About 50,000 students in Ontario will head back to class Monday now that a 12-week strike at York University is officially over.

The nearly three-month long job action ended Thursday morning after Queen's Park passed back-to-work legislation.

The vote passed at around 10:15 a.m. with only eight members out of 61 voting against the bill. The new law will be given Royal Assent by 4 p.m.

"Ontario wants us to move forward now," Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty said shortly after the bill passed its third reading. "The arbitrator will move quickly and work with parties in the best possible way and students are going back to the classroom."

Dozens of striking faculty members picketed outside the legislature in a last-ditch attempt to convince the government the back-to-work bill is the wrong step to take in ending the job action.

Members of CUPE 3903 were hoping McGuinty would urge York's administration to go back to the negotiating table.

Instead, the premier decided to table the bill, insisting the two sides are at a fierce deadlock that can only be overcome through binding arbitration.

"We worked as hard as we could to bring the two sides together and put students back in the classroom while working towards fairness," he said.

He also said the students have been "remarkably patient" in dealing with the strike.

Students have been out of school since Nov. 6 when about 3,400 contract faculty, teaching and graduate assistants walked off the job, in hopes of negotiating a new contract that offers improved job security and benefits.

Tyler Shipley, spokesperson for the members of CUPE 3903, said he was angry about the new bill.

"We are quite frankly disgusted by what's taken place here," he told CTV Toronto outside Queen's Park.

Outstanding issues

CUPE officials backed off their threat to challenge the back-to-work legislation in court. A spokesperson for the union said members decided not to make the situation harder on the students than it already has been.

Members of the opposition slammed the Liberals, accusing the party of mishandling the situation.

Progressive Conservative MP Peter Shurman told McGuinty he should have acted sooner to get students back to class.

NDP Leader Howard Hampton on the other hand, accused the premier of being insensitive the needs of contract staff at the school who do the same job as tenured teachers but still need to reapply for their jobs every year.

He said the legislation sends a strong message to those involved in labour negotiations.

"All you have to do is stall, stall and stall and the McGuinty government will come in and sweep everything under the carpet with back-to-work legislation," he said.

McGuinty said all outstanding issues will now be resolved through binding arbitration.

"We acknowledge that there are outstanding issues," he said. "I expect it will be resolved sooner rather than later in a way that is fair to both sides."

Student debt

For some students, the strike has already done some significant damage to their year.

Reading week has been cancelled, the winter semester is being compressed and the school year is expected to be extended past April.

Many students who depend on the Ontario Student Assistant Program will have to apply for additional loans to pay for extended accomodations. The Liberals have said those loans will be made available to students.

Tory MPP Jim Wilson questioned how much that will help students who are already facing debt.

"This is simply adding to student debt," he said in legislature Thursday. "By refusing to take quick action now, (the Liberals) are making an awful situation even worse. Why add to their debt? Can you at least make that debt interest free?"

John Milloy, minister of training colleges and universities, said York students were offered the same thing during a strike at the school in 2001 when the Conservatives were in power.

"We will be provinding a suite of assistance to them and those details will come forward," he said.

York University is Canada's third-largest university. This is the longest-running strike in any English-speaking Canadian university in history.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Ken Regular