Abstract
The 2024 strike at York University was a powerful manifestation of the society-wide struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat under state monopoly capitalism. The striking workers of CUPE 3903 faced a level of hostility in their struggle for better pay, conditions, and job security, that exposed the capitalist imperatives of York University and its exploitative tendencies. The strike demonstrated that York, despite being a public university, is a capitalist organisation that relies on the maintenance of a cheap, disposable, and exploitable supply of labour power, in the form of contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate students, and part-time librarians and archivists. York University’s treatment of the CUPE 3903 strike is indissolubly connected to the leadership’s support for imperialism, especially Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine. Most importantly, the strike demonstrated the tremendous power of the working class. Without the labour of this class, no university can function.
Recommended Citation
Pateman, Joe
(2024)
"The Class Struggle in Universities: The 2024 York University Strike,"
Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 12:
Iss.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol12/iss2/5