Tension flares as Western University closes campus roads amid ongoing strike

Article content

As frustration mounts over bumper-to-bumper traffic near Western University’s campus, striking workers and the school are nowhere near reaching an agreement, a union representative says.

Members of CUPE Local 2361, which represents about 330 caretakers, landscaping staff and trades workers, hit the picket line Aug. 30 after contract negotiations between the union and the school fell through.

Article content

The strike is now affecting the wider London community after Western decided to close vehicle access to campus. Now closed are:

• University Drive (from the Richmond Gates up to Perth Drive)
• Lambton Drive (with a portion open allowing access to the Alumni Hall traffic circle)
• Huron Drive (with Philip Aziz Avenue open to allow access to the South Valley parking lot)
• Oxford Drive

That’s led to long delays and traffic jams for students, staff and commuters, some of whom have vented on social media.

“Congratulations @WesternU. It’s the first day of school and I’ve been sitting in my car for 40 minutes trying to access campus. I’m unable to provide instruction as a faculty member for students who are paying tuition to attend your institution. Way to go,” reads a post by Christine Tithecott, an assistant professor.

Reads another post by Michelle Dawtrey: “Sitting for 2 hours this morning trying to get into campus and park, resulting in a missed lecture at 830 a.m. is concerning. As a paying student with an expensive parking pass, this strike should not have resulted in this. As a reminder, there is also a hospital on campus!”

Article content

Article content

The road closures have forced London Transit to reroute its buses and add additional stops around campus.

London Health Sciences Centre on Tuesday announced University Hospital, which is located on campus, was open while advising patients “to allow yourself extra commute time when travelling to appointments.”

On the school’s website, Western officials say the decision to close access to campus was made “to help ensure the safety of picketers and all community members,” adding the closures would remain in place until the labour dispute ends.

But the end of the strike is nowhere near, said Chris Yates, the union’s vice-president.

“The state of the negotiations are what they were just before the strike happened, when the university stepped away from the table, and we haven’t heard from them since,” he said.

The union says it wants Western to increase staffing and the pay that it says lags what other employers, such as Fanshawe College, are offering.

The university has said its latest offer to workers included an average annual wage increase of 5.3 per cent a year in a proposed four-year deal. Union members would earn between $52,000 and $99,000 in the first year of the deal, Western said. Western officials say they will respond Tuesday to a Free Press request for comment.

Article content

Yates said the union made a counter-proposal, the details of which he declined to share, but they’ve not yet received a response.

Yates said he sympathized with drivers facing traffic headaches but put the blame on the university, adding the closures have reduced the locations where workers can protest.

Of the road closings, he said: “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It’s just bottlenecking their own traffic around campus.”

The strike’s toll is being felt in other ways around campus. First-year student Trenyce De, who lives in one of the school’s residences, said she now has to take out some of her own garbage and recycling.

“It’s not too big of a deal but it is an inconvenience,” she said.

jjuha@postmedia.com

Article content