28 Comments

• -2 Smurf 2.0 says:

  5% of strike votes actually go to strike? Like York, LTC, Vale Inco? Not building a good name for yourself by using the THREAT of strike as a bargaining chip… Isn’t that blackmail in other legal circles? You know, threatening someone to get what you want.

• your mom. says:

  You don’t think UWOFA and UWOSA might have used a whoooooole lot of other tactics before threatening a strike? What do you think they’ve been doing during full DAYS of negotiations? Just repeating “STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE” at the top of their lungs with their fingers in their ears?

  I mean I understand that a strike’s going to be a seriously frustrating thing and that it sucks that students have to be used as pawns during all of this… but the negotiation process is MUCH more complicated than just threats, which is why it doesn’t count as anything even remotely similar to blackmail.

• Pam-Marie says:

  I think what needs to happen is the administration needs to give students (aka the people who are paying for an education at Western) a list of contingency plans if the strike happens and lasts for 2 weeks or a month or several months. We need and deserve to know what will happen in regards to the term, the year, and our degrees should a strike occur and last for a decent amount of time. In the past few years a large number of strikes have actually occurred, more than had actually been seen in the past, and the rhetoric being used to prevent panic is, at best, slightly unrealistic. I don’t want to be reassured. I want to know what the administration has planned should the worst happen. I’m surprised the Gazette, as the voice of the students, hasn’t made a point of finding out all of this and holding the administration accountable to us, the students.

• DAD from BC says:

  I feel threaten by the threatening tactics used by any Union as I sent my child all the way from BC considering to provide Good Education in a Good University. If there will be any damage to our kids – especially from BC – We assure that UWO will never get any student from West as we will act to fast to save our kids’s education.

• Stuart A. Thompson says:

  Western will only say they are committed to negotiating a fair settlement. Unlike the transit strike, Western can do little other than continue negotiating if a strike is called. Western won’t comment on speculations about months into the future regarding what will happen to our terms. It’s frustrating, but that’s the way strikes go. The Gazette is not only the voice of students, but editors and volunteers are students too, so we are very invested in this issue.

• ALUMNI and PARENT says:

  As a supportive alumna, I have been happy to contribute financially over the years as well as extol the virtues of Western to anyone who will listen, including my high school students. As a parent, I am willingly paying for my son to complete his first degree at my former university. However, if a strike ensues, my pride and support in Western will suffer a breach. No longer will I be able to condescendingly shake my head at the likes of York, which caused undeserved academic and financial losses to their students. Western should understand that there will an outcry if a strike occurs, and there are insufficient contingency plans put in place to ensure that students do not lose their school year. If nothing else, I am sure Western will care that alumni will withdraw financial support–and I am sure that alumni with much greater resources than myself will reconsider their donations.

• PMA says:

  This article doesn’t mention the Professional and Managerial Association. This group isn’t unionized and will not be involved in strike action. PMA represents hundreds of employees at Western.

• Support UWOSA and UWOFA says:

  UWOSA and UWOFA members are dedicated to providing “the best student experience” to Western’s students. Please do not feel threatened by the strike votes. These unions are not trying to scare you but have been forced into this position by the university administration who have been dragging their heels in negotiations with its staff and faculty amongst other things (see the UWOSA and UWOFA websites for details). If you are concerned about how a strike will effect your child’s education then place a call to university administration and demand that they free up more dates for negotiations and that they bargain fairly with their faculty and staff.

• +1 Supportive Grad Student says:

  Shame on all of you who are placing blame on the professors during this time of uncertainty.

  Across the country, Western has a reputation as having a very hard-working faculty. The professors work extremely hard to publish, attend conferences and contribute substantively to their discipline. Most of these professors also teach full course loads. Students directly benefit from having classes taught by tenure and tenure-track professors who are in the midst of contributing strong research while providing support and mentoring to their students. While I agree that professors shouldn’t necessarily be “thanked” for this, as it is their job, but there needs to be a recognition that Western’s faculty is dismally paid when compared with other institutions. In many cases, tenure-track professors who work 100 hour work weeks between their teaching, research and committee obligations will only make $50,000. Considering their education, their researching accomplishments and success in teaching, it is shocking that any person would begrudge these talented faculty members job security and decent pay for their expertise.
  Western has the reputation of providing an excellent education because of these members and they deserve our support, not our snide, in the event that a strike does occur.

• +1 Supportive Under Grad says:

  The poster “Supportive Grad Student” is totally correct. Profs don’t have a cushy job where they spend just a few hours a week in class. Most of my profs are here by 8:30 and leave after 5:30, and they still take loads of work home. After 10+ years of undergrad they are making peanuts.

  But the primary issue between the profs and Western ain’t about pay. It’s about performance evaluation. Currently, profs are peer reviewed; that is, they are reviewed by individuals (such as chairs and heads) in their own department. The university wants to have a central performance evaluation committee. I mean, how is someone who knows nothing about physics going to be able to evaluate the performance of a physics prof in teaching, research and service? How is someone from outside the physics department supposed to know what it’s like to teach physics? Also, peer review is the norm in academia and is how research gets published in every journal. It’s only right that only someone who knows what you do and knows enough about your discpline should be reviewing you.

