A 1997 professors’ strike at York University that stretched the school year into May caused an estimated loss of summer earnings to students of $12 million, or about $630 per student, according to a study conducted at the time.
The landmark survey of a sample of about 540 undergraduates by York social science professor Paul Grayson – one of the only studies in North America to look at the impact of a campus strike on students – shows that 37 per cent of students were worried about getting a late start on their summer jobs.
When contacted five months later, the students were asked to estimate how much they had lost by missing up to a month of summer because of making up classes, and the average was found to be $630 per student, said Grayson, of York’s Institute for Social Research.
“For low-income households, this is a considerable amount of money. One of the problems was that employers were a bit wary of hiring students because they knew that (if they started May 1 during the strike), their tenure at the job would be interrupted once the strike was over,” explained Grayson yesterday.
“The total loss to full-time undergraduate students at York because of the way the strike affected summer jobs was approximately $12 million.”
The study interviewed the same 540 students both during and after the seven-week strike that shut down classes March 20, before final exams, and lasted until May 13.
During the strike, three out of four students said they had “major concerns” over not knowing how long it would last, and 61 per cent had major concerns over how their assignments and tests would be changed when the strike ended. More than half were afraid they would have forgotten important information over the seven weeks.
“The strike had a very significant impact on students,” said Grayson, citing senior students in particular who were applying to graduate school, education students whose practice-teaching in schools was disrupted and science students, who worried that gaps in their coursework would hamper them in years to come.
Yet when asked five months later whether the strike truly had disrupted their academic year, most said no, which Grayson said could be linked to the human tendency “to mellow our recollections over time.”
Still, 86 per cent of students said they had no problems finishing their courses, although almost half of them had to wait until August to get their final marks and 15 per cent were still waiting in October. About one-third asked for – and obtained – some sort of adjustment to accommodate academic problems caused by the strike.
About one-quarter said the strike disrupted plans for summer school, and 15 per cent had to postpone their graduation because of the strike.
Classes at York have been shut down since Nov. 6 by a strike of the Canadian Union of Public Employees 3903, which represents 3,340 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants.
Union members are taking part in a secret-ballot vote tomorrow and Tuesday on the university’s latest offer organized at York’s request by Ontario’s labour ministry.
Both a petition by 282 professors last week and a letter from the university’s deans urged union members to accept the deal.
But a new letter from the York University Faculty Association has urged all York faculty to let union members make up their own minds and not try to influence how they vote.
“The faculty association reaffirms its support of free collective bargaining and does not endorse a ratification vote of CUPE 3903 members as forced by the employer,” said association president professor Arthur Hilliker in a public statement Friday.
Moreover, he said, the executive “does not endorse any YUFA member attempting to influence how a CUPE 3903 member might vote in the forced ratification vote.”