To CUPE 3903

Dear CUPE 3903:

My name is Mauricio Bastidas. Before I carry on to the main point of this note, I wanted to give a little background of my story. I graduated highschool in 2006 and did an extra semester in highschool to ensure that my marks were high enough for your standards. I was admitted to a program (that I forget at this point) in 2008, September. That’s when you happened.

You see, we are landed immigrants. I came from a low-income single-mother household. My brother and I are both thriving individuals looking to get our post-secondary education done, and I am finally finishing my education at another institution, after you singlehandedly destroyed whatever possibility of progress I had at York University.

OSAP never gave us enough importance. In fact, they split the fees into two semesters, when all the courses I had were year-long courses and had to be paid in one go. So everything was paid off and I got myself in further debt to be able to finance my books and transportation. I was very happy though. Up to you guys decided to go on an 85 day long strike, that is.

When you went on strike in 2008, I still had to eat and pay my bills, and I had no job. With a two hour trip to and from school every day, and hoping to get back to school any time soon, it’s very hard to find work. By the time the government forced you to get your inefficient commie workers back to work I was left with no funds whatsoever. My mother and brother filed bankruptcy and I could not afford getting on a bus to school. So, my choices were to either drop out or to get kicked out from academic penalty. And I thought I could go back to York eventually. However, I never saw a penny back from the school (but that’s a problem that I have with that institution). In addition to that, the financial ruin that I was left in because of your spoiled members wanting more benefits (than those that other teaching assistants and contract workers from other educational institutions get), it made me not be financially stable to get back into school until two years later.

I am now 25 years old and just finishing an advanced diploma, whereas if it hadn’t been for you and your lazy employees, I would have finished a BA and carried my way on to a Masters at this age.

So, what I am trying to say is this: I lost money. I lost time. I lost two years of my youth trying to square off that huge debt that I was left in because of you. I hope other students know how much of a scoundrel CUPE 3903 is. I hope they are smart enough to understand how your lazy commie screw up workers can come to screw somebody over this big. I hope that you believe in a God and that they punish you for having screwed over thousands of students for such vain claims.

May God be with you, for the students and the administration won’t.

Tags: York University, cupe 3903, strike, 2008, commie strike, York theft, TAs strike, TA’s strike, York strike, student life