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Aggressive Behaviour on Picket Lines at York University (Video)
It's bound to happen. When you have striking CUPE 3903 members blocking roads, and people determined to travel down those York University roads, eventually there's going to be aggression displayed.
Yesterday, this video, taken by an undergraduates student and self-declared union supporter, was posted to Youtube. The driver appears to be calm, but clearly isn't into the idea of having his progress held up, stopping just short of hitting a resistant picketer hard enough to cause injury.
This kind of incident makes me wonder... where is the line to be drawn between workers' rights to peaceful (and mildly disruptive) protest, and the rights of the public to be relatively unaffected by said protests?
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It continues to amaze me that unions adopt protest measures designed to disrupt and disadvantage the public... and then express shock and dismay that the public is not on their side.
If a union's beef is with the administration, that union should target members of that administration, not thousands of individuals who have no stake in the dispute.
I completely disagree with the picket lines obstructing traffic and peoples day to day lives. They are already screwing over the students, why must they bring the whole general public down.
I feel bad for the York community, most of all the students who get screwed over by this. Unfortunately for them and I suppose the student union the contract negotiation came up at a bad time for wanting more money and benefits.
And the person he almost hit literally walked in front of the moving vehicle. They are asking for this sort of thing to happen, and the only ones to blame are themselves. (the picketers)
And your private dispute does not trump the rights of the public.
Breanna, keep in mind that the majority of people in the Union ARE ALSO students. They, too, have had their semesters all fucked up because of the strike. The "whole general public" isn't being brought down. I personally haven't been anywhere near the campus and as such haven't been personally affected at all. As a worker, the only card you have to hold against your employer is yourself. Strikes are never taken lightly.
The school administration is refusing to negotiate with the Union, instead offering them a deal and flat out saying "This isn't our best offer". Reason being that they won't actually LOSE money until the following semester starts. Everyone is blaming the union because their semesters are fucked up, but few people choose to wonder why the school itself has canceled classes, or why the school hasn't given students a break on tuition payments. What the school is doing is trying to break the union, and while I'm glad to see that the union is standing up for itself, it's sad to see the school purposely prolong the strike just because the administration isn't actually suffering any effects from it.
The strike will go on until 2009, at which point the school will almost certainly put forth a reasonable deal that allows the TAs, GAs and contract faculty to not starve due to piss poor wages and benefits. Why? Because at that point the administration will actually have something to lose (re: money money). The CUPE 3903 communications team is doing a piss poor job at handling the union's communication with the public (4 separate blogs last I counted, not one of them linking to the other), which in turn gives the University administration free reign to feed major news outlets whatever info they please.
Like it or not, we live in a socialist society. If we didn't, we wouldn't have free health care and subsidized schooling (how much does it cost to go to a US university again, on average? Oh yeah, ADD A ZERO to what students pay here). People hate cops until they need one, and they hate unions until they're in one and see first-hand exactly what goes on.
No they don't. That's the point. The union does not have the authority to impose such conditions on the public.
"any responsible HUMAN BEING wouldn't try to run someone over." "you don't have to run someone over to show your frustration"
Were you watching a different video? Nobody was run over.
"The school administration is refusing to negotiate with the Union, instead offering them a deal and flat out saying 'This isn't our best offer'"
That IS negotiating.
"People hate cops until they need one, and they hate unions until they're in one and see first-hand exactly what goes on."
People IN unions continue to hate all other unions except their own.
I'll tell you this much: disrupt my day and I'll disrupt yours.
Perhaps if you don't want to get hit by a car, don't stand in front of it.
It's really not acceptable to disrupt students' studies with strikes, and not a very flattering reflection on Canada.
Any HUMAN BEING would get out of the way of two thousand pounds of metal coming in their direction. That is unless the extra $1 an hour or whatever the union is asking for is THAT important to you.
You have a large misunderstanding of US school tuition fee structure. Look it up sometime, knowledge is power.
And no we don't have "free" healthcare, we have universal healthcare. We all pay for it.
Always nice to see people openly admitting sociopathy. Annoy me? I'll happily maim you, because other people's lives matter far less than my convenience.
Anyway, striking workers do, in fact have a right to picket that does extend to blocking traffic briefly. Think about it -- if they didn't, York would call in the dogs and have the picketers hauled off. The idea is that the purpose of the picket is essentially to afford an opportunity to inform third parties of the existence of a labour dispute generally, as well as the issues involved, and affords an attempt to persuade.
