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Tough union, tough lessons

Learning from the CUPE 3903 strike defeat at York University

Tyler McCreary | April 23rd 2009 | 12

Over the last three decades in Canada, governments’ neoliberal policies have created a crisis of under-funding in post-secondary education. With steep funding cuts, universities and colleges have looked to other measures to balance their books: increasing tuition and ancillary fees, soliciting greater private funding and implementing cost-reduction measures like increased reliance on contract faculty to teach courses. The present economic crisis has further exacerbated the financial situation at many universities, as cash-strained investors restrict their donations, universities’ sizable endowment funds bleed with investment losses, and deficit-laden governments balk at increasing education funding.

It was in this context that CUPE 3903, a joint union of the contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at York University, went on strike for 85 days, declaring that they would not cede their economic demands in a time of recession. While some hoped the strike would be a call for increased labour militancy during a period when economic fundamentals were being questioned, the strike ended in a resounding defeat, as the McGuinty Liberal provincial government, with public support, legislated the union back to work. The outcome set a dangerous precedent for the broader sector, as the government demonstrated that it could use back-to-work legislation to avoid addressing issues of chronic under-funding.

A Tradition of Militancy

What happened? The university administration’s odious refusal to bargain is one element of the story. To understand the lessons of the strike for union organizing, however, it is also necessary to provide an account of the miscues and structural problems that haunted the union’s strategy.

Within the university sector, CUPE 3903 is a local that stands out. It has a long tradition of militancy, and its previous contracts set wage and benefit benchmarks for unions in the sector. In 2000-01, the local staged a momentous, 76-day strike, resisting York University’s attempts to claw back tuition indexation and other wage concessions in the midst of the Harris years.

But the mythologized 2000-01 strike was different from the current strike in many respects. That strike followed the Ontario Days of Action and the teachers’ strike, and there was a context of politicization, which involved large sections of the 3903 membership. The 2000-01 strike mobilization could rely on networks built through these struggles, as well as the previous two rounds of bargaining, which had brinked upon strikes. In contrast, the 2008-09 strike occurred in the context of years of labour and social movement demobilization that had left unionists unable to draw upon such networks.

Yet, prominent union militants missed these important contextual differences in developing their strategy for the recent negotiations. Instead, two main lessons were drawn from the 2000-01 strike. First, the length of the strike mattered. Second, internal democratic innovations were a major reason for the success of the 2001 strike. CUPE 3903 has criticized and eschewed traditional union processes, maintaining an uneasy relationship with CUPE’s national organization. Unlike most unions, CUPE 3903 has an open bargaining process, wherein the bargaining team reports back to the general membership and relies upon the membership for guidance throughout bargaining.

Dead Ends and Arrogance

Ideally, this process ensures accountability and prevents the bargaining team from becoming isolated in conversations with the employer and disconnected from members’ key concerns. This democratic practice relies upon high levels of member engagement. Unfortunately, however, by neglecting the importance of regular representation of the membership in committees, a vanguardism celebrating stamina came to dominate the union through its open participatory structures.

The union went into the strike riven by deep fissures within its membership that inhibited the dialogue necessary to build consensus around key demands. 3903 has typically bargained aggressively, relying upon solidarity between its diverse units to push everyone’s concerns forward. However, attempting to balance the concerns of the union’s various constituencies in this round, the bargaining team simply conglomerated all the demands into a massive stack of proposals, which they proved unwilling or unable to reduce under pressure from the membership. Effectively, the bargaining team was unable to bargain.

The administration, led by a president with a predilection to outsource bargaining to arbitration processes, balked at the number of demands and refused to negotiate. CUPE 3903, however, had a history of strike successes and welcomed the opportunity to confront the neoliberal logic of the university. There was a sense of invincibility about the local — that if we only waited long enough, the administration would cave.

The union strike slogan — “be realistic, demand the impossible,” a borrowed phrase from the May, 1968 revolt in Paris, France, when a general strike paralyzed the city and threatened to overturn the country — betrayed an arrogance that had developed within CUPE 3903 as a result of its mythologized militant history. While some leading members gleamed with revolutionary ardour, their pretensions to lead the masses showed an alarming disconnect with other sections of the union membership, as well as with the larger public.

