Both sides in the York University strike say they are eager to return to bargaining, even as campus pickets were planned for Wednesday morning.

“I’ve instructed our people to go back to the bargaining table ASAP and our team is speaking with the mediator as we speak,” said President Mamdouh Shoukri Tuesday afternoon, just hours into the first day of a strike by 3,700 contract faculty and teaching assistants that has cancelled all classes, exams and academic activities.

“I’m urging the union to come back ASAP, because every day we delay is unfair to our students. We can bridge these gaps relatively quickly,” said Shoukri, who noted a strike that extends the school year and interferes with summer jobs would hit York students hard.

The last strike by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 3903 in 2008 lasted three months, and he said York has worked very hard to rebuild the public trust in the six years.

York's union officials will meet Thursday with the mediator to see whether resuming talks would make sense.

CUPE 3903 Chair Faiz Ahmed said the union is keen to return to bargaining, which broke down Sunday over disagreement about how many tenure-track professors’ positions York would create in the next three years for its 1,100 contract professors. York has offered to raise it to nine from the current seven, which Shoukri called a significant commitment given government underfunding and the difficulty in predicting vacancies now that there is no mandatory retirement age.

In addition, York has offered to raise the number of three-year contracts (instead of one-year) for contract professors to 60 from its current 50. “There have to be more longer-term contracts instead of just renewing faculty on one-year contracts year after year,” said Ahmed, noting some 30 contract professors have been renewed over and over for 10 years. He compared such “slotting people with such high levels of expertise in and out” to a system of “glorified supply teachers.”

The York campus was nearly empty Tuesday, and while some students welcomed the sudden gift of time — “I had a lot of stuff due this week so I’m actually kind of happy to get to catch up,” said third-year biology major Bahar Salehi — most are anxious it end soon.

“If this strike lasts longer than two weeks it won’t be good because I have to take summer school and that starts in May,” said Salehi.

Meanwhile a strike by the University of Toronto’s 6,000 teaching assistants and some course instructors cancelled most tutorials and labs for a second day, although the university continues to hold classes.

MPP Reza Moridi, minister of training, colleges and universities, called on both sides at the two universities to return to negotiating and bristled at the idea underfunding was to blame.

“In the past 12 years this government has been in office we have increased funding for universities by 86 per cent,” said Moridi, “while per-student funding has increased by 29 per cent in our universities.”

Even a short extension of York’s school year would spoil 4th-year student Jennie Tran’s plan for international study in May in Thailand.

“The strike sucks. I hope it doesn’t affect my graduation, but at the same time I totally understand why the union is standing up for what it should get.”

Denecia Bennett is an education student who was scheduled to do her final practice-teaching stint later this month.

“They say if the strike continues we won’t be able to do our practicums,” she said. “If the strike goes on too long there’s a domino effect for everyone.”

Shoukri said he agrees York needs more tenure-track appointments because it is those profs who do the research on which Canada’s economy depends.

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“Canada is more dependent on research from university campuses than any other industrialized country. In the United States, you talk about 10 to 11 per cent of research coming from universities because industry does all the rest, but in Canada 35 per cent comes from universities,” said Shoukri.

“Ontario cannot afford to say, ‘Teach more; do no research!’ That’s why the tenure-track appointments are so valuable and I don’t have enough of them. Yet the board may tell me tomorrow there’s a freeze on hiring! The people who will suffer are our students and their parents.”

In spite of that, Shoukri said the university has offered to increase the number of tenure track positions.

The president was clearly shaken by the sudden walkout.

“Let me tell you, I didn’t sleep last night. My heart bleeds for our students. They don’t deserve this. They expect to have their term ended.”

At the U of T, contract faculty already have a tentative deal, so those on strike are largely TAs and some course instructors who belong to CUPE 3902. They are typically full-time master’s and doctoral students who work part-time for the university as a way to help pay for their studies.

The minimum funding package a U of T grad student receives is $23,400, of which a minimum of $15,000 is tied to work they may be asked to do for the university, and the rest largely covers tuition. Provost Cheryl Regehr said the university has improved some of the funding within the $15,000 but the union wants an increase in the overall $15,000.

“We believe we’ve reached a very generous tentative agreement that both bargaining committees unanimously endorsed,” said Regehr, “and we hope CUPE will take it to its members for a full vote.”

TAs carry different workloads depending on their department, she said, but the university offer would raise the wage for this work to about $44 per hour from $42, and limit the hours a TA can be asked to work each week to six down from seven, or 180 hours a year, down from 205. But the $15,000 minimum would not change.

However CUPE Chair Erin Black has said 1,000 members rejected putting the tentative deal to a vote Friday because it failed to raise the overall $15,000 minimum.