CAUT, YUFA, YORK: Questions, Conjectures, Incompletions

Nick Lary

In March 2005 the Canadian Association of University Teachers set up a Committee of Inquiry in direct response to the actions of the York Administration and the Toronto police in suppressing a student demonstration in Vari Hall on January 20 2005. There was widespread dismay at York and in the wider academic community and beyond over the actions of the Administration. The Committee of Inquiry was set up at the request of YUFA Executive.

In the spring of 2006, Jim Turk, Executive Director of CAUT, announced that the Report would be released the following September. In fact it was not until almost two years later that the Report was produced. There were short announcements of this last October on the YUFA and CAUT websites. And apparently there was a meeting the previous month between YUFA and Administration officials, with Penni Stewart, President of CAUT (and a past YUFA President) in attendance. Turk reports: “All parties willingly embraced the recommendations and agreed to move forward in a positive spirit.” And with this the report was buried -effectively suppressed. Except that a Report of this significance could not be suppressed. It was bound to be published; it has been posted on several websites in Canada and the United States and printed copies are in circulation. (It can be downloaded from here). At a recent meeting of YUFA Executive, Arthur Hilliker, current President of YUFA, quoted Jim Turk as saying its publication was malfeasance. This is a disturbing charge -but more disturbing is the harm done by suppression of the Report.

The Report says that the issues of free speech and of governance are inextricably linked at York University. What the Report has to say about the climate of fear on campus regarding free speech issues and the lack of open and accountable governance was relevant in the spring of 2005. It is no less relevant today. In the past three years, since the effective withdrawal of YUFA from Critical Times, the inter-union campus newspaper, there has been no public and general discussion on campus of academic workplace issues such as the deteriorating FT-faculty-to-student ratios, the increasing portion of teaching assigned to casualized faculty, the growing corporatization of the university, and suppression of free speech and academic freedom. This was one venue on campus where these free-speech issues could be addressed –openly and from a variety of perspectives. And the cause of open and accountable governance suffered a recent, major loss when the incoming Dean of the new Faculty of Arts and Professional Studies was chosen through an essentially closed process, with a search committee chaired by the President, Mamdouh Shoukri. Members of the Faculty and students are bound to wonder whether a Dean chosen in this way will not simply implement the President’s strategy of further draining the resources of the humanities and social sciences.

What accounts for the long delay in the completion of the Report? And what accounts now for the attempt to quietly bury it? In the first instance, the reasons for the delay were quite clear. Early in the fall of 2005, YUFA Past-President Susan Dimock indicated publicly, at Stewards Council, that it might be worth using the CAUT Report as a bargaining chip during negotiations in order to obtain a better collective agreement. Since throughout 2005 and 2006 there was virtually no public discussion of contractual issues -beyond the preparatory work done by the Bargaining Priorities SubCommittee -it is of course impossible to verify whether this bargaining chip did get the membership a better or even a good deal. One member of Executive in 2006, Penni Stewart, remained strongly committed to CAUT's completion of the Report, and felt that YUFA and CAUT owed it to the students whose rights were being violated by the Administration to see that the Report was completed.

What seems to have happened is that a compromise was reached whereby CAUT agreed to delay the Report so it would not interfere with YUFA’s negotiations for the Collective Agreement (these continued long past the expiry of the Collective Agreement in May 2006). And most likely the YUFA leadership hoped that the delay would be long enough that the Report, when it eventually came out, would be ancient history and essentially irrelevant. It is natural to suppose that Lorna Marsden, then President of the University, approaching the end of her tenure, wished to see the Report delayed as long as possible if not prevented. Among her reasons for refusing to meet with the Committee of Inquiry was the claim (in July 2005) that “meaningful and good faith efforts at resolution of the issues between the University and YUFA” were underway. In fact, in the summer of 2005 there were no meetings of YUFA Executive. The only attempt at resolution of the issues can have been in one-on-one meetings between the President of YUFA, Arthur Hilliker and President Lorna Marsden. Was the delay of the report in actual fact an attempt to oblige Lorna Marsden -to delay it until her departure from office? Was this the bargaining 'chip'?

There are major recommendations in the Report. In particular YUFA and the Administration were supposed –are supposed -to engage in an open and thorough review of policies such as the Temporary Use of University Space Policy and Procedures and the Student Code of Conduct, and an examination of governance structures and practices with a view to reclaiming a collegial model for the University. Has there been such a review of the TUUSP? I believe not. Has there been a review of governance structures? How then to account for the Administration’s strategy of non-negotiation with CUPE 3903? Can the Administration be held accountable for it? And why is Senate now, more than ever, the creature of the Administration? Has there been a policy of union renewal? Why then YUFA's reluctance to say anything about the recent back-to-work legislation? Has there been a change in what the Report terms the Administration’s policy of “creating a new public image of a privatized and corporate York University”? Recent events indicate, Not at all.

There was a further delay of the Report due to the illness of one of its authors. But in spite of all the delays the now completed CAUT Report is still relevant. CAUT is not serving York or the wider academic community by failing to publish the Report. At best, Jim Turk utters a pious hope when he says: “We think the unfortunate experience of the past provided some valuable lessons that will prevent similar problems at York in future." It would be good if CAUT published the Report and proved itself a worthy defender of the academic community in Canada and recipient of our union contributions. It would also be a fitting tribute to the dedicated work of Rebecca Coulter and Ken Field, the authors of the Report.

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