A Strike with a Shifting Focus

This strike was one that struggled to find its central issue. As talks stalemated long before the strike began, the union entered the strike with an alarming array of demands still on the table. This became something of a public-relations coup for the administration. The core demands throughout the strike related to job security, wages and graduate-student funding, the indexation of funds to membership growth, and a two-year contract so the union could participate in sector-wide coordinated bargaining in 2010.

In the early weeks, the union couched the strike in terms of a fight for a living wage for graduate students living in poverty. But a monetary strike found little public sympathy in a time when many were losing their jobs, and the union’s monetary demands required a broader political solution that the absence of coalition building made impossible. The union belatedly shifted its rhetorical focus to the precarious nature of academic work where contract faculty needed to reapply regularly for their jobs.

Although the desire for job security resonated with the public, support among key labour allies for CUPE 3903’s specific proposals was only lukewarm. Instead, the union sought to redefine the sector single-handedly.

Within CUPE Ontario there were plans to coordinate various locals bargaining in 2010, and shift the terrain from a battle within a workplace to a provincial struggle surrounding the nature of post-secondary work. Participating in this collective action was the rationale for a two-year deal. This demand was repeatedly and regularly buried beneath demands for immediate gains, with key militant voices balking loudest at prioritizing it. In failing to prioritize participation in coordinated bargaining, CUPE 3903 made its most crucial error.

Sections of CUPE 3903 were motivated by the dream of a general strike. But their self-aggrandizement and disdain for working with other unions effectively undermined the objective conditions that would make such a struggle possible and winnable. While unions must be willing to strike to win, it is also necessary to build coalitions and to coordinate larger collective actions — including not only other universities but also, at least to some degree, professors and students — to redefine how post-secondary education works.

• Click here to read Tyler Shipley’s take of the York University Strike

• Click to read Tyler Shipley’s response to this article

12 comments

• As a rank and file 3903’er I must take issue with some of what Tyler McCreary is claiming here. 

  The first concerns the history of CUPE 3903 bargaining and the details of this round.  The notion that the bargaining team “attempting to balance the concerns of the union’s various constituencies in this round… they proved unwilling or unable to reduce under pressure from the membership. Effectively, the bargaining team was unable to bargain.”  Is simply false.  The BT tried once to bring forward a new set of lowered demands about three weeks into the strike, which was rejected by the membership during a GMM.  I am not sure how this shows the pressure from the membership to reduce demands.  Sure, the GM might have wanted to reduce demands but not in the manner proposed by the BT.  Instead of opening up the discussion to attempt to ascertain where the GM might have wanted to reduce, the next move by some was instead to give the BT free realm to reduce as it saw necessary.

  There are two fundamental problems with this: (1) it goes counter to the operation of 3903 bargaining going back eight years; (2) it legitimated the Admin’s claim that our demands were unreasonable, thus setting us on our course to continue lowering as the Admin recognized that the longer it waited the more 3903 would lower with no movement on their part. 

  The second issue is the idea that the problem with the strike and our inability to come to a negotiated settlement was due to our (3903’s) demands.  This notion was proven wrong four weeks into the strike when 3903 lowered its demands- with no movement by the employer- only to have the employer laugh at us and become more intransigent.  As I outlined above, this fed into the employers intransigence by creating a dynamic where 3903 would lower and the employer would recognize its role in refusing to move which would bring further 3903 reductions until we reached their ‘ballpark’.  This is a horrible strategy for any labor union CA negotiations, particularly once that union has played its trump card and went on strike. 

  From the above, it is clear that the problem did not stem from some vanguard that had captured the overly democratic union local (oxymoronic), but from an employer bent on breaking the union.  Any amount of lowering of demands by 3903 would only feed the intransigence of the employer.  The tactical error was not too much militancy, but in not being militant enough.  I will agree that the connection to other unions and community support could and should have been stronger.  However, this is hard to build up by a social union in a business union world.

