The Failures of a Faculty Association

Jody Berland and Ricardo Grinspun

Challenging times require strong collective action to defend values of fairness, integrity, and democratic accountability. It is deeply disappointing to see the York University Faculty Association failing to stand up to the task. We are responding to egregious anti-democratic practices in the Executive of that Association, most recently in the election of Steward Council Representatives to YUFA Executive. In this article we offer context and commentary on this event.

York’s 50th anniversary has arrived at a time of unprecedented institutional crisis. We have lived through a devastating strike and a dramatic economic downturn. We face an unprecedented drop in enrollments and the prospect of wrenching budget cuts and “do more for less” restructuring. Tenure is an endangered institution as the administration accelerates the long term trend toward casualization of academic work. Most retirees are not being replaced, CLA positions are being cut across the board, and the teaching gap is being filled by a rapidly growing precarious workforce of part-time faculty. York’s traditional areas of strength in liberal arts and professional studies are starved for resources while President Shoukri focuses on building areas such as science, engineering and medicine, despite the oft-referred to budgetary context. Academic freedom and collegial governance are being diminished as York’s highly paid administrators embrace a top-down corporate executive style, while Senate and faculty councils are become gradually devoid of content. Intellectual exchange and critical debate are being displaced by message control and expensive public relations.

It is hard to think of a time when a strong, effective and democratic faculty association would be more crucial to the long term sustainability of our university.

The reality of YUFA stands in stark contrast to that need. Their policies and activities have been cemented but also obscured by their anti-democratic practices. There has been mounting evidence in recent months of such practices by the YUFA executive. There are troubling signs of forces at work in YUFA as well as in the administration intent on undermining collective bargaining. It will be difficult to make our voices heard in upcoming contract negotiations if members do not take charge of their union.

It takes pages and pages to detail the evidence on irregularities in recent YUFA Executive processes. Colleagues have provided such evidence in articles posted in the York Democratic Forum website, http://www.yorkdemocraticforum.org/. We provide here a glimpse into irregularities in one particular realm, election procedures. The election of the YUFA Executive in Winter 2007-2008 was called off and re-run due to undisclosed irregularities. More recently, inconsistencies have been noted in elections of Stewards to Stewards Council. YUFA President Arthur Hilliker refuses to revisit these, in spite of repeated requests from YUFA members.

The most recent problem arose during the election process for Stewards Council representatives to the YUFA Executive. Midway through the election the procedures were altered in defiance of election policies approved twice by Stewards Council. These actions allowed members of YUFA Executive to vote for Stewards Council representatives to YUFA Executive. It is likely that these decisions, supported in an Executive vote by YUFA’s President, changed the outcome of the elections. This represents a theft of the election. (For further details, read: http://www.yorkdemocraticforum.org/node/55).

Election irregularities are just the tip of the iceberg. YUFA’s leadership appears to be more mindful of the employer’s interests rather than of its membership’s. This is a sampling of other recent events:

• YUFA President Arthur Hilliker informed members at a General Meeting that salary was the first priority in a survey of members. After repeated requests by members, survey results were circulated to members. The first priority expressed by members was in fact workload.

• In early May, members of YUFA Executive floated and withdrew a proposal that attacks an individual’s right to file and pursue grievances. (See http://www.yorkdemocraticforum.org/node/56)

• Most recently the union leadership has tabled a provocative proposal that we become the only faculty union in the country that volunteers to take a wage freeze, and ask the employer to assign the money for new complement. Unless amended, this proposal would mean that new complement will likely go to “areas of growth.” In other words, a salary freeze for FLAPS faculty would likely be paying for additional complement in Science and Engineering, while permanently damaging long-term incomes of women, visible minorities, disabled faculty and others covered by equity concerns.

• There was then a ratification of the executive’s 2009 bargaining proposals which was arguably unconstitutional since some members of Stewards Council were not permitted to vote.

• YUFA’s President has been painfully silent as some members of our Association, closely aligned with the employer, have been musing about decertifying our union. They have presented motions (defeated by members), calling for YUFA to give up our right to strike, a calculated first step in that direction. Several of them are now running for office in YUFA. President Hilliker has proposed postponing the budget until after that election.

We need members to become aware of and involved in the affairs of YUFA. In the last twenty years, YUFA has enabled us to gain important rights and benefits, salary increases, workload protection, and equity measures that we would not otherwise possess. At no time in YUFA’s history have there been such strong pressures to overturn these rights and benefits. YUFA is an essential collective voice in an institution, York University, going through enormous turmoil.

An active, alert, involved membership is our only defense. Please attend YUFA membership meetings. Please lend your support to the representatives and principles of collegiality, democracy and fair play that make our faculty association a union that can defend its members during difficult times.

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