Monday, December 15th
The Concord Café (937 Bloor St.)
7pm

A panel discussion on Labour and the University

On November 6, 2008, CUPE 3903 went on strike against their employer,
York University. Fed up with the employer's dismal offers, nearly 3500
teaching assistants, contract faculty, and research and graduate
assistants took action to win decent job security, equity, wages, and
benefits.

December 15 marks the beginning of week six on the picket lines.

Facing anti-union media, an employer that refuses to negotiate, and
self-serving politicians, it is sometimes difficult to find spaces where
we can collectively discuss the historical and political significance of
this struggle.

Nevertheless, we must ask: what are the implications of this strike for
3903 members, the university sector, and the Canadian labour movement?

Upping the Anti welcomes all organizers, activists, and allies committed
to labour union solidarity to attend the forum with questions and
contributions.

Speakers:

*Punam Khosla* is long-time antiracist marxist-feminist activist and
organizer, and a strike coordinator and media spokesperson with CUPE
3903. She is currently doing her PhD in Urban/Environmental studies at
York University and is a course director (Unit 1). Her current work aims
to support women of colour left activism and involves developing a new

Scores of Temporary Foreign Workers deported by Ontario agri-complex
from UFCW Canada, December 6, 2008.

CAMPBELLVILLE, ONTARIO - Dec. 6, 2008 — More than 70 Mexican and Jamaican agriculture workers at a mushroom grow house facility outside of Guelph were fired without notice on December 6, by Rol-Land Farms, a $50 million-a-year, privately owned industrial agricultural corporation that operates a number of mushroom growing operations across Canada. No reason was given for the firings.

The workers were in Canada on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, championed by the Harper government. They were also evicted from the housing provided to them by Rol-Land and are in the process of being repatriated.

"No company should have the right to treat human beings like disposable farm tools," explained Chris Ramsaroop of Justicia for Migrant Workers, an advocacy group that works with migrant workers across Canada. He added, "these workers have lost everything over night: their jobs, their housing and even their ability to stay and work in Canada. Rol-Land Farms didn't even issue notices to their employees."

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903 which represents 3400 Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants, Research Assistants, and contract faculty at York University has been forced out on strike by the York University administration since Nov. 6th. They are fighting for a wage increase above inflation, job security for contract faculty, and improved working conditions and employee resources. Hear CUPE 3903 members Clare O'Conner, Kelly Fritsch, and AK Thompson report on the progress of their struggle and speak on the importance of Graduate Teaching Assistants and Teaching Assistants unionizing.

Thursday Dec. 11th, 3 pm, Room L-239 (just past the Student Centre on the way to the Parker Tower at Laurentian University). This is a wheelchair accessible location.

Preliminary sponsors are the Graduate Student’s Union (GSA), Students’ General Association (SGA), CUPE 3903, and Upping the Anti.

For more information contact Gary Kinsman at 523-2205 or at 675-1151 ext. 4221

Dan Crow

Precarious employment is one of the hallmarks of what is euphemistically called “the new economy.” It has deep roots in the university sector. Recent decades have seen a move away from full-time secure jobs for academic workers, toward reliance on part-time, contingent, relatively low wage jobs. As a cost-savings measure, and as a way to provide flexibility in operations, universities rely on part-time teaching staff to increasing degrees. In some instances, more than half of all undergraduate teaching in Canada (but also in university systems across Europe) is done by part-timers.

Contingent academic workers, numbering in the tens of thousands in Ontario alone, find themselves in a situation where they have to apply for their jobs as often as every four months, with no guarantee that the work they rely on will be offered. Many have found themselves in this situation for more than 20 years, with an increasingly large cohort joining them each year, proving that there is indeed company in misery. Furthermore, despite the fact that many contingent academic workers have nominally high hourly wages, many live in poverty because of limits on the ability to work. For example, academic work is primarily seasonal work, with very little offered in the spring and summer months.

Podcast To The Working Class: Scott McWhinnie and The Labour Show
By Derek Blackadder, from Our Times, October-November 2008.

Most days Scott McWhinnie can be found doing his electrician's job at the University of Guelph, roaming the southern Ontario campus doing urgent repairs and general maintenance. Sometimes, if you're a trade unionist in the strip along Ontario's 401 highway west of Toronto, you may hear McWhinnie's bass lines in the music of Rebel Girl, the band he's part of. It specializes in Wobblie tunes at union gigs.

