YUFA Ad Hoc CUPE Support & Communications Committee: The Trend Toward Casualization of Teaching at York

18 Dec 08 – From the YUFA Ad Hoc CUPE 3903 Support & Communications Committee: The Trend Toward Casualization of Teaching at York

This Ad Hoc Committee was set up by the YUFA Executive as a venue for members to express support for CUPE 3903 and provide communications to YUFA members about the strike. The mandate of the Committee was clarified by a series of motions at the YUFA Special General Meeting of 19 November 2008. The Committee includes some members of the YUFA Executive and is open to all YUFA members.

The current CUPE 3903 strike is linked to and attempts to address an increasing trend towards casualization of labour throughout the economy, among universities, and at York. Casualization is driven by a “bottom line” mentality that emphasizes cost reduction and conceals the broader social and economic costs and impacts of job insecurity and precarious employment.

In recent years, York University's budgetary priorities have favoured administrative over academic expenses. Although analysis of the University budget is hindered by the Employer’s reluctance to disclose its finances, a very visible expression of this budgetary trend is the shift in academic teaching toward part-time and contract teaching, along with the relative decline in tenure-track hiring compared to the growth in student enrolments.

Comparing data for 1997/98 and 2007/08, from the York University Factbook, provides a glimpse into these long term trends. This has been a decade of strong growth in student enrolment, with a 46% increase in full-time undergraduate enrolment and 52% in full-time graduate enrolment. During this period, the tenured and tenure-track complement has grown from 1097 to 1401, an increase of only 27.7%. This suggests a significant worsening of student / full-time faculty ratios, a problem which is confirmed by cross-university comparisons such as those published by Macleans magazine. During the same period, contract course director assignments (which are CUPE 3903 Unit 2 appointments) have risen from 702 to 1494, an increase of 113%, while contractually limited appointments (CLAs, which are YUFA appointments) have increased from 35 to 119, a 240% increase. Similar trends can be observed in CUPE 3903 Unit 1, whose members are graduate students employed in teaching, tutoring or marking; the number of tutorial leader assignments has increased from 308 to 666, which is a 116% increase, twice the rate of increase in graduate enrolment.

The relative decline in the complement of tenure and tenure-track faculty is aggravated by competing pressures resulting from the rapid creation of a large number of new programs which demand administrative time. At the same time, the academic plan of the University calls for intensifying research activities as well as increasing graduate student enrolments and thus supervisory tasks. Facing larger demands for service, administration, research, and graduate student supervision means that full-time faculty must spread themselves thinner as more undergraduate teaching is assigned to part-time and contract teachers. A recent surge in retirements is happening with little prospect for remedying the attrition in full-time teaching complement, particularly in the traditional areas of strength of the University. All these trends converge to exacerbate the casualization trend in undergraduate teaching at York.

YUFA Ad Hoc CUPE Support & Communications Committee

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