Then why do so many such protests end in a court-ordered injunction against the union? You're neglecting to mention that any member of the public also has the right under law to cross a picket line without fear of threats or reprisals.
"...the purpose of the picket is essentially to afford an opportunity to inform third parties of the existence of a labour dispute generally, as well as the issues involved, and affords an attempt to persuade."
How's that working for ya?
Are courses cancelled and money forfeit?
Do the students get ANY recourse at all from this?
Here lies the difference, and the danger with choosing to actively disrupt others people's lives. You may get hurt in the process. If you're not willing to live with the consequences of you actions, then you should choose to act differently.
Right, the idea of a picket line is to inform those crossing of the union's agenda to stop the strike - safely. However, as a person who's driven through many of these lines, most union members aren't very polite sharing their information to the general public. Shoving traffic cones and banging on car windows to get your attention isn't going to give me sympathy towards your cause. And if I chose not to listen I'd usually be bombarded with curse words, middle fingers and the occasional hoof to my car door.
I'm not saying what the jackass in the video did was right. Driving aggressively into anyone isn't cool. But when you harass 10, 50, 100 people from getting where they want to go I guarantee one is going to lose his/her shit. So be ready.
Clearly picket lines are more annoying than profitable, which most of these comments prove.
If these students with too much time on their hands want to make a difference and help the union, they should really think first. I doubt this is a very effective method.
2) This guy was clearly not interested in stopping to listen to what the picketers had to say. If I'm walking down the street and a group is protesting on the corner and handing out propaganda, I can - and almost always do - simply walk on by without stopping to listen. Why should a private citizen's right to avoid propaganda be different just because s/he is behind the wheel of a car??
I hope the resolution to this situation brings clear and positive change because the only thing that happened in 2001 was that quality of my undergrad education was severely degraded. I still paid a lot of money for school that year and worked 2 jobs to keep myself fed.
The Union could operate without being so militant.
You may as well post a story about protests outside abortion clinics.
HOWEVER...
The York University administration is being unreasonable, and willingly flaunting their ability to control by locking out all students and crying, "the union made us do it." The university administration is not interested in the welfare of the students, or of their employees. They view this sad situation as a war game, and they have to "win" at any cost.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that, on an hourly basis for the work performed, TAs, GAs, and especially sessional instructors (who earn less than the other two groups on an hourly basis), earn LESS THAN fast-food servers, or warehouse workers, or call centre workers. Now, for those who would say, "why do that work?" the answer is simple. For those earning an advanced degree, the TA or GA is, in practical terms, the only reasonable work to be done. For those interested in becoming professors, having that teaching experience is mandatory. And, once one acquires a PhD, especially in humanities, and often in social sciences, the sessional job is the only one available for several years before being able to win an assistant professorship somewhere. It's often called "paying one's dues."
Yes, many union members are angry and frustrated. But they are angry and frustrated at an intransigent administration who doesn't give a sh*t about its students, and works very hard to damage York's reputation at every turn. The administration is living in a bygone era in which employers believe that they have to exercise complete control over their workers, even when the workers are capable of intelligent dialogue and joint problem resolution.
I'm sure many would agree that both the union and the York administration are at fault.
But it's the union which chooses to confront the public.
And it's the union which shouldn't be surprised when the public pushes back.
If this was the case, then they would also be talking to people who just walk onto campus. I've been up twice since the strike started, to go to Seneca@York, and in neither case has any picketer attempted to inform, persuade, or even talk to me. It's obvious that they are blocking cars to cause disruption and frustration, information is at best a tertiary effect.
I guess they don't want people to think this strike is unfair...
Someone stabs you with a pencil, you get angry, then they turn around with absolute shock on their face and say:
"Wow, you are ONE angry person!"
Oh please, spare me that old crutch. That's about as outdated a notion as "Toronto is so clean it doesn't have graffiti" or "the TTC is one of the best subways in North America." Please go back to 1984 and enjoy the sesquicentennial until you pull your head out of your ass.
