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EDITORIAL
D E C E M B E R
SOLIDARITY
Despite the diversity of thoughts and opinions that exist in our university’s population, it is a time for us to join together and stand up for one cause, one we fight for everyday - to maintain our livelihood - the fight that many people in this world have not the resources or the access to do. The struggles here, those of CUPE 3903, are part of a worldwide struggle for labour equity for all persons.
We are all labourers and we all reap the benefits of labour in some way or another. Labour is unavoidable, whether we are performing paid work, typing an email, moving from one location to another, researching for a course paper, and so on- we all have to do some form of
labour to continue with our daily activities. Most of us are workers. We have jobs in order to sustain ourselves, feed our families, pay for school and the things we need or want. The current global economic crisis is putting a strain on affordability, but also, it seems, on solidarity. Our brothers
and sisters in CUPE 3903 are currently on strike for better wages, job security, and collective bargaining power. Mainstream media is portraying this as unreasonable because of the current economic crisis. But now, more than ever, is the time for us to come together and support one another.
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Groups and movements such as the Students Against Sweatshops, Greenpeace, No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, Fair Trade, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, War Child (the list goes on) are all fighting for something similar: the right to have their voices heard and acknowledged in the face of widening inequalities, and solidarity for that struggle. If we’ve learned anything from labour history, it’s that those in power do not give it up freely. Looking at the Battle in Seattle in 1999, we saw how a huge group of decentralized, albeit collective, voices from many different avenues and fighting
for many different causes came together in solidarity against the neoliberal agenda of those in power. (This is not meant to glorify what happened in Seattle, only to draw on it as an example). We need to unite as students and workers at a university whose administration is not willing to cede fair wages and benefits to over 50% of its employees--TAs, contract faculty, and GAs-- or to consider increased benefits for the students who pay money to attend postsecondary education. Without us, this university would not exist, and the administration needs to acknowledge and respect this. We need to show them that we, as a collective voice, can be louder than they are. We need to show them that “there ain’t no power like the power of the people,” and that we aren’t going to back down while they give themselves excessive pay increases and pay exorbitant legal fees to deal with us. We won’t back down while they try to silence us, to take away our right to a collective voice and our right to unionize. We will remain in solidarity with CUPE 3903 and in solidarity with all labour struggles worldwide.
TABLE OF CONTENTS News: p. 3-8
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The issue’s cover features an original painting, Peace Works (2002). It is by York graduate student and editorial collective member Nathan Nun. It is a swords to plowshares themed piece inspired by the power workers have to make a world without war.
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By Fariah Chowdhury
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by Adam Hanieh
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The wealth of the richest 53 people in India is equivalent to 31 percent of the country's GDP, yet according to the World Bank 42 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line of $1.25 a day. These patterns are repeated across the globe. Countries including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea as well as the poorer countries of Eastern and Southern Europe are faced with collapsing growth rates, capital flight, and declines in the value of their currency. In many cases, these problems have been exacerbated due to a proliferation of low-interest loans taken by individuals and companies that were denominated in foreign currency (such as Swiss Francs, Euros, and Dollars). These loans initially offered a better rate of interest than the domestic currency, but, as local currencies have dropped in value, the amount of money required to be repaid has increased dramatically.