• -5 M says:

  (click to show comment)

  Dear Professors,

  We, the undergraduate students, do not sympathize with you. However, we fully support you going on strike. We could use a break – trying ace your courses to get into medical school is tough. Please go on strike for at least 2 weeks, but preferrably a month.

  Thanks,

  – Undergraduate student

• +2 UWO Prof says:

  For those who are contemplating grad school or becoming a prof, be absolutely sure you know what you’re in for. Most PhD graduates will be UNsuccessful in getting tenure-track positions. Many will end up as sessional lecturers (part-time contract faculty) that make the equivalent of minimum wage. These articles say it all:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/04/highereducation.postgraduate

  http://www.universityaffairs.ca/phd-to-what-end.aspx

• +1 Student X says:

  This is so inconvenient for fourth year students applying to programs next year. Selfish. Do this in the summer months. This is going to hurt Western’s image.

• +1 Me says:

  So much for the best student experience! The profs are good and I support them, not the high-paid execs.

• -1 Me says:

  Rumour is administration wants both faculty and staff to strike because it’d save a s***load of cash by not having to pay them!

• -2 UWO student says:

  Seriously even if the strike does happen students can read ahead and do work on their own so when the strike is over if it ever happens they would be on track as if nothing ever happened. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen though!!

• O.K says:

  Your sadly mistaken smurf 2.0,that is referred to as extortion.

• gazette reader says:

  Anyone got updates about the strike?

• HB says:

  Agreed.

• Sean says:

  I’m definitely glad I go to King’s, since for the most part, King’s students won’t have to worry about classes being canceled. However, as for the strike none the less, I think it’s a case that they have to do what they need to. The same goes with doctors, and many other types of jobs. But I still think it’s being irresponsible to students, because they paid for their education and should be getting it. Look what happened to York, and how much that “provided the best student experience”. That may be Western’s motto now, but it won’t be able to use that motto if this strike happens.

• +1 M says:

  Strike votes are almost always passed by a union’s membership because otherwise the union’s bargaining committee is placed in a seriously weakened position. If the strike vote doesn’t pass, the union essentially has nothing to bargain with besides saying “please.”

• A.R says:

  Then they would be morons.

• +1 lamo says:

  your both dumb. Trying ace your courses? English first, then med school

• ... says:

  You’re**

• Alex says:

  Hahaha, lamo rolled himself. Amazing.

• +1 BioStudent says:

  I’m a Western student currently pursuing my second degree in my second year of Biology. I did my first degree at York and I was in that graduating group last year when the strike happened and dragged on for 3 months. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to set my schedule to graduate on time and pursue further education only to have a university administration and a union decide its worth compromising student’s education and money to keep their independent long-term goals intact long after I’m gone. I let myself naively believe that only my former school would irresponsibly sit behind closed doors and wait three months until the storm was over to actually solve the problem. But I hold my present university in higher regard. Last year I had applied to Western along with five other universities to continue my education however I lost $1600.00 and chances to gain a spot at 4 out of 6 post-secondary programs just because York delayed their academic year and other personal factors. Did I receive any compensation for having to lose my chances? No. Did I receive any money for having to drop two math courses, which I worked two jobs simultaneously to pay for, for fear of having to come back and write exams on a whim and further hurt my academic career? No. I completed my credit requirements in summer school with flying stars and accepted Western having not been eligible for the rest of my programs because of the strike. These universities have become more of a corporation over time where two parties fight it out and all the people sit on the sidelines until its over no matter what the cost. I think of myself as an individual with sound thinking and fair judgment however I am the product of my experiences and my experience has taught me being an average student and working two jobs to gain an education is not something anyone should take away from you. My experience has taught me no union should resort to a strike as a bargaining tool especially when countless others will be affected and equally no university administration should fail to try to resolve labour issues especially when million dollar buildings go up through generous donations and student money every year. My experience has taught me that ultimately, most educational institutions across Canada have joined the median where they are blinded by the prestige of there “international” reputations too much to care for the quality of the education they provide their students. Having said that I hold Western in high regard and I chose Western because I do not designate it to be part of that low median yet and I hope when I walk out of Western I can hold my head up and say, “finally a university where I felt like gaining my education was worth every penny.” because so far between me and a younger brother at another “prestigious” university none except for Western has held that place. I do implore both sides to resolve their issues and close this chapter in the book quickly otherwise they will leave a dirty page in the lives of many undergraduate and graduate students that we won’t forget.

• +3 unimpressed says:

  The previous poster’s so correct about the corporatization of universities. The administration considers us as clients, not students, and talks about the retention rate and the product. Each client (student) brings in a “per unit” revenue. Everything at Western is about the university making money. For example, I am a science student and not only do I have to buy textbooks, I also have to buy lab manuals which are $50-$75 for a few pages of stapled paper. My science friends at McMaster and other prestigious universiites get all that for free because their profs are allowed to post lab manuals for students to download. I guess we all have to pay for the Western “country club.”

• +3 Brent Duncan says:

  I wouldn’t say that we don’t sympathize with them. I know a great deal of students who fully support the profs. If they lose, some of our education (arguably) could be at risk. One of the talking points is essentially (though not exactly) freedom to teach and research what they like.

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