McMaster Sessional Faculty Job Cuts Loom – Editorial

University workers face challenging times ahead as our workplaces, including McMaster, endeavour to deal with budget shortfalls by cutting Sessional Faculty positions by increasing faculty workload. I have been teaching at McMaster for over 10 years, and am facing for the first time the possibility that there may be no teaching for me in the 2009/2010 year. Many of you may be facing the same loss of employment as the Employer forges ahead with plans to expand class sizes for full-time faculty who, having no Collective Agreement that can deal with the problem of burgeoning class sizes, are helpless to halt the rush towards larger and larger classes and greater workloads, at the expense of quality in education and fairness in employment relations.

Our union and the entire academic labour movement stand at a cross-road. By recently seeking affiliation with CAUT, CUPE 3906 has made a commitment to our workplace and to the university sector in Canada. Our commitment begins with making a concerted effort to work more closely with MUFA, the CAW and all campus unions and workers to counter the serious threats to the quality of education and employment at underway at McMaster, to challenge the coming attack on the working conditions of full and part time faculty and staff, and to protect and fight for the very livelihood of our Sessional Faculty members.

If you are being “downsized” due to departmental budget-cuts and restructuring, please contact Local 3906 and let us know. We are presently working to take an accurate measure of this additional threat to our already minimal job security. While perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that the Employer would attempt to manage fiscal challenges by cutting the jobs of the most vulnerable employee group on campus, we need not sit idly by and watch it happen.

Sincerely,

Juliette Merritt
Chief Steward, Unit II

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April 19, 2009

“We must defend what we’ve won,” reflects union Bargaining Team member.

In 2008, with a strong strike mandate in place, Sessional faculty at McMaster won a significant wage increase, paid parental leaves, some modest job protections and the beginning of access to medical benefits, all of which had been denied to them by the employer for more than 2 decades.  The history of this important victory can be viewed here.

With the severity of the news reported in this blog, one can’t avoid asking, “are the restructuring and job losses planned by the university administration a direct result on the gains Unit 2 made in our new Collective Agreement?”    If we had remained the lowest-paid Sessional Faculty in Southern Ontario, we might wonder, would some jobs have been saved?

These are natural questions to ask ourselves as reflect on why our jobs are being eliminated.

If the employer has made the decision to eliminate Unit 2 jobs as a result of these workers finally winning a fair contract, workers and students everywhere would agree that this is a deplorable action that must be fought through all means and at all costs.

But other questions must be asked, and answered:

Is eliminating Unit 2 the best way to respond to the current economic crisis?

Will students benefit from a reduction in course offerings, larger classes, and eroded faculty/student ratios?

Are these decisions set in stone, or is there still time to preserve quality employment and education at McMaster?

These are the questions we must continue to ask.  The university administration owes us answers.

There is more to the story than we know at present.  There is more at stake than we can imagine.

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April 21, 2009

“All Options Should be Considered,” say laid-off Sessional Faculty.

Watch this blog for information about upcoming actions planned by the member-run Unit 2 Job Cuts Committee in response to the attack on fair employment and quality education at McMaster.

Beginning at a Special Meeting scheduled for April 21, 2009, Unit 2 members will consider options ranging from legal to political to direct action, and will put a plan into action throughout May and ongoing through the Summer and 2009/10 academic year designed to raise awareness about and fight back against the restructuring current being planned behind closed doors and the impact of these measures on students and workers.

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April 18, 2009

Emergency Unit 2 Meeting on Jobs Losses Due to Restructuring

CUPE 3906 is hosting a Special Unit 2 Membership Meeting on April  21 at 5:30 in Divinity College,  room 136.  It is imperative that you attend so that we can plan our response to the elimination of our jobs.   The following day, the Union will hold its yearly Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Watch this blog for updates from these important meetings.

McMaster Imposes Dramatic Unit 2 Job Losses and Course Cuts, While Increasing Tuition 5%

May 13, 2009

McMaster Budget Documents – Rising Tuition, Less Academic Staff, and Fewer Courses and Programs

CUPE 3906 is committed, first and foremost, to accuracy in its information.  Our Employer, McMaster University, has asked that we take great care in disseminating accurate and detailed information to our members.   As such, rather than taking our word for it that job losses, course reductions, program cuts and tuition fee increases are being planned,  we provide the following university budgets.    As members of the McMaster and Hamilton community, please feel encouraged to download, review and widely disseminate the many budget documents provided below.