The IMF returns This unfolding social crisis has returned the IMF to center stage. Typically, the IMF lends to those countries facing potential collapse and, in return, demands the fulfillment of stringent economic conditions. The scale of borrowing is already immense: Iceland ($2.4 billion), Ukraine ($16.5 billion), and Hungary ($15.7 billion) have been extended loans with Pakistan, Serbia, Belarus, and Turkey likely candidates in the near future We can certainly expect that the conditions attached to loans in the poorer countries in the Global South will be much more stringent than those imposed on these European countries. There is little doubt that these countries will face massive job losses, intense pressure to privatize public resources, and slashing of state spending on welfare, education and health in the name of ‘balanced budgets’. Whether these attacks on the social fabric are successful,
however, will ultimately depend on the level of resistance they face. Authoritarian state On 11 October, a meeting of progressive economists in Caracas, Venezuela, issued a statement warning that the dynamic of this crisis “encourages new rounds of capital concentration and, if the people do not firmly oppose this, it is becoming perilously likely that restructuring will occur simply to save privileged sectors.” This is an important point to understand. Capitalist crisis doesn’t automatically lead to the end of capitalism. Without effective resistance and struggle, the crisis will eventually be resolved at the expense of working people particularly those in the South. This could be one of the most serious crises that capitalism has faced in living memory. But we should not be fooled into thinking that the system will somehow be reformed or its
contradictions solved through peaceful and orderly means. The most likely immediate outcome is a hardened, more authoritarian state that seeks to restore profitability through ratcheting up repression and forcing people to accept the loss of jobs, housing and any kind of social support. In the South, this will inevitably mean more war and military repression. If this is not prevented then the system will utilize this crisis to restructure and continue business as usual. This is why resistance – both at home and abroad – will be the single most important determinant to how this eventually plays out. In Latin America, for example, attempts to restrict capital flight, place key economic sectors under popular control, and establish alternative currency and trade arrangements are important initiatives that point to the necessity of solutions beyond capitalism. In the Middle East, popular resistance to the political and economic control of the region has undoubtedly
checked the extension of US power. Any displacement of crisis onto the South means playing different groups of people against one another. For this reason, the ideological corollary of war and military repression abroad is likely an increasingly virulent racism in the North – directed at immigrants, people of color and indigenous populations. This means that for activists in North America the question of global solidarity and resistance to racism must be placed as a central priority of any effective fightback. Any attempt to turn inwards, or dismiss international solidarity as less important in this phase will be disastrous for all working people – across the globe. Adam Hanieh is a PhD student in Political Science at York University. He can be contacted at hanieh08@gmail.com This article was originally printed by Left Turn.
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continued Middle class professionals moving into these contested areas are not comfortable with the evidence of social destitution around them. The merchants who cater to the new occupants want to be free of the homeless. The logic of investment, property values and 'quality of life' demands they be removed. An unholy alliance of business interests, higher income residents, media, cops and politicians is formed to take on this job. Since it is the municipal level of government that has been developed to carry out the public functions that are most closely related to the needs of property investment, City Hall has a central role to play in this regard. Toronto City Council and the Urban Clearing of the Poor We can only be struck by the fact that this process of social exclusion reaches its peak when a majority of the seats on Toronto City Council are occupied by those who have long been viewed as its 'progressive' wing. Sadly, however, David Miller and his closest collaborators on Council are organizing to further the clearing out of the poor and homeless with an effectiveness that greatly outdoes the halting efforts of the last Mayor. Miller is able to put a gloss of social enlightenment on the ugliest acts of social injustice. He looks pained when intolerant people talk about the homeless in mean spirited terms. To him, they are 'some of our most vulnerable citizens' who need to be cured of their 'street homelessness' by way of the 'tireless' and 'seamless' work of ‘Streets to Homes.’ This is a telling starting point. The issue is not the economic and political decisions that have led to poverty and hardship. It is the 'illness' of 'street homelessness' that must be tackled and that only requires that the homeless not be on the street or, more exactly, that that not be seen by those with money and influence who don't want them there. If their removal from the scene can be organized in a way that appears decent and caring, so much the better, but that is a secondary matter. The key concern is to get rid of visible homelessness. It this regard, ‘Streets to Homes’ is a dubious velvet glove in a very iron fisted operation. The most direct method of discouraging homeless people from staying around is, of course, to set the cops on them. However, City Council tells us that it is not in favour of the 'enforcement option'. It has developed caring approaches to 'street homelessness' and panhandling that will work much better. These claims notwithstanding, it is important to note that the institutions directly under the control of the City are, in fact, heavily involved in the 'enforcement option'. City bylaw officers go after poor street venders and homeless people looking for places of
shelter all the time. The City has even made clear that it will now target the people who collect up empty bottles and cans for the deposit money on the grounds that such items have been left out for collection by the City and these 'scavengers' are taking municipal property. When it comes to the Toronto Police, however, we are witnessing a massive, unrelenting and escalating drive to force out homeless people. Tickets are being given out to panhandlers under the Safe Streets Act in hugely increased numbers and people are going to prison under this legislation. It is supposed to be legal to panhandle but it has become routine to give out 'aggressive panhandling' tickets to people sitting quietly on the sidewalk. The OCAP office has even dealt with homeless people who have been given Safe Streets tickets when they weren't panhandling. It may be true that these cops don't act under the direct instructions of City Council but it is the members of that body who have chosen to increase the police budget to over $800 million and it is David Miller who boasts that there are more cops on the streets than ever before. These additional cops will, as a matter of course, persecute the homeless on behalf of the Business Improvement Associations. Streets to Homes or to Slums? When we draw up a balance sheet for ‘Streets to Homes,’ it is important to consider that the resources for this initiative have been found by changing priorities and by withholding funding for long standing and vital services for the homeless. Despite the official line from City Hall officials that there are enough beds within the homeless shelter system, people are being turned away from these places every night. Five shelters in the central area have been closed with only inadequate replacement of the lost beds. This also translates into a loss of 340,000 meals for people on the streets. These cuts mean worse overcrowding, violence and illness. The strategy is to remove the services people need when they are homeless, to cut back on things like street patrols, drop-ins and emergency shelter and, then, to simply repeat that ‘Streets to Homes’ is working and homelessness is going away. In its day to day operations, ‘Streets to Homes’ plays a very significant and direct role in this process of removal. One study based on the program's own figures, showed that 36% of housing placements were in outlying parts of the City. This, however, massively understates things, since the statistics that were released defined the central area as the pre-amalgamation City of Toronto and East York. This would mean that a chunk of those who were not moved, literally, to the suburbs would nonetheless be placed in
neighbourhoods a very considerable distance from the support networks and services that had enabled them to survive in the past. Certainly, it appears that a majority of people being placed in units by ‘Streets to Homes’ are being dumped outside of the gentrifying and contested areas they were unwelcome in. The people that OCAP has contact with confirm this notion of a reckless process of removal that pays scant attention to the needs of those exiled to suburban poverty and isolation. We talk to people who have no food and no way of accessing it and who find their way back downtown in an effort to survive. We talk to others who have been placed in tiny, scantily furnished apartments in neighbourhoods where they know no one, without access to public transport or any conceivable form of recreation and who sink into a lonely and depressed state. The housing conditions that are being experienced have given rise to an unofficial name for the program of ‘Streets to Slums.’ We have seen people living in conditions that would not be tolerated in a jail or homeless shelter. To drop people without income into deplorable housing and provide them with no real support is a recipe for despair and tragedy. Despite the huge waiting list for public housing in Toronto, people are even being put into Toronto Community Housing under ‘Streets to Homes.’ The rule is that, if a public housing unit is refused three times, it can be allocated to someone through ‘Streets to Homes.’ For a place to be rejected several times by people who have waited years for rent geared to income housing, you can be sure it is in shameful condition. Yet each human being warehoused in places desperate applicants have rejected is held up before the City and, now, the world as another admirable statistic, another ‘success.’ Toronto's Urban Policies: Serving Redevelopment Not the Poor The great shame of the 'progressive' majority on Toronto City Council is that they have accepted, with their ‘Streets to Homes’ initiative, the agenda of the capitalist classes for redevelopment as an inevitability to which they must submit. It's quite true that the higher levels of government carry most of the blame for the gutting of social provision and the proliferation of poverty and destitution. That, however, does not excuse Toronto's present course. Year by year, the Police budget becomes more and more bloated while public housing falls apart. That the Province has abandoned this housing stock is true but why should it be more of a priority to unleash record numbers of cops on poor communities than to divert resources in order to maintain public housing