  #1. Posted by Brad Bauerly in York University on April 30th 2009 at 3:49pm

• i think that somewhere, folks forgot that they weren’t just talking about their own livelihoods, but for the doomed generations to come.

  with this ‘education’ premiere, we see undergrad tuition slated to go up 20-30% in the next 5 years.

  im already one of those folks who has a massive debt load from my undergrad degree. now im getting more and more in debt. but i did benefit from that tuition freeze, if only for a year or so- until they unfroze the fees.

  so, any lower-middle class shmuck starting an undergrad now doesn’t really stand a chance, especially with dreams of a grad degree. or what about returning students? how do you return when it just keeps getting so expensive? anyways.

  i think 3903 also forgot to point out loudly that whatever we won, york was just going to turn around and parade this victory of ours as their generosity in their funding packages.

  but there’s a loophole, see?

  keep attracting students who NEED those funding packages, and you’re gonna get the very last of the lower classes all concentrated in one place, in one union.

  if this can be strategized around, i think it could change things.

  #2. Posted by Seaflo in York U on May 10th 2009 at 3:09pm

• Tyler McCreary’s Tough Union, Tough Lessons would be a useful contribution to the important post-mortem of a strike ended wrong, if not for the fact that most of the evidence upon which his arguments are premised bears little resemblance whatsoever to the historical record.

  McCreary argues that support from other sections of the labour movement was “lukewarm” and that this was a result of “self-aggrandizement and disdain for working with other unions” among Union leaders. Unfortunately, facts stand in the way of McCreary’s story: CUPE 3903 received well over $100,000 in support from over 125 different labour and community organizations across the country and the world, as documented in the treasurer’s end-of-year report. CUPE 3903 held a demonstration in downtown Toronto protesting the casualization of labour in all sectors in Ontario on Dec. 3, 2008, and dozens of unions and organizations from across the province sent people to bolster our numbers, culminating in a rally of hundreds of people that drew media attention to some of the most crucial issues at the heart of the strike. There are plenty of photographs showing all of the different flags flying in support of our action on that day and at others throughout the strike. Naturally, there is always room for improvement, and if McCreary had joined the efforts of other members to build upon our community support, he would have discovered just how happy the leadership was to give full cooperation with those efforts.

  McCreary goes on to claim that the leadership of the Union “neglected the importance of regular representation of the membership in committees,” a suggestion that eschews even the simplest logic. Every committee in the Union is made up of members and there were upwards of 20 active committees operating in the strike encompassing hundreds of different members in various decision-making capacities. These committees’ responsibilities ranged from managing food and coffee for picketers to internal and external communications to liaising with allies in the labour movement to organizing phone trees and email lists. Among the many examples of members’ contributions to the strike are the brilliant mock-ads created by the video committee and circulated online. Arguably the most important committee in terms of day-to-day direction of the strike was the strike committee, which met nearly every day at staggered times and locations, and which solicited at least two representatives from each picket line – elected by those on the lines that day – and which made most of the significant decisions relating to strike and picket strategy.

  #3. Posted by Chris Webb in Toronto, ON on May 19th 2009 at 12:57pm

• McCreary further suggests that “leading members gleamed with revolutionary ardour…motivated by the dream of a general strike.” While this certainly reflects the mischaracterization offered by York’s administration and parroted by the Right in the Union in their efforts to de-legitimize the leadership, it offers nothing by way of concrete analysis. Indeed, if McCreary himself had spent more time participating in the meetings he claims didn’t happen, he might know that neither “revolution” nor “general strikes” were ever even mentioned. I invite him, as a member with access to the minutes of all meetings, to back up his claim by pointing to the moments where “the dream of a general strike” was inculcated into any of the decisions made during the strike.

  While McCreary produces no shortage of fiery assertions and accusations to level at the leadership of the strike, he provides very little evidence to back up any of his claims. Mistakes were made during the strike, naturally, and a discussion of those mistakes is an important part of planning for future rounds of struggle. After reading McCreary’s piece, it seems clear to me that the post-strike discussions will need to include reflection on the mischaracterizations promoted by the Employer and the mainstream media and repeated uncritically by observers like McCreary.

  While McCreary is not incorrect in noting that the climate and context of the recent CUPE 3903 strike was different from that of 2000-01, he fails to produce any sort of program for how the Union might have responded differently; following McCreary’s argument, presumably, CUPE 3903 should not have gone on strike at all since the climate in Ontario is less conducive to labour struggles at the moment. If that is, indeed, his claim then I can only reply that I, along with the thousands of members who first voted to go on strike and then voted again to remain on strike, disagree with that sort of defeatism.

