Last Sunday, Dalton McGuinty introduced back-to-work legislation in a bid to end the strike by teaching assistants and contract faculty that began on November 6. The Legislature is divided on the issue of the bill, which is supported by the Conservatives, but the province’s NDP party is in opposition, saying that the government is giving an advantage to the university and should not interfere in the negotiations. The bill has passed and the students will be returning to class.

The Premier made the decision after the mediator announced at a press conference on Saturday that the two parties were in a deadlock and that legislation would be the only way to go beyond the impasse.

Various student groups including the York Federation of Students are relieved that classes will resume shortly, since the academic year of 50,000 undergraduate students is now in jeopardy at the country’s third largest university.

OC Transpo drivers, dispatchers, and maintenance workers are expected to walk off the job at 12:01am this Wednesday. Last week, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 voted overwhelmingly against the City’s offer.

The University of Ottawa has notified all students that the impending strike will have no effect on scheduled exams. It reminds students of its carpooling directory and reduced parking rates for the holiday/exam season. OC Transpo has also issued some advice for getting around town during a strike (although I’m more likely to study from home than to “Consider Cycling as an alternative” in December.)

Little distinguishes this dispute from others: as always, public opinion varies but all hope that a contract can be reached soon.

As of today, the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3093, who represents contract faculty and teaching assistants at York University, has gone on strike. Of interest is that the strike vote was unanimous by all members of the union and that the union has rejected the employer’s offer of submitting their dispute to binding interest arbitration rather than seek a strike or lockout. The union believes that the best way to bring this dispute to an end is over the bargaining table rather than before an interest arbitrator.

All reports indicate that the parties are still far from settlement, suggesting that students at York University could face canceled classes for some time. The last strike at York University lasted for 11 weeks.

For more information on the strike, I recommend reading Professor Doorey’s Blog, which has been following the developments at York University and his detailed posts on the strike, including:

• “And so it begins . . . STRIKE”
• York Strike and the Rules of Picketing

For more discussion on this strike and strikes in the University-sector generally, you can view my earlier posts on this blog:

• York University May Strike
• Windsor University Strike Ends in Successful Ratification Vote

Hopefully, this dispute will resolve quickly and satisfactorily for all parties - students, staff, and the university administration - like the case of the recent strike at the University of Windsor.

Yesterday, the Windsor University Faculty Association voted 88% in favor of a new three-year collective agreement. The acceptance of the new agreement ended a 17-day strike which saw 13 days of classes cancelled. Fortunately, because of the relative short duration of the strike, class time will be made up with no serious detriment to students. A previously planned break for the 4 days following Thanksgiving has been cancelled and the semester is extended to December 12th with exams following the end of classes. The strike yielded stronger job security and increased wages for the members of the Union.

Fortunately, in this strike, the result satisfied all parties, including the students. But the question which is on my mind is: what would have happened  had the strike continued longer than 17-days? In such a situation, many students would lose their semesters since there would not be enough time to catch up all the missed class-time. What would come of, for example, the third year law students who would no longer have their degrees completed in time to take bar exams or commence their articling positions? I suppose the real question underlying these concerns is when does the faculty and staff’s right to strike become outweighed by the serious detriment to the students and the public? How can concerns about this delicate balance be solved?

One solution would be to declare the University and College Sector an essential service and follow the approach taken in the hospital sector. The hospital sector is governed by the  Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act which requires, rather than allow strikes or lockouts, that the parties submit their dispute to a third party for a resolution when they would ordinarily be in a strike or lockout position. The problem with such legislation is that it may skew the rights too far in favor of the public by denying faculty and staff unions from exercising their economic power through a strike. The same argument lies for universities and colleges. The power dynamic between the parties would be unduly tipped and could result in a situation where the parties could never achieve a resolution comparable to that which they would have obtained had there been access to regular collective bargaining procedures. This is even more of a concern in a situation like that of Windsor where the strike did not cause any serious or lasting harms to students and where it resulted in a beneficial agreement which may not have been achieved without a strike.

Another approach is to have the provincial government introduce ad hoc back to work legislation when it becomes clear that the parties will not resolve their differences in enough time to prevent the lasting harm to students. This was the solution taken, for example,  by the Ontario Tory government in the Fall of 1998 in response to the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association strikes and lockouts. Although this may appear to balance the interests of both unions, employers, and the public, it requires a high reliance on political motivation since such legislation is enacted only when a dispute occurs. There is a potential for there being not enough political will to act if the real harms being caused by a strike or a lockout are not perceived by the entire legislature. The other side of that coin is that there is a real chance for abuse of such procedures if enacting such legislation becomes a regular occurrence to deal with strikes and if the decision is taken before serious harm is a real possibility.

I would suggest a third solution which may offer a compromise between these two approaches. The machinery of back-to-work power should be incorporated into legislation governing the sector. This would protect against the heavy reliance on political will and replace it with reliance on the Minister of Labour. In such a situation, the Minister would be permitted to order the parties back to work and to pursue mandatory interest arbitration if, in his or her opinion, there is significant harm being caused to the public. Objective criteria would need to be established to make such a determination and to prevent the undue removal of the fundamental role of the strike and lockout in labour disputes and overuse of the power. What criteria would be appropriate is certainly a large, unanswered question, but one worth pursuing. Perhaps the exploration of such a solution will find a balance between employee, union, employer, student, and public rights if followed through to fruition.

Nevertheless, many of these questions and the crux of this debate will remain unanswered and unaddressed because of the satisfactory resolution of the Windsor strike. But the debate will no doubt open up once again when labour unrest “strikes” another University.