Back-to-work bill for York striking TAs.

Well it's Week 11 of the strike and finally Dalton McGuinty has decided to table legislation to get the striking TAs back to work. This move will hopefully salvage some of an already heavily-crippled undergrad and grad year at York. A strike that has jeopardized the future of 50,000
students and the reputation of Canada's 3rd largest university.

The fact that it has taken 11 weeks to table legislation is ridiculous. Work stoppages should never go beyond 4 weeks when it comes to higher education. People take out loans to pay tuitions that may never be recovered. Foreign students might find themselves tight for time to complete a degree and the loss of a semester (or a year) means less time to earn an income in the real world.

I wonder how the strikers can sleep at night. The terms offered by York were more than generous, given the current economic climate. The major impasse over the talks was York's refusal to give tenure to part-time TAs (a key demand of the strikers). Who in this current climate can offer tenure? Also, a TA is not meant to be a career. It's something you do as you complete your grad work. It's only meant to supplement your tuition and living costs.

The other people for whom I wonder about their sleep are the provincial New Democrats. They decided to have debate on the back-to-work bill rather than ram it through the house today. This should be a message to those NDP-loving students that the NDP does not have their interests at heart, only the unions'.