David McNally

Dear President Shoukri, I am writing to protest the disciplinary actions taken by your administration against Students Against Israeli Apartheid at York, specifically the one month suspension of the group and fines against their organization and its contact person.

Linda Briskin

I have just learned that TAs and contract faculty will only be getting 90% of their Fall salary. Although it is the case that there are two less weeks in the year (22 rather than 24 weeks), TAs and faculty are facing a lot of extra work to sort out remediation and the winter semester which include revised schedules and assignments, setting up make up exams and deferrals, and dealing with student concerns. If the York President wants to heal the wounds of the strike, as he claims, cutting back the salary of TAs and contract faculty is not the route to go.

Richard Wellen

In his Excalibur editorial of Feb. 18, Prof. Gerrard Naddaf questions the very legitimacy of conversions or SRC-type appointments demanded by CUPE 3903 during the strike. The basic thrust of his letter is that there is only one good way to make a 'real' academic appointment.

Linda Briskin

Today [Feb. 25]in the Globe and Mail I was shocked to find a 62 page glossy magazine promoting York's 50th anniversary. I would imagine that the cost of this magazine would far exceed the cost of the demands that the contract faculty and graduate students had on the table during the strike. Combine this with the cost of the external anti-union lawyer to front the negotiations for three months, the branded wine, the cost of President Shoukri's mortgage...

Lykke de la Cour, CUPE 3903, Unit 2

In the recent CUPE strike, York University’s over-reliance on contractualized academic labour erupted as a central and critical question in discussions around the union’s job security proposals. Interestingly, last fall, at the outset of the strike, most Unit 2 members of CUPE 3903 were largely unaware of the extent to which contract faculty were utilized to fulfill the university’s teaching mission, particularly with respect to undergraduate instruction. Our concerns lay more with working conditions, specific terms of employment, and the precariousness of contractual work. However, one of the benefits that the strike afforded was time to research more fully the circumstances of contractualized academic staff at the university.

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.

Ricardo Grinspun

The Canadian Association of University Teachers appointed the "CAUT Ad Hoc Investigatory Committee into governance and academic freedom at York University" in 2005: (1) To determine whether there were threats to, or breaches of, right of free expression and academic freedom at York University; (2) To determine whether there were inappropriate governance practices; and (3) To make any appropriate recommendations. The committee members were Rebecca Coulter, Associate Professor of Education, The University of Western Ontario, and Kenneth Field, Head, Access Services, Bata Library, Trent University.

Harald Bauder

Academia increasingly faces pressures of corporatization and flexibilization. Of particular concern is the segmentation of academic labour into stable tenured or tenure-track professors and “flexible” sessional and adjunct faculty. In this paper, I review evidence of the segmentation of the Canadian academic labour market, examine the conditions that permit segmentation to exist, discuss why academic geographers in both segments comply with a segmented labour market and, finally, propose potential strategies to address the issue of segmentation.

Imre Szeman, McMaster University

The new SSHRC fellowships announced in the recent federal budget will be focused on business-related degrees. This follows two years of targeted increases to SSHRC's budget -- increases also focused on business. Here's a quote from the budget:

* * *

Canada’s ability to prosper in today’s global, innovation-driven economy ultimately depends on the skills, knowledge and creativity of Canadians. Further developing a highly skilled workforce and ensuring that this talent is well applied is a priority.

TheStar.com - Opinion
January 29, 2009

Jody Berland
Ricardo Grinspun

The longest university strike in English Canada ends with back-to-work legislation this week. As full-time faculty at York University we are distressed at the impact of this strike on our 50,000 students, who have confronted enormous disruption to their lives, finances and future.

With such disastrous consequences, what can we learn from this debacle for the future of labour relations in Ontario universities?

Marcia Macaulay

The current strike at York has broken all records for labour disputes at English-language universities in Canada. Last week, CUPE 3903 faced a forced ratification vote to decide whether the employer’s latest offer would be supported by its membership. The offer was rejected by 62% of the members in a healthy turnout of 69% of eligible members. A significant aspect of this dispute concerns acceptance or non-acceptance of a new class of position: Teaching/Service Appointments. Such appointments replace the existing Special Renewable Contract Appointments already accepted by the York University Faculty Association. The new TSAs have not been accepted by YUFA; they have not even been introduced to its membership, and they present serious problems for YUFA should they be accepted by CUPE 3903.

Andrea O'Reilly, School of Women's Studies, York

Letter to the National Post, 27 Jan 2009
If anyone thinks that it will be "business as usual" at York University once
classes resume, they are kidding themselves. Professors and students are
returning to a university that has bullied its most vulnerable employees for
close to three months and left its prized graduate students out in the cold. It
is clear that York does not value the excellent teaching done by more than 50%
of its faculty. This is a university where dozens and dozens of professors must
reapply for their teaching position each year. This is a university where
mid-management types -- who spend their day pushing paper -- make up to 10

Marc Bousquet, How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation. New York University Press, 2008, 93-4:

Across the Great Divide: Tenure benefits those who have it and also those who don't.

An article from AAUP

Cary Nelson, AAUP

Message to the York Community signed by the Deans of York University

When CUPE 3903 went on strike in November, we all undertook to seek the suspension, with limited exceptions, of academic activities in our Faculties. In so doing, we acknowledged our reliance on the work of our CUPE colleagues in helping to carry out the academic mission of the University. In addition, we continue to recognize the importance to our graduate students of financial support for the successful completion of their “apprenticeship” in our profession.