2008 tuition at a typical US public university: $6,585
2008 tuition at York: $5,524 - $7,800
Source: http://tinyurl.com/5cc895
As for private universities, sure, tuition at Princeton will run you $33,000. But Princeton and its like have no student loans, only grants and on-campus jobs, and it is entirely need-based. Students without means do not pay and graduate owing nothing. So the argument is a little more complex than just "add a zero".
My point is not to start a US vs Canada rant, but simply to state that tuition differences are clearly not the reason why Canada has so many problems with college strikes. Something in the union culture or public tolerance for strikes is different, and the students are paying for it.
Nowadays we have striking nurses, police, municipal workers and teachers hurting just about everybody except the people or institutions they had beef with. The pressure applied is only indirect and frankly it's a neanderthal way of solving problems. I just hope the seniors get to graduate instead of spending time and money on yet another semester (spring) at York - who needs THAT?
The injunctions mentioned above have been issued by courts in precisely those cirucmstances when pickets were -- on the facts of the particular case -- deemed unreasonable. In the recent CAW picket of a GM building in Oshawa, for example, the issue was there there was not actually an associated strike (i.e. it was a labour protest, not a picket arising from a legal strike or lockout). If the facts of this instance were such as to support an injunction, I guarantee you York would seek and be granted one. But they aren't -- because this is a standard picket.
As for the comment above excusing the driver for bumping into the striker with no more force than might have been used in a hand-to-hand confrontation... guess what, that's *assault*. Which is criminal. No one should be assaulting anyone, strike or not, not with their hands and especially not with their vehicles. The notion that assualt-by-car is excusable by analogy to a shoving match is a non-starter with me, as I hope it would be with anyone else concerned with acting ethically.
Any atomistic conception of "society" that relies on the idea of fundamentally self-sufficient individuals is inherently contradictory. "No [wo]man is an Island", right? Or are you the exception? I'd be very interested to hear how you've (or anyone's) made it to this point in life without relying for a moment on anyone else's assistance or goodwill. Reject this as foolish idealism, I don't mind, but the mere fact that values like solidarity don't resonate for you personally hardly renders them illegitimate. In the absence of interdependent individuals, there's no society to speak of.
If the individual managerial office-holders that constitute an employer can choose abandon self-sufficiency in favour of a unified corporate identity, why is it illegitimate for non-managerial employees to do the same?
princeton for a year as a residential student-
$49,190
http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/cost/
suny albany (typical urban state school) for a year as an IN STATE residential student:
$24,910
http://www.albany.edu/financialaid/costsug_ny0809.shtml
canadian tuition remains SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER than american.
They have solidarity among the union but they clearly don't have it among "society".
Does your definition of society allow me to impose on you for my exclusive gain? Mine does not.
Are you serious? Sorry, but the notion that everybody else has had a hand-out or up for that matter is naive at best.
Actually, Greg, injunctions against picket lines in Ontario are routinely issued upon evidence of any of the following three circumstances:
1) Picketers trespassing on private property.
2) Picket lines obstructing access to a place of business.
3) Picketers' actions leading directly or indirectly to endangerment of the public or of the picketers.
I don't know if #1 applies here.
It's easy to prove #2. Even though the picketers delay each car by only two minutes (considered insignificant by the court), by doing so they cause a traffic jam resulting in an average delay that is much longer.
#3 definitely applies, and thanks to the poster we have video proof of it.
York admin can now apply for an ex parte injunction, or save themselves the lawyers' fees and allow the union to continue to look bad in the eyes of the public.
Even excluding family (an obvious, 'non-self' source from which even the worst-treated children get considerable help), it's trivial to show how everyone in our society benefits from mutual assistance every day. Paid for all those roads, sidewalks, hospitals and sewers yourself, did you? Somehow self-funded your primary and secondary education (not just your own 'share' of operating costs, but also the capital cost of buildings, equipment, etc.)? Never purchased any good or service subsidized either by the public at large or by other buyers (e.g. electricity)?
All of these things disprove the myth of atomistic self-reliance. Characterizing normal social interdependence as a "hand-out" or "hand-up" was your move, not mine. I'm responding to the idea that "everyone else" [other than union members] is "self-sufficient". The assumption that because someone's never been on welfare or benefited from some other more obviously value-laden form of social assistance means they've been a lifelong "self-sufficient" agent is a lot more naive than acceptance of the reality that societies such as ours are constructed almost entirely out of mutual interdependence -- economic, social, political, whatever.
