YUFA

Joy Mannette
Faculty of Education

I wish I could say that I am astounded that YUFA members are even considering teaching stream appointments. Sadly, there is little that surprises me in the market-driven, instrumentalist university. In this article I address how institutionally segregating seconded faculty from research has resulted in a de facto practice/theory split which is an ongoing feature of the work in the Faculty of Education despite discourse to the contrary.

Lykke de la Cour
Department of Social Science

As a long service CUPE member now holding a CLA position, my current employment location affords a bit of a 'borderland' view, between YUFA and CUPE, on the renewed proposals for a teaching-only stream. This proposal, like its TSA predecessor, is extremely flawed, contradictory, and illogical, and will do absolutely nothing towards improving teaching and learning conditions at the university.

Janice Newson

The purpose of teaching-only streams in full-time faculty bargaining units is to enable significant technological change. Although universities have been wired for almost two decades and university support functions are now provided mainly on-line, technological change has not had significant impact on the delivery of teaching. In order to more fully technologize teaching, administrations need teaching to be severed from research, not just de facto, but de jure, meaning, in the contractual provisions of collective agreements.

Bob Hanke
Departments of Communication Studies, Humanities, Political Science (LAPS)

It’s a dilemma for universities: how do they promote and enhance the research that brings prestige (and funding) to the institution, and at the same time provide a high-quality learning experience to undergraduates if all they can offer are sessional contracts? The answer to this dilemma is not TSAs: CUPE Unit 2 members should resist the “teaching only” trend found in Britain and the U.S. As the core tenure-track faculty shrinks, CUPE Unit 2 members should reject any offers that expand the periphery of an “ever-green” academic underclass of cheap teachers.

Richard Wellen

An Analysis and Commentary on the Proposed Teaching Load Reduction Framework

The likely result will be annual competitions among both units and colleagues for course releases. We know the university has been avidly studying the use of performance indicators, and they have been canvassing Faculties on this topic. The acceptance of this framework is almost certain to result in a significant intensification of post-tenure performance review within units. In fact, one cannot avoid the suspicion that the reason the parties negotiated a vague framework with only very general principles, was so that performance indicators could more easily be smuggled in.

Marcia Macaulay and Yvette Szmidt

On September 17 there will be a meeting to ratify or not a tentative settlement between the employer and YUFA. This tentative settlement fails to reflect the bargaining positions which YUFA members approved and gave the Bargaining Team a mandate to negotiate at a General Membership Meeting on June 2, 2009. There are a number of significant concerns which we wish to bring to your attention.

Marcia Macaulay

What members should fear in the case of a precipitous settlement is a trading off of the bargaining positions ratified by the membership during the last General Membership meeting. Advances in workload could in fact be clawed back, leaving York as a university without the benchmark of 2+2 which is in keeping with other universities in Canada. And although the Executive's language on carriage rights was withdrawn from the bargaining proposals, this language could return, to the detriment of the members.