars, after all, that are paying them, and our dollars are scarce. Only in the land of academia (and public-sector unions) could educated grown-ups be so impervious to reality.