On Friday July 24th, the Court of Appeal released a unanimous decision rejecting York’s appeal of the similarly unanimous judicial review decision from June 2019. Both decisions deny that York has the legal right to punish members through the York-controlled Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities for actions taken during the 2018 strike.
The York administration relied on a number of simply indefensible positions to justify their actions; some of these included the claim that Carol McCaulay, Vice President Finance and Administration, is not an agent of the Employer, or that the Student Code Tribunal had jurisdiction because they themselves decided that the reprised acted as students rather than employees during a strike.
While this outcome was expected, it is still a welcomed victory for our members. We hope that this is the end of the administration’s attempt to circumvent protections afforded to workers under the Labour Relations Act and other legislation. As university administrators continue to utilize these uncertain pandemic times to justify financial cuts and quell graduate student and contract faculty demands for more just workplaces, we urge the York community as a whole to consider how much money the administration wasted trying to defend a fundamentally untenable position.
This long and arduous episode is yet another example of how the York administration seeks to chill all dissent on campus. We should all rejoice in their continued failure.