YUFA
News
March 1997 YUFA On the Picket Lines
by Louise Ripley, Communications Officer
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20 Mar 07 - In March of 1997, the York University Faculty Association, representing faculty and librarians at the third largest university in Canada, went on strike over issues of governance and money, but mainly we went on strike because in August of 1996, while both sides were still at the bargaining table, the Employer had unilaterally stripped the current Collective Agreement of its articles dealing with retirement, the most contentious item on the table that year. The strike would last for fifty-five days, during one of the coldest springs in Toronto’s history, setting the record for the second longest strike in the history of Canadian educational institutions, exceeded only by the 1976 faculty strike at Laval University in Quebec City.
In order to collect strike pay, YUFA Union members were required to serve duty on the picket lines, as able, for four hours per day. Those physically unable to walk found other duties in Strike Headquarters and in the many other necessary tasks that arise during a strike. Already somewhat accustomed to electronic communication in the early forms of e-mail, many of us hungered for a way to be in communication with each other while away from the picket lines, a way not only to disseminate information but to discuss it among ourselves, a way to raise and resolve issues, a way to rally our spirits and encourage each other when we felt down, a way to share our stories from the picket lines, a way for Union members at eight separate gates into the University to be in closer contact. The YUFA Executive Committee requested a listserv to be set up, named YUFA-L, the York University Faculty Association Listserv. This was an unmoderated e-mail distribution list with voluntary membership. At the height of the strike, we frequently were receiving more than four hundred e-mails per day.
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In remembrance of the 1997 Strike, and particularly in honour of the voice that the Strike gave back to many of us, I am, as your Communications Officer, going to experiment with bringing back a version of Active Voice, a place where Union members can write to express their opinions about union-related events on campus, online.
Before I gather an editorial board and commit other people’s time, I need to know that there is some interest in this, so the “First Edition” will be experimental, with one theme and one editor, me.
So, on this tenth anniversary of one of the transformative experiences at York University and in YUFA, send me (at lripley@yorku.ca) a few words about the 1997 Strike – a note perhaps about your happiest memories or your fiercest angers, a philosophical note about how far we have (or haven’t) come in the ten years since we walked the picket lines in the coldest spring in 80 years, or even a note about how it’s high time we stopped ruminating on things that happened a decade ago and got on with our lives. I’ll put them together into a web page and post them online.
For now, I’m planning on calling it “Active Voice Reactivated.” If you’ve got any bright ideas for an updated name, send those along too, to lripley@yorku.ca.