  Without any evidence to back it up, McCreary claims that 3903 leaders were arrogant vanguardists bent on revolution and out of touch with reality. York’s President Shoukri couldn’t have said it better, though he tried: immediately following the forced ratification vote in which thousands of members rejected the university’s offer, he spoke directly to 3903 members through the media, saying “your Union leaders have misled you… we have nothing left to offer and we will not be returning to the bargaining table.” This is not an uncommon management tactic – does McCreary think Union leaders should have gone against the will of an overwhelming majority of the membership and thrown in the towel? As it happened, the next step for CUPE 3903 was to significantly slash our demands in an effort to bring the strike to an end – hardly the basis for general strike or revolution.

  #4. Posted by Chris Webb in Toronto, ON on May 19th 2009 at 1:01pm

• Reflecting on the successes and failures of the strike is important, provided that the conversation is based upon the realities of CUPE 3903’s experience, rather than the anti-strike rhetoric that emerged in reaction to it. I engage with that discussion in my recent piece Demanding the Impossible: The Future of Struggle in Post-Secondary Education and would encourage Tyler McCreary to reconsider his analysis in light of the facts and contribute in a more productive way to the project of preparing for future rounds of struggle.

  #5. Posted by Chris Webb in Toronto, ON on May 19th 2009 at 1:03pm

• It’s interesting and certainly useful to read interpretations of the internal workings of CUPE 3903 and how this affected the organization, conduct and outcome of the strike. This is a discussion certainly worth having and I won’t pretend to know what is going on within CUPE 3903 since I am not a member.

  What I’m waiting for is, however, anyone to acknowledge the strike’s wider implications for the OUWCC 2010 coordinated bargaining strategy. McCreary, who may or may not be wrong in his assessment of the internal 3903 politics, has at least opened up the question of its wider impact which has yet to be (at least in this thread) challenged.

  We now have a precedent of back-to-work legislation hanging over the 60+ campus-based CUPE-Ontario locals who will go into bargaining in 2010. We now have only one local in the province - CUPE 3903 - with tuition increase protection (TIP), a central demand to the 2010 strategy. Before the 3903 strike, CUPE 4600 at Carleton also had TIP (which covered international students as well, unlike at York), but while in bargaining, the York strike and the subsequent Ottawa transit strike put the employer on the offensive and in the anti-union hysteria whipped up around these two strikes, CUPE 4600 was unable to secure a strike mandate in mid-January to defend TIP. As a result, it was thus forced to accept the elimination of their TIP 2005 index year and its replacement with a “rolling index” which will be cut the take-home pay for half the local this coming September. Every TA in the province would be in a better situation come 2010 if we had two locals, not one, with TIP.

  Some questions need to be answered:
  1) Why did CUPE 3903 make a big push in 2008 instead of 2010 with everyone else?
  2) Did CUPE 3903 consider the implications of a stalemate or defeat on the 2010 bargaining strategy or the other campus-based locals in bargaining at the same time?
  3) Did CUPE 3903 consider the implications of allowing McGuinty to set a precedent for back-to-work legislation only a year before 2010?

  The legacy of 2000-1 has been CUPE 3903’s reputation for militancy and a de facto leadership role in the sector, especially in Ontario. As a result, CUPE 3903’s members, more than any other local in the sector, has to accept that its actions have an impact beyond the boundaries of the York campus or even the GTA.

  #6. Posted by Doug in Peterborough/Ottawa on May 25th 2009 at 12:39pm

• “Before the 3903 strike, CUPE 4600 at Carleton also had TIP (which covered international students as well, unlike at York), but while in bargaining, the York strike and the subsequent Ottawa transit strike put the employer on the offensive and in the anti-union hysteria whipped up around these two strikes, CUPE 4600 was unable to secure a strike mandate in mid-January to defend TIP. “

  This is only one interpretation why 4600 didnt get a strike mandate vote. U of T also got their strike mandate vote and strike vote. Their slogan amounted to, ‘we dont want to strike, but we will if we have to.’ While there was the ATU strike in ottawa being haranged around in the media, 3902 was able to do what you are blaming 3903 for 4600 not being able to do. Doesn’t sound very sound as an analysis of the politics contained.

  and why not interpret it completely differently?

  why not look at it and think, wow, nows the time to strike. If the premier and public sees that its not just some radical, militant, defiant union, but that similar locals doing similar jobs all seem to be saying the same thing? what if 4600 got their strike mandate vote? what if 3902 went out? What if there was actual, mobilized resistance to casualization of labour?