@ Mike: you pulled the word solidarity from my argument demonstrating social interdependence. floater claims society is composed essentially of self-sufficient individuals, and I disagree. Given this interdependence, it's inevitable that one group's attempt to secure a gain will "impose" on someone else. In this case, absolutely, you're right, the strike does impose on students. But again, given interdependence, any gain the union might secure is not "exclusive" to the extent that it has impact beyond CUPE 3903.
Real (not perpetually contract) jobs for more faculty would improve student experience in the classroom, for example, as instructors with greater job security can rationally invest more time improving the courses they teach now -- because they know they'll be teaching them again. TAs who can afford to live on their TAship pay without a second or third job will be able to do a better job marking papers, prepping for seminars, etc., than if they're doing so after another late-night shift in front of a deep-fryer. They'll also be able to learn more in their own studies, write better grant applications (attracting funding from outside the university, freeing up more money for other uses on campus) and, eventually, be better profs (or whatever else they end up doing for a living after graduation) themselves, etc. Nevermind the simplest example of non-exclusivity of benefit here, which is that plenty of people not currently in CUPE 3903 stand to benefit from improvements when they're grad students or contract faculty at York themselves.
If your union strikes at the widget factory it blocks access to the widget factor, not to the whole fucking neighbourhood.
This strike holds back students from getting their credits, graduating on time, taking previously booked vacations, working summer jobs, applying to a Masters, PhD, law school/med school etc. and VARIOUS other personal issues.
My friends are international students and on scholarship. They literally cannot stay in school longer than April and have to return home. What about them?
If the Union has issues with the admin, why don't they go piss off the admin? How about they go picket around their offices?
I'm a York student, and while this doesn't affect me too much, it affects a lot of my friends. If the TAs don't like their conditions of employment then quit and find another job. I had to work full time in a crap shop for dick all money to support my Masters degree as well as being a fulltime postgrad so I have absolutely NO sympathy for these idiots. And I'm a socialist so that should tell you how annoyed I am.
Will you tell the students that this is good for them in the long run? Will you tell the international students their term wasn't forfieted for nothing?
Will you ask the union workers to make sure they make it up to the students?
I want the picketers to really explain what the students are to them. What their purpose is in this conflict the union has brought down on them, in which they have NO input.
BTW, do you believe in Trickle down economics? Tax cuts for corporations, hoping they will pass on their prosperity to others? Big corportations, like oil and pharmacetucals companies.
The question you asked -- "I'd be very interested to hear how you've (or anyone's) made it to this point in life without relying for a moment on anyone else's assistance or goodwill -- has nothing at all to do with public tax/infrastructure. Not sure what your point is there.
Since you asked though, family, made 0 contribution to my 'life' aside from producing a baby. I worked and paid for my own tuition each year of an 8 year program. (McDonald's thank you very much). I've worked hard and smart for the last 15 years of my career and obviously don't fall into your very narrowed scope of what you feel 'life' is.
I've started out at 18,000/year CONTRACT and now I reside as the director of dept. Didn't rely on a union or 'solidarity' and certainty didn't 'expect' that I was entitled to anything.
You're right in your assertion that 'there is an incredible lack of empathy.' Most of us don't work under unions, don't want to work under a union, don't see a need for unions, and only witness the inconvenience striking unions cause in situations such as this. I don't think appealing to people to put themselves in a hypothetical situation ('some of you may be grad students one day; or workers in another field that is facing similar issues') is going to change this. The lack of empathy is one key reason a substantial percentage of Canadians don't vote; there too, politicians can try to appeal to non-voters with hypothetical 'imagine if...' scenarios until they're blue in the face, but it's probably not going to be a game-changing argument.
Until someone can give me a good reason that justifies why, I can not in good consciousness have empathy for the picketers.
isn't it illegal for the protester to form ANY kind of barriers, be it human or material?! The rules set by CUPE, i believe. GET BACK TO WORK, LAZY PEOPLE! OTHERS DON'T/CAN'T EVEN WORK ... not happy? QUIT!
<<<http://www.yorku.ca/ylife/index.asp?Article=761>;>>
Picketers are not legally permitted to:
* blockade entrances to the University;
* use force, threats or threatening gestures;
* construct physical barriers to block access to the University;
* engage in unlawful behaviour.