stock? Indeed, the City has brokered arrangements under which thousands of units of Toronto Community Housing are being demolished to build 'mixed neighbourhoods' Regent Park is being recreated as a condo development with, supposedly, a portion of the housing reserved for rent geared to income residents. Even as Phase One of the development goes up, the actual number of public housing spaces has been reduced and no one in touch with reality could imagine that this is anything other than a process of destroying public housing. That such a course will fuel homeless is painfully obvious. Lack of decent income is the greatest factor in putting people on the streets. Record numbers of economic evictions are taking place and appallingly low social assistance rates are the key reason for this. True, City Council has passed resolutions that call on Queen's Park to restore welfare rates to the real level they stood at before Mike Harris took power. However, such gestures count for very little when municipally run welfare offices operate on the basis of denying benefits whenever they can. If the City were to adopt a policy of full entitlement and ensure that people were told of all available benefits and granted them to the greatest extent possible, economic evictions would decline significantly in Toronto. Yet, City Council has approved measures of welfare 'case management' that will ensure that people in need will get as little as possible. ‘Streets to Homes’ is another component of this general political direction. Those driving redevelopment want the contested areas of the City cleared of the homeless and models of 'solving' the homeless crisis and 'rehabilitating' those who have fallen into 'street homelessness' have been thoroughly developed in the major U.S. cities. This is now adapted for use in Toronto and given a name that conjures images of reclaimed lives. The ugly truth is that resources that could actually deal with homelessness are serving the needs of redevelopment. To the extent that it is possible, the homeless are to be pushed out. Some will be driven off by police intimidation. Some will find the shelters and services they need no longer available and leave in despair. Some will be dumped in outlying areas without support in places that have four walls and a ceiling but make a mockery of the word ‘home.’ ‘Streets to Homes’ is dishonest to the core. It deserves to be exposed and challenged, not handed awards. In place of an inhuman agenda that drives the homeless from view, we need the solutions to homelessness that will come, not from adapting to upscale redevelopment, but from mobilizing communities to fight it. John Clarke is an activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in Toronto.
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by Nathan Nun
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“Hiding behind the current economic recession is downright deceptive” -Katherine Nastovski
“We are not complaining about our work. We want to see our hard work reflected in our pay. “ -Emmett J. Bogdon “The union representing 3400 teaching assistants, contact faculty, graduate and research assistants has been on strike since November 6.” -CUPE Website
nd is that the GAs and ta rs de un t n’ do le op “What many pe ide the University. ts ou k or w to ed w lo al TAs at York are not s the right to ha n io at tr is in m Ad e th , If they choose to do so ime student status.” -t ll fu d an g in nd fu k, take way their wor -CUPE Website
erage, York v a n o , t a h t ch shows r a e s e eases to r r c ’s n E i P e g CU a w out 11.6% d i a p tween y t e i b s r 0 e 0 ,0 0 univ 0 1 ore than $ m g unt to n o i n m r a a s e d e n s a o h m t ontract de c r u O . e 7 0 0 2 Cupe Websit . 2006 and n o s i r a omp peanuts in c
Photographers: Anastasia Mandziuk, Igor Drljaca, Kareem Dabbagh, Nazia Khurshid.
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the
participants
Graham Potts is a member of CUPE 3903 and Chief Negotiator of the Bargaining Team. Terrance Luscombe is a 4th year International Development Studies and Environmental Studies Major. Healy Thompson is a member of CUPE 3903.
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No Master!
Even after the Trade Union Acts (1871) secured some legal protection for trade unions, the Master and Servant Acts influenced work place relations in many countries such as Canada and the US. These heavy-handed, employer friendly, laws required obedience and loyalty to employers and were used against those organizing for better working conditions. Breach of contract meant severe sentencing. Thousands were punished each year under these laws, though for some reason it was never the master.
