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Talks have broken off between York University administrators and the union representing 3,300 contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants after coming back to the bargaining table with a provincial mediator for three days late last week.

Greg Long, the mediator from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, released a statement on Monday saying, "The parties remain far apart on the key issues in this dispute and that a settlement is not close in hand. Therefore, there are no further negotiations scheduled at this time."

Both sides were asked by the mediator to review their respective positions in hopes of returning to the bargaining table when a "reasonable prospect for settlement exists."

But the university has questioned whether members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903 really want to end the strike as they planned for another rally planned for Wednesday while negotiations were underway.

"Despite assuring their own membership and York's 50,000 students that they were bargaining for a settlement over the weekend, CUPE 3903 returned to the bargaining table with unrealistic proposals while at the same time planning this new strike-related event on Dec. 3," the university stated.

Punam Khosla, a member of CUPE Local 3903, confirmed a rally has been scheduled downtown at 900 Bay St., starting at 1 p.m. with other union locals, faculty and students expected to attend to give their support.

While some progress was made last week, union representatives maintained the university negotiators haven't addressed the main issues such as job security for contract faculty and subsistence wages adequate for the cost of living in Toronto.

"We are indispensable educators at York and we're asking for peanuts relative to the university budget," said Rafeef Ziadah, union spokesperson, noting their members do more than half the classroom teaching at York but only represent 7.5 per cent of the university's annual budget.

The union is also seeking a wage increase of 11 per cent over two years.

The university has offered 9.25 per cent over three years and recently proposed long-term full-time faculty teaching appointments for a significant number of contract faculty.

The strike is now almost a month old with about 50,000 undergraduates still shut out of classes.

The York Federation of Students (YFS) is offering a solution to end the strike by calling upon the university to immediately allocate a portion of the more than $160 million raised in the "York to the Power of 50" fundraising campaign.

"We understand the need to celebrate the university's 50th anniversary, but during these tough times it's more important to get 50,000 undergraduate students back into the classroom," said Hamid Osman, YFS president. "The university must prioritize its students over an anniversary party with specially branded York wine bottles and balloons."