You could call it the season of strikes.

Western librarians avoided a strike last week after a tentative deal was reached with administration. Now three more universities are facing strike situations.

Teaching and research assistants at McMaster University were on the picket lines this week after rejecting what administration called its best offer, which included a pay bump to $39.40 per hour.

Sessional faculty at the University of Toronto are also ready to hit the pavement as their Nov. 9 strike deadline approaches.

At Nipissing University, faculty voted in favour of a strike on Tuesday as negotiations fizzled.

While this recent pattern of strikes falls in line midterm season, officials explained this is unintentional.

The trend is the result of the timeline for contract negotiations, which begins during the summer and often climaxes several months into negotiations, causing an impasse just as midterm season rolls around.

“It’s not our goal to have them in the midterm season, it just sort of happens,” Derek Sahota, bargaining member of CUPE 3906 at McMaster, said.

Andrea Farquhar, director of public and government relations for McMaster, said it’s common for bargaining to continue after contracts expire. This leaves instructors working without formal agreements.

She added the negotiation process happens in sequence, so each side must follow an outlined procedure before a strike is an option.

“[Faculty and administration] start negotiating well in advance of the contracts expiring,” Laurie Stephens, director of media relations at U of T said. “I know we’ve been negotiating for about five months.”

Nipissing University faced a similar situation this week, as more than eight months of bargaining resulted in a 95.8 per cent vote in the strike’s favour.

During strike season last year, tensions at York University were escalating between union workers and administration as December approached. CUPE 3903 — which represents contract faculty and teaching assistants at York — hit the picket lines for an unprecedented three-month strike while students were locked out of class.

Farquhar argued the situation at York may have set a precedent for what people expect from university strikes. However, she was quick to point out the differences.

“For one thing, York was closed during the strike while [McMaster is] still open,” she said. “Their classes were discontinued, ours are not.”

The recession has not made the situation any easier.

“Bargaining has become very difficult,” James Turk, executive director for the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said. “Most universities are taking a pretty hard line in bargaining, saying they’re in tough financial situations whether they are or not.”

Robert Ramsay, chair of CUPE 3902 at U of T, claimed universities always cite a lack of funds, regardless of the cause.

“We hear this every single time we go to universities with demands,” Ramsay said. “This time the iteration is the recession. Last time it was restructuring the faculty budgets. It’s just a new version of the same story.”

Despite differences between parties, one similarity is apparent on both sides — the desire to reach an amicable agreement without conceding too much.

Sahota showed frustration with McMaster’s refusal to bend to CUPE’s requests, while Farquhar maintained administration is giving the union ample time to reconsider their offer.

Similarly, while the president of Nipissing noted the importance of averting a strike, the Nipissing University Faculty Association has said any offer from administration has fallen short of the mark.

While unions and administrations continue to hash out the details, students are left in a wave of uncertainty.