ROUNDTABLE continued FROM P17 be taken up with others if it is to be successful. Terrance: CUPE 3903's struggle at York is reflective of a larger battle against short-term, contractual labour with few benefits and ever-shrinking job security. This flexible workforce ensures maximum labour productivity with minimal labour costs. This is evident here at York as the Administration has not kept graduate funding up with increasing enrollment (nearly 30% since 2005) which means less funding available for each graduate student. Furthermore, there has been increasing numbers of contract faculty in place of full-time professors. Linked to this trend is the increasing class sizes. The Administration has been trying to stuff more undergraduate and graduate students into the classes, squeezing more profit out of those contract faculty and professors teaching the larger classes. These are only a few examples of York's desire for flexible, low-cost labour, but this push is part of a much larger phenomenon of global proportions. Why do you think there has been such a visible disconnect during the strike between CUPE 3903 and many undergraduate students? Healy: I would question the assertion that there is a significant disconnect between most undergrads and CUPE 3903. I think that there are some undergraduate students who blame CUPE for the strike and that these students have gotten more attention (because they are loud and angry and make for an interesting story) than the many more undergrads who support the strike. The administration has tried to put the blame for the strike on CUPE 3903. They have been successful in turning some undergraduate students against us. However, the majority of undergraduates students, despite their understandable desire for classes to resume, support those of us on strike. I have certainly witnessed more supportive undergraduates on the picket lines than I have witnessed unsupportive ones. I wonder why the administration thinks it will benefit the education of its students to try to pit the undergraduate students against the people who do 50% of their teaching. Graham: While the vast majority of undergraduate students have been supportive of our fight for accessible, quality post-secondary education, York has manipulated and undermined the collective bargaining process and used fear-mongering rhetoric (binding arbitration, which York itself has rejected in the past in other bargaining rounds with the faculty association) to mislead a small group of students whose concerns the Union is fighting for: accessible education. Terrance: I think that the York Administration has driven this disconnect from the beginning, as evidenced by the posters they distributed the days prior to the strike deadline and by the continuous
press releases they have put out since the strike began. The mainstream media outlets have also stoked the flames in the interests of creating a hot story. They have seen the potential for conflict and have pushed for, and largely manufactured, a climate of antagonism between CUPE 3903 and undergraduate students. They have systematically silenced the voices of those undergraduates in support of 3903 as they focus on those that have come out against the strike. For instance, the issue of the Excalibur for the week of Nov. 19th is full of articles that vilify the union and its supporters. This isn't a battle between CUPE 3903 and undergraduate students, its a contract negotiation between workers and their managers. What message would you like to relay specifically to undergraduate students about CUPE 3903's decision to strike? Healy: I would ask them to really think about whether they believe that the administration, who thinks of them as one of 50,000 tuition payers, actually cares more about their education and its quality than the professor or TA they have in class does. We are on strike not because we want to be, but because we decided that it was the only option in response to an employer that has not bargained fairly at any point during the five months of bargaining. Undergraduate students have a lot of power, as they should, and they can mobilize this power to force the university to come back to the bargaining table and negotiate seriously with us. Graham: This round of bargaining is making sure that contract faculty, who we represent and do more than 50% of the teaching at York, have job security and benefits that are in line with the service they perform for the Union. York, from day one had no intent to bargain with us, and has set the stage for a situation where our members were given a stark choice: take the brunt of financial mismanagement and irresponsible prioritization of an increasingly privatized university, or be forced out on strike. Terrance: This strike is frustrating for everyone involved. I myself am in my last year of my undergraduate degree and am in the process of applying to law and grad schools and I recognize that this strike may make things a bit more difficult. However, I know that I will receive my credits, that my applications will go through, and that I will graduate. There is no reason to fear being left behind. Also, this strike is legal for a reason. Workers must have the right to refuse the employer the benefits of their labour if that employer is unwilling to bargain fairly while those workers are still working. If this were not the case then the workers would rely only on the "goodwill" of the employer, and as the trends mentioned above continue, I don't think that we can expect the employers to exercise any sort of goodwill.
