STUDENT HARDSHIP AND SUPPORT FOR A FACULTY STRIKE

From March 20 to May 13, 1997, faculty andlibrarians at York University in Toronto, Canada, wenton a strike. In order to assess the academic and economic impact of the strike onstudents, two telephone surveys were carried out with apanel of undergraduate students in the fifth and sixthweeks of the strike and in October 1997, five months after the end of the strike. The surveysconfirm that students faced academic and economichardship both during and after the strike. Moreover, inboth surveys, only a minority of students supported the strike. A regression analysis shows,however, that academic and economic hardship explainlittle of the variance in support for the strike. Bycontrast, attitudes toward unions in general are thebest predictor of support.