Appendix T (formerly U) -YUFA'S President Proposes Faculty Salary Freeze

Richard Wellen

Why does YUFA’s President think York’s Professors don’t deserve a salary increase?

This year’s CUPE 3903 strike highlighted the worrying problem of the growing casualization of academic workforce at York and at other universities. At a recent membership meeting in March many of our members argued that we should begin to address this problem by restoring a higher ratio of full-time to contract faculty. At the time, no one suggested that the money needed for this should come from the salaries of already employed YUFA members.

Since the last meeting it appears that this is exactly what Arthur Hilliker, the YUFA President, has in mind. He has put forward a very unconventional proposal whereby our union would volunteer to forgo a base salary increase for faculty and librarians in exchange for a commitment to increase the complement of tenure stream faculty. This has received approval on Executive and passed by a slight margin in a vote at a poorly attended Stewards’ Council meeting.

Professor Hilliker’s proposal is seductive since it can be seen as a gesture of good will from YUFA to the York community and the larger public after the long and destructive CUPE strike. Some might think it projects the image of a new, more ‘cooperative’ path for labour negotiations at York. Unfortunately, however, the more one thinks through the full implications of this proposal the more it appears to be ill-conceived as well as a threat to the strength and credibility of YUFA’s bargaining power with the York administration.

For example, no other faculty union in Ontario is being asked by its employer to forgo a base salary increase, despite the fact that all of the universities are facing similar reductions in full-time faculty appointments. If YUFA opens negotiations with a voluntary quid pro quo of this type, many people will take notice, but with consequences that could be very damaging In fact, such a proposal is likely to put immediate pressure on other faculty associations to make similar concessions, thereby lowering standards for everyone. It would set a precedent for university faculty members to ‘fall on their swords’ if either institutions or governments fail to make the necessary investments in academic appointments. Or worse, the impression would be left that York’s challenges have been caused by inflated faculty pay rather than impoverished academic budgets.

Do we want to contribute to the inaccurate stereotype of professors as overpaid and underworked? Most members of the public are not always aware that many professors do not earn their first tenure stream position until they are well into their thirties, or even later. Most of their peers in other comparable professions make higher average salaries and start earning those salaries earlier in their careers. Faculty workload is also increasing, especially at York where YUFA members have among the highest teaching loads of any faculty group in Ontario (not to mention our large class sizes) and at the same time have been asked to further intensify their research activities.

The York community has been seriously wounded by the recent CUPE strike, but this is no reason to resort to impulsive policies which would erode past salary gains for York faculty. From all indications, York professors are paid fairly close to the Ontario average and are well behind colleagues at University of Toronto, Queens, Waterloo and McMaster. This proposal would set us further behind our closest competitors, and, ironically, it would further jeopardize our capacity to recruit the best new colleagues.

If we were to sacrifice a 3% increase in year one of the contract, the cumulative effect would be surprisingly large. The following chart illustrates the ten and twenty year cumulative impact of the proposal for various initial salary levels (if we assume a benchmark of annual 3% increase to salary and PTR increments):

2008-09 Salary....10 year cumulative loss....20 year cumulative loss
$90,000...................$31,800.........................$79,688
$100,000.................$42,100..........................$89,968
$115,000.................$57,550...........................n/a

For all of the above reasons, I think it is important for YUFA members to resist Professor Hilliker’s proposal. In contrast to CUPE 3903, YUFA has been very ‘cooperative’ in the last decade of negotiations. We have won very few improvements in pay and working conditions over those years. In the meantime, we have seen faculty unions at Carleton, Brock and Wilfred Laurier win teaching load reductions that have been refused by our own employer. Now is not the time to fall further behind and make our own members pay the price for the misguided policies of both the employer and the government.

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