Hopefully the strike will end quickly, but without someone to fight back against these trends towards a flexible, low-cost, disempowered labour force. the vast majority of undergraduates, their families and friends, will lose much more in the near future. This fight is happening now in hopes that this relatively minor fight now will help to prevent a much larger and much more difficult fight in the future. What is your most memorable 'picket line moment' and why? Healy: Each week I have a new "most memorable picket line moment". This week, so far, it was making up new songs on the lines with the amazing people I'm picketing with, such as the song we sang today:"Old McShoukri had a university. E-I-E-I-O. And at that university he had a contract faculty. E-I-E-I-O. With a job security here and a job secuity there, here a job, there a security, everywhere a job security . . . " Graham: I celebrated my 26th birthday on the line on November 17th with the members of CUPE 3903 and supportive progressive student and union groups. Terrance: Each and every time that an undergraduate support squad goes to a picket line to be met with cheers and smiles from the members of CUPE 3903. I have never felt such a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect and appreciation. Do you have anything else you would like to say? Healy: The York administration has to stop insisting on binding arbitration. Their continued emphasis on this shows that they have no intention of negotiating in good faith with us and actually ending this strike. Graham: York needs to rethink its priorities and existing strength in the liberal arts and humanities rather than engaging in a reckless cash grab and unsustainable and unsupported expansion that it has engaged in on a for-profit basis. President Shoukri needs to step up and fulfill his supposed leadership role at the university by responding to student and worker concerns - those who make the university run, and those who the university is responsible towards. I want to emphasize that what we are asking for a 2 year contract because of increasing enrollment growth at both the graduate and undergraduate level, likely tuition increases in 2010, and university restructuring that will effect job security for contract faculty. A longer contract does not let us address these issues as they arise and will result in the further buildup of these issues down the road. Terrance: I'd like to extend my best wishes to the members of CUPE 3903 as they continue to picket and bargain for a fair contract. Unity, productive bargaining, and a strong support system for one another will get you through this.
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By Troy Dixon By Nathan Nun
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Top 10 Albums of 2008
according to: Arshavez Mozafari YUFP editorial collective 1. Draconian- Turning Seasons Within 2. Trimonium- Son of a Blizzard 3. Dismember- Dismember 4. Gojira- The Way of the Flesh 5. Enslaved- Vertebrae 6. Unleashed- Hammer Battalion 7. Meshuggah- Obzen 8. Nachtmystium- Assassins 9. Grave- Dominion VIII 10. Scourger- Dark Invitation to Armageddon
Top 10 Albums of 2008
according to: Anastasia Mandziuk YUFP editorial collective 1. Bon Iver- For Emma Forever Ago 2. Bowerbirds- Hymns for a Dark Horse 3. $100- Forest of Tears 4. Wye Oak- If Children 5. Old Man Luedecke- Proof of Love 6. Castlemusic- You Can’t Take Anyone 7. Sun Kil Moon- April 8. The Dodos- Visiter 9. Wolf Parade- At Mount Zoomer 10. Chad VanGaalen- Soft Airplane hon. mention: Mountain Goats- Satanic Messiah EP
The astute reader may notice that Arshavez’s list consists entirely of metal albums while mine is characterized by a complete lack of metal. Indeed, the former might more accurately be categorized as a “top 10 metal albums” list; it just so happens that as a huge metal fan, all of Arshavez’s top picks end up being metal albums. As not-so-much of a metal fan, my list consists primarily of folk, pop, country, electro-rock and a combination of these musical genres. In this new section, “versus”, I’m looking for contrasting opinions on music, movies, art, politics, and, well, anything—in list form. So if you have an idea for a top 10 (or so) list, the Arts & Culture section is accepting your amazing top 10 list and category idea submissions: email arts@yufreepress.org.
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I have never told you By Helen Tremethick