From: Y-File, Wednesday, February 11, 2009
CUPE’s solution would be unacceptable to all universities, says Axelrod
Universities’ heavy dependence on part-time faculty merits serious attention, but CUPE 3903’s proposed solution would be unacceptable to every university in Canada, argued Paul Axelrod, a professor in York’s Faculty of Education and its former dean, in an opinion piece published Feb. 9 on the University Affairs Web site.
Two Contract Faculty Suggest Otherwise For the Academic Labour History Record:
I respect Paul Axelrod’s book — Values in Conflict: The University, the Marketplace, and the Trials of Liberal Education — because, as a social historian of education, he defended York’s liberal arts education tradition and critical thinking against commercialization, commodification, and corporatization. However, he completely misses the academic labour history lessons of the 2008-09 York University strike/lockout. On the issue of “job security,” he omits how the Employer’s bargaining team demanded a 75% cut to a successful, 20-year old affirmative action Conversion Program from CUPE to YUFA for long-term, eligible, qualified, faculty who already teach, do research, and perform professional and community service. For a significant minority of contract faculty who aspire to have full academic careers, the sessional treadmill has become a sessional trap. After more than two decades of working in media studies, the only difference between me and tenured scholar-teachers is job security. The problem is that the declining security of university employment is turning many academics into precarious academic labourers. Contingent inequity is what damages the viability and integrity of academic programs and the reputation of York as a workplace for social justice and social change. Due to the “contract shuffle” for short-term, per course contracts, contract faculty are also disadvantaged in terms of teaching resources and internal/external research support. Overall, over the past decade, undergraduate and graduate enrollments have increased, the number of contract faculty have exploded, and tenure-track positions have been shrinking. Unlike the 2000-01 strike, this strike put the issue of job security for contract faculty front and center. York’s April 30, 2008 financial statements showed, even before bargaining talks began, that the problem would not be to cover the costs of CUPE’s priority proposals, only a problem in the direction and use of funds (symbolized by the $81,000 first-year bonus for President Shoukri and the average salary increases of Deans). In retrospect, the CUPE 3903 pan-unit victory in the forced ratification vote was short-lived and no match for a two-pronged attack against the democratic right to collective bargaining. Internally, anti-CUPE tenured professors, managerial intransigence and a president advised by union-busting lawyers, breached the duty to bargain in “good faith.” Outside the neoliberal university, premier McGuinty, under pressure from the opposition party and public opinion primed by the dominant framing of the strike in the mainstream media, sent in his “top” mediator–for one day. With the passage of Bill 145– the York University Labour Disputes Resolution Act–on January 29th, the “education premier” helped President Shoukri “redefine the possible” by completing the attack on collective bargaining begun by York’s academic managerial class. The lesson is that a dangerous precedent for the university sector has now been set.
Posted by Bob Hanke, Feb 12, 2009 9:21 AM
The statement that “CUPE 3903 demanded that a significant portion of new full-time appointments be awarded to part-time faculty exclusively on the basis of seniority” is misleading if not false. It is false if “full-time appointments” is understood to mean tenure-stream positions. (For many years there has been a mechanism in the CUPE 3903 collective agreement to move a limited number of its members into tenure-stream positions, but this mechanism is not based on seniority.) What the union demanded to be awarded to part-time faculty on the basis of seniority were renewable five-year contracts. The union had such a mechanism in its collective agreement for several years until 2005. The York University Faculty Association’s collective agreement now governs the working conditions of those who were awarded these multi-year contracts–known as Special Renewable Contracts (SRCs)–through that mechanism. A mechanism to replace the SRC program was being negotiated in this round of bargaining and presumably will be part of the arbitrated settlement. The new mechanism will not function exclusively on the basis of seniority, but seniority will be an important component.
Posted by Matthew King, Feb 11, 2009 1:16 PM