In an unlikely twist of labour fate, Canada’s two largest universities are hit by strikes at the same time, throwing more than 100,000 undergraduates across the GTA into turmoil in the final stretch of the academic year.

York University on Tuesday suspended all classes, exams and academic activities, with limited exceptions, after the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 3903 voted to strike, to ensure all students are affected equally.

York facilities, including libraries, residences, computer labs, cafeterias and athletic facilities will remain open, the university said.

York’s 3,700 teaching assistants and contract professors voted Monday night, rejecting an offer the union executive urged them to turn down for not providing the wage hikes and job security it was seeking. More 1,100 members attended the meeting, with 71 per cent voting to shoot down the offer.

“We have directed our bargaining team to go back to the table (Tuesday),” said CUPE 3903 Chair Faiz Ahmed. “I am confident that this is going to be wrapped up … the university knows we’re not that far apart.”

At the University of Toronto, 6,000 teaching assistants in CUPE 3902 already walked off the job Friday night on all three campuses, cancelling tutorials, labs and some classes and leaving unclear who will mark assignments.

At York, the strike comes six years after the same union waged the longest strike in Canadian history at an English-language university, cancelling classes for three months, pushing final exams into the summer and ending only on orders from Queen’s Park.

“But our contract faculty often can’t predict when their next contract will be one year after another,” Ahmed recently told the Star. He said contract faculty, who teach 64 per cent of York’s undergraduate courses, should “be assigned to courses for up to three years at a time, not just be slotted in on short notice which can hurt the quality of education.”

York vice-president Rhonda Lenton said it’s only fair to cancel all classes because “there is potential for confusion when some classes are cancelled (taught by CUPE 3903 members) but others are not (taught by tenured faculty members).”

At the U of T, contract faculty already have a tentative deal, so those on strike are TAs. These are largely full-time master’s and doctoral students who work part-time for the university as a way to help pay for their studies. Research grants, scholarships and fellowships also cover costs such as tuition and fees.

The minimum funding package a U of T grad student receives is $23,400, of which $15,000 is tied to work they may be asked to do for the university, explained Provost Cheryl Regehr, “and it is this part of the funding we negotiate with them in their role as employees.”

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.

“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.”

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.

Thousands of U of T students were left confused about how a strike by 6,000 teaching and lab assistants, who do the bulk of undergraduate marking, will affect them as final assignments come due.

“I’m pretty concerned; I have an essay due in two weeks and I’m not sure what to do,” said third-year human biology student Gurjot Chahal, whose evolutionary biology class was cancelled Monday because the instructor is a graduate student and member of CUPE 3902.

The union says hundreds of members are “course instructors” whose classes are cancelled, as well as most labs and tutorials, noted CUPE 3902 chair Erin Black.

“There’s a large number of grad students teaching lecture classes of 200 to 300, so for the university to say the strike doesn’t directly affect classes is frankly disingenuous,” said Black, who is a contract professor in a part of the union that is not on strike, but who supervises five teaching assistants for an American history course who are on strike and will not be grading student work for Black.

“Both parties thought we had found creative ways to improve the funding package — with funds for tuition rebates and other benefits — but in the end, our members wanted a change to the $15,000, and that didn’t change,” said Black.

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First-year student Camille Garcia said she takes two 50-minute tutorials in political science each week with only 15 to 20 students, “which is really helpful for a class where the lecture has 1,200 students in Convocation Hall. I do think it’s about time the TAs got a raise, but I really hope they reach an agreement with the university soon.”

Abdullah Shihipar is president of the Arts and Science Student Union, whose 23,000 members are the largest group affected by the strike. Students have been “scrambling to find out what’s cancelled,” he said, adding it is frustrating and “there has been some panic, but there is also a lot of support for their TAs.”

The last strike by U of T’s tutorial assistants was in 2000 and lasted three and a half weeks.

Human biology student Seyi Ajayi said some students have heard that if there is no one to mark midterm assignments, “the final exams could be weighted as high as 70 per cent. But I do hope the TAs get what they’re fighting for.”

One life sciences student with an “I ‘heart’ TAs” button did not want to give her name but said while she supports better pay for TAs, ‘We’re paying tuition and I just hope they get an agreement soon.”

The TTC has altered bus routes to the U of T’s Mississauga and Scarborough campuses during the strike, and public transit would do so at York as well.

With files from Sean Wetselaar