  The LCBO OPSEAU just took a strike vote with 93% of their members in favour. They also cite casualization of labour as a root problem with negotiations; too many part-time positions, and the good jobs are disappearing.

  it sounds like 4600 is just willing to point a finger at a local in another city instead of looking at its own internal dynamics and mobilizations, or lack there of.
  the analysis doesn’t explain the 3902 dissimilarity.

  #7. Posted by flowzies in 3903 station on May 25th 2009 at 1:08pm

• Where to begin?

  In 2006, the Carleton TAs voted over 90 percent in favour of a strike and forced the employer to back down over demands to hold down wages and change the TIP index year. This past year, 4600’s bargaining happened in an entirely different context. As I made clear, the combination of the 3903 and transit strikes had a very negative impact on the confidence of Carleton’s TAs (many of whom were not around in 2006). So did the overall economic climate. Despite a record turnout at the strike vote and the largest union meetings in recent memory, the strike mandated was defeated 52-48 percent. This happened in spite of months of mobilization and a solid weeks-long “yes vote” campaign that carried slogans and arguments like 3902’s (in fact, 4600 was happily lifting and adapting 3902’s arguments to the Carleton context). But, if you had been on the ground like me in this campaign, you’d have heard “York, York, York” over and over again when talking with TAs and other students about why a yes vote was necessary to avoid a strike. After the vote was narrowly lost, one of the co-presidents put things quite nicely: “it was the perfect storm” - a perfect storm for the employer to press hard for concessions. CUPE 3903’s strike was a critical part of this perfect storm and any perceived undue emphasis I may be putting on the strike for 4600’s serious defeat is simply because it needs to be brought to the attention of 3903 members that what happens at York has a real impact elsewhere.

  Pointing out this impact is simply an acknowledgement of reality, not pointing the finger. Of course, I’m sure 3903 members (and 4600 members) would be quite favourable to the interpretation that the Carleton admin’s capitulation to 4600’s demand for tuition increase protection in 2001 was a direct result of 3903’s victorious strike that ended only days earlier. That said, the whole point of what I’m trying to say is that it appears to me that the CUPE 3903 strike, fought for all the right reasons, was not fought at the right time or with sufficient consideration of other locals in bargaining or the 2010 bargaining strategy (just to toss it out there, was there any consideration about the Queen’s TA unionization drive?).

  cont’d next…

  #8. Posted by Doug in Peterborough/Ottawa on May 25th 2009 at 2:05pm

• ...cont’d

  I also like what-ifs, so let’s consider what would have happened if a sense of strategic reasoning dominated 3903’s bargaining strategy and the local held the line on everything for a two year contract, perhaps putting a controversial demand on the table as a bluff to withdraw at the last minute in order to secure a two-year contract ending in 2010 with the other 60+ campus CUPE locals. What if CUPE 3903 did this, avoided a strike, avoided the possibility of allowing McGuinty to set the precedent of legislating campus unions back to work, and then went with a big push in 2010 with everyone else, perhaps using 2008-9 to support other locals in bargaining and other TAs trying to unionize? What if the avoidance of a strike made things at Carleton that much different so the Carleton employers weren’t as confident to push concessions, and Carleton’s TAs were a little more confident in themselves because although the transit strike was rough they weren’t also grappling with the reality of the strongest TA local in the province engaged in a bitter strike seemingly without end and no obvious victory in sight? What if we were going in to 2010 with two locals, not one, with TIP, ensuring that all other TAs in the province (including my local, CUPE 3908) had slightly more hope in achieving TIP without back-to-work legislation looming over them and the legacy of the Carleton and York defeats lingering in their minds?

