The scene is ghastly to behold. An obviously unproductive member of society has made a permanent residence out of his living room couch. He slouches dejectedly with a five o’clock shadow and signs of an impending pot belly. Potato chips in one hand, a remote control in the other, and a mad look in his eye are all he has to show for the progress he has made in the past two months of his existence. 

 His concerned parents are secretly planning to move to Alaska without telling him. They worked tirelessly for eighteen years to get the result of a drunken night out of their house, only to be back at square one. Desperate for answers, alone time, and a witness protection program, they are not alone in their misery.

The symptoms described above can be found amongst students who suffer from a perilous ailment: education withdrawal disorder, better

known as EWD. Recently, over 60,000 learners were gripped with this crippling illness after being denied their right to schooling by the deities in the administration and in the unions of York University. Yes, a problem undoubtedly exists when kids are actually yearning for school. 

The dispute began as all disputes in the playground begin: someone stole someone’s crayons; the CUPE 3903 (representatives for teaching assistants) demanded pay raises, job security, and their crayons back; the York University administration refused; someone called someone’s mother something, and all hell broke loose.  

Were the demands truly preposterous or was the administration just being stubborn? Specifically, CUPE desired a higher salary, which was already twice as much as assistants in other universities, better benefits improving health care, dental care and vision care, job security, and a wage increase of about eleven percent over two years, to name a few. Calculating into the equation the fact that the demands were purposely made to be that extravagant so that York University could meet the union halfway, the conclusive compromise would be- 

Completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  

The strike has detrimentally affected everyone from graduating high school students to graduating university students. The number of applicants who chose York University as a first choice post secondary education dropped drastically by fifteen percent. Clearly unstable, other universities are being preferred to York because of its debilitating strike, decreasing the number and variety of options a student has. Current students are regretting their decision, anxious over how long school will extend over summer vacation (although additional days off are the last thing they desire). And last year students wretchedly foresee that they must either defer their graduation date or compress their last year. Moreover, many of these students are worried that admission into graduate school or acceptance from a job will be especially difficult, as schools and employers may perceive a condensed year as incapacitating.  

Apart from the obvious emotional setbacks, students are suffering financial crises as well. Residency payments, meal plans, and transportation costs are just a few of the monetary damages. International students will also bear the funds of travelling later in the summer if school is extended, perhaps when airfare is higher. The only means to lessen the burden of these expenditures was to take on a job. As a shutdown university has no openings, students dependent on campus jobs were at another loss. Finding work outside of campus is also tentative, as employers may have chosen not to hire York students because it was unclear when they would lose their worker to school when eventually the strike did end.

Unemployed, uneducated, and, in the case of the student mentioned above, almost homeless, York University’s crew has had to face reality and consider fry cooking  as a possible career choice. Parents also are frustrated at seeing their child back home, postponing their cruise to a later date. It is a loss for everyone concerned, except for the higher authorities who created the dilemma in the first place.  

Canadians pride themselves on reasonably offering an education to everyone who desires it. The claim is that universities are not businesses but rather a means for a student to be edified and informed about the ways of the world. So why has one of the largest universities in the country seized exactly what it was created to provide?  

A university is meant to educate; it is meant for students to learn within its walls amongst peers who desire the same opportunities. It is not the stage for different levels of educators to have a conflict over salaries. Valuable money and time has been wasted at the expense of fueling a completely unrelated battle.  

In this power struggle between unions and administrations, between have and have-nots, and between who really owns the crayons, it is apparent which unconnected party will dejectedly emerge at a complete loss.