Starting Nov 6, 2008, CUPE 3903, the union representing contract faculty, teaching and research assistants at York University in Toronto, Canada, went on an all-out legal strike. Significant issues include wage increase corresponding with cost of living increase, funding guarantees for graduate students (who also form significant number of workers at York U), improved working conditions (which mean improved learning conditions for students), and job security for contract faculty (some of whom have been teaching for several years on a sessional basis, carrying 1.5-2 times the load of the permanent faculty at 50-75% of the cost for YorkU). Find a summary of all outstanding issues at http://cupe3903.tao.ca.

The issues are obviously significant for the workers at York University to strike over. Their significance goes beyond York U however. These are issues facing non-permanent teaching and research workers in all universities, who are estimated to carry 40-60% of the workload at low exploitative wages and benefits, in poor working conditions and without any job security. This is the reality of labour in higher education institutions functioning as for-profit corporations (as is York U) governed by BoDs composed of representatives of other corporations.

Dollar Anxiety: Real Reasons to Worry

John Miller

The value of the dollar is falling. Does that mean that our economic sky is falling as well? Not to sound like Chicken Little, but the answer may well be yes. If an economic collapse is not in our future, then at least economic storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.

It's what lies behind the slide of the dollar that has even many mainstream
economists spooked: an unprecedented current account deficit-the difference
between the country's income and its consumption and investment spending. The
current account deficit, which primarily reflects the huge gap between the
amount the United States imports and the amount it exports, is the best
indicator of where the country stands in its financial relationship with the
rest of the world.

This coming Monday, January 31, the administration of
York University is hauling undergraduate student
organizer Lisa Scofield in front of a disciplinary
tribunal. She is being threatened with punishment for
speaking at an on-campus "Freedom of Dissent"
demonstration, organized by the Stewards Council of
CUPE 3903, in late November 2004.

Less than two weeks after bringing police on campus to
violently disperse anti-imperialist demonstrators,
this administration is again attempting to isolate and
punish an activist from GRAIN (Grassroots
Anti-Imperialist Network) for asserting her basic
political rights. It is imperative that we counter
these efforts at isolation, and stand together in a
show of strength and determination.

We call for all allies concerned with campus democracy
to join us in sending a clear message to the
administration: We will defend our right to organize
and speak out, and attempts to repress us will only

This is a statement put out by the student and faculty unions at York.

Last Thursday at York University, several students held a peaceful rally in response to the inauguration of George Bush. The purpose of their rally was to draw attention to York University’s connections to corporations that have benefited from the Bush regime.

On Tuesday January 25th at 3:30
in front of OSGOODE HALL LAW SCHOOL @ York University
(bring placards, banners, noisemakers, flags, and your friends!)

This Tuesday, Paul Cellucci, US Ambassador to Canada will join Richard Revesz,

The following are links to PDF files about the recent happening at York that you can download and print off for distribution.

Poster for Rally on January 27th available soon.

Spoof York Media Relations Poster

The following are various main stream media accounts of the protest. Feel free to add other ones as comments to this article.

Three officers hurt, five students arrested in anti-Bush protest (from http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=3914)

A protest linked to the inauguration of US President George W. Bush turned violent at York University on Thursday, resulting in injuries to three paid-duty constables and the arrest of five demonstrators, reported the Toronto Star Jan. 21. The news was echoed in the city’s other major newspapers and on television and radio news casts. The incident was also mentioned in a Canadian Press story about anti-Bush protests across the country.

After some delays, we are now happy to announce that we finally have some video of the protest and police attack that took place at York. We enourage you to download this video and post it at other indymedia sites so that we can ease the bandwidth on thunderbay indymedia and tao communications.

We also have more video footage that we will be posting shortly. Video from camera two below has not been edited, and it is the raw footage in real time of what happened when police moved on protestors. Camera one has one short clip removed that shows a close up of the face of one of the people targetted by police, but is otherwise unedited. The first two files need to be viewed with a quicktime player which is available for download here.

We have now new mirror sites for all the videos, as some of our servers have been shut down by the heavy traffic. Science for Peace in Guelph The videos have also been mirrored at www.cprobes.com

camera one

From: Common Front Legal Collective, Toronto

All five people arrested on Thursday have now been released from custody. One person was released last night, while the other four appeared in court today for bail hearings. Not surprisingly, the five face trumped up charges, including assault police, assault resist arrest and attempting to disarm a peace officer. You can support the arrestees though court solidarity (we will post information as it becomes available), contributing to their legal defence, and most importantly, by keeping up the fight at York - demand that these charges and any disciplinary measures be dropped and that repression of student organizing end!

Over 1000 students gathered in protest in York University's Vari Hall today, despite attempts by York Security to disperse the protest. The protestors filled the floor of Vari Hall as well as the second and third floor balconeys. The event lasted about an hour as speeches were given, a video of the vicious beating of students on January 20th was played, and after endorsing a motion demanding that the York University administration drop all charges and disciplinary sanctions against student protestors, the crowd dispersed with plans for future action.