CUPE Local 3903 Strike Vote

Teaching assistants and contract instructors at York University have voted 86 per cent in favour of giving their union a strike mandate.

The instructors say they are being asked to teach more than double the amount of classes as regular professors, and that they don't know which classes they will teach each semester until one month before the school starts. They are asking for better job security.

The teaching assistants, graduate students who help professors with marking and sometimes teach classes, are asking for better pay.

The strike mandate doesn't mean instructors and teaching assistants will necessarily go on strike, but it gives the union the ability to walk off the job with 72 hours' notice if they are unable to negotiate a better deal with the school.

quoted from The Star