Dennis Bayazitov | Assistant News Editor
Featured image: Next week’s final offer meeting will decide if there’s a strike or not. | Basma Elbahnasawy
While some movement is finally starting to take place at the bargaining table between the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ (CUPE)—York local 3903—and the York administration, no tentative agreement has been reached.
Despite bargaining sessions now scheduled almost daily and with less than a week until the final offer deadline, CUPE 3903 Bargaining Table Spokespersons Julian Arend and Lina Nasr say York is still not as responsive as the Union would like.
“The CUPE 3903 bargaining team has heeded the employer’s request for significant movement and dropped 14 proposals,” wrote CUPE 3903 Communications Officer Maija Duncan in her February 26 bargaining report.
Arend notes the main areas of contention at the table are: the increase in 30 Course Directorships for Unit 1, a significant cut to conversions and negative change in special renewable contracts and for Unit 2, and Unit 3’s demands being “ignored entirely, most important of which is a ‘floor’—or a minimum number of hires as graduate assistants for incoming Master’s students.
“Course directorships pay only a fraction more than the regular-funded TAship, and yet are a massive drain on the Unit 1 member’s time and energy,” says Arend.
“There are no hours caps on course directorships in Unit 1, resulting in less progress on one’s own research and work, increased completion times, and delays in graduation.”
Joy maintains course directorships are important opportunities for teaching assistants to gain academic experience. “The number of course directorships has not increased, while the number of graduate students at York has almost doubled.”
In the previous contract, there were eight conversion hires across York. This round, York initially proposed one.
Arend notes York claimed to offset the 87.5 per cent reduction in conversions by offering four Contractually Limited Appointments—essentially three-year, non-renewable appointments to the York University Faculty Association at the Assistant Professor level.
In her report last week, Duncan wrote: “The employer continues to ignore the union’s proposal, which would enshrine the fellowship amounts into the collective agreement, preventing them from changing their funding model unilaterally once again.”
Joy responds, affirming the fellowship funding model recognizes employment opportunities should further graduate students’ professional development without jeopardizing their progress toward successful degree completion.
“The model provides funding for some 700 graduate students without the obligation to work, so they can concentrate on their studies. The funding is non-taxable, so students are able to keep more money. The Union is effectively proposing to reinstate the work requirement for this funding, which York does not believe is the best way to support graduate students’ academic success.”
Arend reports York so far has yet to provide details of the model, or include it in the contract it pertains to. “The bottom line is they don’t want it in the collective agreement because they don’t want to be accountable, and they don’t want us to be able to negotiate improvements in the future.”
“They did pass us something saying they would bring the fellowship into the collective agreement, but they didn’t include the amounts,” Nasr affirms. “So, it’s kind of useless without the actual amounts.”
With regards to Unit 3, Joy notes the 1.7 per cent increase in salaries applies to Unit 3, as it does to Units 1 and 2.
Arend and Nasr say the Union’s frustration around Unit 3 regards cost-cutting at the expense of students.
According to Arend, Masters students are easiest for York to target, as they’re here for one or two years, have less opportunity for engagement, and have less institutional memory and opportunity for engagement with the Union in ways that would benefit members.
“Unit 3 was decimated by a sudden shift of work that resulted in 800 jobs lost in one year.”
Joy says the cost of CUPE’s proposals overall was at least a 57 per cent increase over the cost of the last collective agreement: “We understand that some Unit 2 members are seeking longer term employment, and we have proposed new opportunities for multi-year appointments.”
Joy affirms York plans to hire about 90 new full-time faculty next year alone, creating new positions that CUPE 3903 members can apply for.
As of February 23, York has amended to remove four Contractually Limited Agreements and replace them with a Career Advancement Program to help Unit 2 members market themselves better in the job market.
Arend claims where York says highly qualified PhD students don’t have a tenure track job due to that they aren’t qualified and are unsure on how to seek out a job, they really mean York does not want to hire them at full pay when they know they can cut hiring, eliminate tenure track jobs via attrition and retirement, and simply hire at a cut-rate contract price.
Arend notes York is using “classic” public institution employer tactics to: create an impasse by refusing to engage in good-faith bargaining for as long as possible; use the institution’s social and political capital—“and deep pockets”—to complain ad nauseam in the media about the crisis they just created, so as to foster a panic, making it appear as though everyone is being held hostage by “greedy teachers”—as if the administration had no hand in the impasse.
Arend goes on to accuse York of using media outlets to mislead or simply misrepresent the community through press releases, while refusing to actually bargain with the employees.
“Once the strike has been precipitated and the crisis manufactured, York can turn to a vulnerable government to resolve the ‘impossible’ situation—impossible, because they refuse to engage—through legislation, so they can act as the white knight in the situation, and bank the votes and the post facto quid pro quo donations,” says Arend.
The final offer meeting will take place this Friday, if an agreement is reached, a strike will be avoided; if not, a strike will commence March 5.
“Inducing a strike isn’t the worst idea for York, because it gives them the opportunity to paint the Union in a bad light, and themselves in a certain way,” Nasr says, “because all eyes are on York when this kind of thing happens.”
