Effects of Toronto strike still felt

A class-action suit, interdepartmental divisions and a compressed timetable are some of the lingering effects of a 78-day strike at Toronto's York University.

As 2,400 sessional instructors and teaching assistants returned to their classes last month after one of the most bitter university strikes in Canadian history, five York students launched a legal challenge seeking compensation for the changes in travel plans and additional rent students have incurred. Their autumn semester will end this month and a spring semester will finish in May.

Other students, with their loans depleted and budgets stretched, have settled for the short-term compensation being offered by the university and the province.

The key issue in this strike was increasing tuition. Aside from fighting the cold weather on the picket lines and a government-imposed ratification vote, the biggest battle for York graduate instructors was convincing the administration to index salaries against future rising tuition fees.

Canadian graduate fees have increased by more than 50 per cent since 1996 and it is estimated that half the salary teaching assistants earn is spent on paying for their courses. It was after winning the tuition indexation clause, a precedent in Canada, that the union voted to go back to work.

With divisions still apparent from a 1997 strike by York full-time professors, rifts would be felt from the recent strike inside departments. The main division seems to be between those who observed the picket line and those who chose to cross it.

For teaching assistant Rachel Epstein, a story recounted by a fellow striker put the divisiveness in perspective. "He had asked his kid if he thought those who weren't active in the strike should still get the benefits we won. And his child asked, 'But weren't you fighting for the good of everybody?'" Teaching assistant Mike Ma is hoping the union's gains will help colleagues in other universities. "Many of us are interested in seeing this tuition protection extended to other universities in the province."

York president Lorna Marsden said that she was most interested in the university returning to normal academic life. For Deborah Hobson, vice-president of enrolment and student services, who experienced a frenetic couple of weeks writing out frequently asked questions for students on the university website and taking care laying out the new schedule, things were starting to subside. That morning, on campus, she was happy to have spent a long time in a crowded queue for coffee. It was one sign that things were getting back to normal.