  There are no doubt criticisms to be made of the 4600 mobilization strategy, but that’s not what we’re discussing, are we? I asked three questions in my previous post and I think until someone tries to formulate a response to them, this discussion will be dominated by defensiveness and diversions.

  #9. Posted by Doug in Peterborough/Ottawa on May 25th 2009 at 2:06pm

• Some questions need to be answered:
  1) Why did CUPE 3903 make a big push in 2008 instead of 2010 with everyone
  else?
  First, you are going to have to define what you mean by a ‘big push’ and tell us why you think 3903 was making a ‘big push’.  I think this will open up a large debate and it will not be quite as clear as most of the mainstream media and York’s admin portray it.

  2) Did CUPE 3903 consider the implications of a stalemate or defeat on the
  2010 bargaining strategy or the other campus-based locals in bargaining at
  the same time?
  Of course we did.  In fact it was our push for 2010 that more than likely led to the back-to-work legislation.  Should we have caved into concessions?  Wouldn’t that have been a defeat and set everyone else up for the same in 2010?

  3) Did CUPE 3903 consider the implications of allowing McGuinty to set a
  precedent for back-to-work legislation only a year before 2010?
  Yes.  Have you considered that this was one of the goals of the York administration and the McGuinty government?  The utter lack of negotiations before and during the strike by the admin and their very poor offers should convince anyone of their hidden ‘ace in the hole’ back-to-work card.  This brings us back to question #2, would a defeat or a very poor contract have aided 2010?  You need to not only view the symbolism of the outcome of the 3903 strike as the result of 3903 but also as a strategy of York and McGuinty going into 2010.  Weakening 3903 was thier way to preempt 2010 and we were damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

  #10. Posted by Joe in York on May 25th 2009 at 3:06pm

• Briefly, Doug, thanks for your contribution to this discussion.  I’ve read your comments on the other string as well, and while I sympathize with your concern over the fate of the 2010 round of bargaining, I think you are still accepting McCreary’s suggestion that CUPE 3903 did not prioritize the 2010 expiry date, which is simply false.

  These discussions are only useful if based in some semblence of reality - the reality is that York adamently and absolutely refused to agree to a two-year contract for our local (to expire in 2010), which is in fact part of the reason we ‘chose’ 2008 for a ‘big push.’  See, I would argue that we didn’t ‘choose’ it at all.  If, in September, the Employer had offered a contract that was less-than-satisfactory but that expired in 2010 I think it would have been quite likely that the membership would have accepted it and focused its attention on 2010.

  But York refused, knowing full-well that 3903 participation in the 2010 round would be an important factor.  The province, naturally, knew this too.  As such, if we had not ‘pushed’ this time around, we would have had no chance of landing a two-year contract.  This was a major consideration when the local voted to go on strike, and it remained central to our bargaining priorities.  The fact that we were legislated back to work may, in fact, be a result of our refusal to drop the demand for a two-year contract (though my personal opinion is that it didn’t matter what we did at the table, the Employer’s strategy did not seem to involve bargaining with the Union at any point.)

  It is worth emphasizing that the demand for a two-year contract was actually never taken off the table, even in the last desperate days of the strike.  The 2010 expiry date was affirmed by the membership at a GMM in October and remained on the table as one of the ‘priorities’ throughout.  By the end of the strike, we had removed our wage demands entirely, we had drastically reduced our other monetary demands, and our entire proposal package had been cut back to the bare minimum: even then, it still insisted upon a two-year contract.

  How this amounts to “failing to prioritize participation in coordinated bargaining” is something only Tyler McCreary can explain, since he is the one who made the statement.  In light of the above, it seems to me a patently absurd and outlandish claim, which I hope explains my negligence in failing to respond directly to that point in my initial rejoinder.

  Very sincerely,
  Tyler Shipley
  CUPE 3903

  #11. Posted by Tyler Shipley in Toronto, ON on May 31st 2009 at 1:45pm

• Hi Tyler,
  Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

  I guess the task now is pretty obvious - laying the groundwork for 2010 through educating and mobilizing union members, as well as maintaining and expanding links into the broader student community and organized labour. Here’s hoping Ontario’s university workers are ready to get what’s rightfully there’s.

  #12. Posted by Doug in Ottawa/Peterborough on June 17th 2009 at 8:45am

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