McWhinnie, a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1334, also has other, more conventional, pastimes, though he puts them to unconventional use. "I also play golf to annoy elitist corporate types. My people invented it so it's in the blood," he says with a chuckle, referring to his father, who grew up in Scotland.

"My father grew up in a mining village but became an auto mechanic, which was his ticket out," says McWhinnie. "My mother was the youngest of 10 in a family of tenant farmers. These origins imbued me with a working-class sensibility that is a part of me at a genetic level. It gets passed on."

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.

Ontario farm workers can join unions, court rules
by Tracey Tyler, from The Toronto Star, November 17, 2008.

Farm workers across the province have won the right to join unions.

In a 3-0 decision today, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down sections of the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, which prevent farm workers from engaging in collective bargaining.

The court said the legislation violates agricultural employees' rights to freedom of association under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and gave the Ontario government 12 months to rewrite the law.

While most Ontario workers have had the right to join unions since 1943, farm employees have been excluded from the mainstream labour relations regime because agriculture has been considered unique - sensitive to time and weather concerns, and the need to ensure that food production is not disrupted by a strike.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, a farmers' lobby group that intervened in the case, warned that many family farms could not survive if confronted with union demands.

Migrant workers reap bitter harvest in Ontario: Women in particular find themselves vulnerable to violence and intimidation
by Evelyn Encalada Grez, Toronto Star, October 28, 2008.

I had to pick up Laura at the apple farm with two police officers. We left the farm in such haste that Laura's belongings were scattered in various plastic bags.

It was a rescue mission more reminiscent of a crime scene. She could not leave without lovingly saying goodbye to each of the women with whom she had shared that awful crammed bunkhouse.

When she was ready, she turned to me and said: "Let's go." We walked together, Laura on crutches and in much pain, tears flowing down her face, tears that quickly became contagious.

The tall, white, male police officers were shocked. They had no clue that migrant women lived and worked in their community, let alone what some had to go through to earn a living producing food that ended up on our kitchen tables. One of the officers said "apples are never going to taste the same again."

Laura's crime was to have been injured at work. She lost her balance, fell off a tractor and her legs were crushed by its wheels. As soon as she regained consciousness after her first surgery, an official from the Mexican consulate in Toronto started harassing her.

Migrant workers fired from B.C. greenhouse as union vote neared
by Wendy Stueck, Globe and Mail, September 16, 2008.

VANCOUVER — Fourteen Mexican farm workers employed at an Abbotsford greenhouse were fired from their jobs and sent back to Mexico days before a union-certification vote, the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada said yesterday.

The workers were terminated late in the day on Sept. 5, a Friday, before being driven to the airport the next day in time to catch an afternoon flight to Mexico, the union said.

On Sept. 4, the UFCW had filed an application to represent 29 employees at the company, Floralia Plant Growers Ltd.

Workers were scheduled to hold a certification vote today.

A woman who answered the phone at the company late yesterday afternoon said in response to questions, "I can't tell you anything" before hanging up.

The union has filed a complaint with the British Columbia Labour Relations Board and asked the board to order the company to rehire the workers and pay for their flights back to Canada, said Local 1518 spokesman Andy Neufeld.

Workers at 3 hotels could strike: Unions negotiating wages, conditions as contracts expire in peak tourist season
by Lesley Ciarula Taylor, Toronto Star, July 12, 2008.

At the height of Toronto's summer tourist season, unions at three hotels, including the Fairmont Royal York, have moved into strike positions.

Eighty-one per cent of the 850 workers at the Royal York voted to strike as early as July 16, the date their contract expires, if negotiations fail.

Contracts for 134 workers at the Holiday Inn and Radisson hotels on Dixon Rd., near the airport, expired yesterday, putting them in a position to strike at any time.

Abdul Husseini came off shift as a waiter at the Holiday Inn's restaurant yesterday and went right into a meeting of Local 75 of Unite Here, the union organizing employees at hotels across North America.

"The important issue is standards," Husseini said. "Our first cook gets $14.76 an hour. At the Hilton down the road, the first cook gets $18.86 an hour and Westmont (Hospitality Group) owns them both. At least they could fill the gap.

"There are 18 people working in the kitchen, we're open 24 hours a day, most of them are recent immigrants from India and Sri Lanka and they really work hard."