January 28, 2009 – 2008-2011 budget template, Parking, Media

February 11, 2009 – Graduate Studies, Registrar, Museum, Tuition Fees

February 25, 2009 – President (Peter George), Provost, Research, Reactor,

March 25, 2009 – Business, Interdisciplinary Studies

April 1, 2009 – Health Science

April 7, 2009 – Humanities Complete Budget

April 8, 2009 – Tuition Increases, Science, Social Science, Engineering

April 22, 2009 – Tuition and Fee Increases, Social Sciences, Humanities, Parking Rates, University Revenue Table

April 29, 2009 – Science, 2008 Consolidated Budget

Finally, please see the 2009 McMaster Consolidated Budget, hot off the presses, below:

May 13, 2009 – Consolidated Budget 2009

If you have questions, please contact the university Provost, Ilene Busch-Vishniac, at provost@mcmaster.ca and/or CUPE at staff@cupe3906.org.

More information as available.

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April 24, 2009

Please Send a Letter of Concern – Sign the petition

To: Ilene Bush-Vishniac – Provost, McMaster

Members of the McMaster community and university sector are concerned that the proposed restructuring underway at McMaster will hurt students and workers. We call on the McMaster administration to reconsider plans to:

* eliminate low-enrollment courses
* shut down under-funded programs of study
* merge sections of courses, resulting in larger classes and
overburdened faculty
* lay-off more than 200 Sessional Faculty members at McMaster

We believe that the “economic crisis” in which universities (and employers generally) find themselves cannot be resolved by cutting workers and reducing academic quality.

Eliminating Sessional Faculty positions will not solve the budget challenges facing the university, and in fact will cause a deeper crisis at McMaster. Your plans will leave departments understaffed and students facing larger class sizes, fewer course options and a compromised degree.

Please don’t shortchange our McMaster students. Please treat McMaster staff with respect. Please halt your planned academic cuts!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Sign the petition

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Do you anticipate coming back to work in the Fall?  Perhaps you shouldn’t count on it.

CUPE 3906 has confirmed that McMaster’s strategic plan involves systematically cutting sessional jobs, a direction that diverges sharply from the vast majority of other universities dealing with budget shortfalls. University documents have disclosed that McMaster is eliminating some courses entirely, cutting sections, and significantly increasing class sizes.  These larger mega-courses will then be taught by full-time faculty.

At a University Planning Committee on February 18, 2009, “Dr. Busch–Vishniac commented that faculty hired part-time often feel less affiliated with the university and this often compromises the quality and mission of a university.”

We are having a Special General Membership Meeting on April  21 at 5:30 in Divinity College,  room 136.  It is imperative that you attend so that we can plan our response to the elimination of our jobs.

For more information, join us on Thursday, April 16 outside Gilmour Hall at 2pm.

Yours in solidarity
Juliette Merritt, Chief Steward Unit II

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April 01, 2009

A special ad-hoc Unit 2 Committee has been formed to address the looming job losses.

The Committee will meet at 5pm on April 9.09, in the CUPE 3906 office, to share findings and plan next steps.  All members are invited to attend.

This is a turning point for Unit 2 workers at our university and in our community.  From Stelco to McMaster, workers across the city are being thrown in unemployment, in the midst of an economic crisis that demands that we fundamentally re-think the structure of our organizations.

McMaster University has a choice – it is making the wrong one.  Watch this blog for analysis, comments and updates.

Urgent Announcement – Unit 2 Teachers at McMaster Facing Immediate Job Losses

April 4, 2009

Dear CUPE 3906 Unit 2 members,

Earlier this month, the 3906 Executive Committee and staff came into the possession of documentation which confirms what many of us have feared for the past few months:  the university administration has directed academic units to take every action possible to eliminate Unit 2 teaching positions from their budgets.

This will require that:

• individual low-enrollment courses will be eliminated
• under-valued programs may be shut down
• sections of courses will be merged, resulting in larger classes and overburdened faculty

CUPE 3906 is presently working overtime to research the extend of the impending Unit 2 job losses, and will have more information, including opportunities for Unit 2 members, students, staff and faculty at McMaster to voice their concerns over this deplorable decision in the coming days.

PLEASE WATCH THIS BLOG FOR DAILY UPDATES.

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May 06, 2009

McMaster University Faculty Association Facing Cuts

We regret to hear that McMaster’s Sessional Faculty are not alone in suffering job losses as the university undergoes dramatic restructuring.

MUFA, representing non-sessional Faculty and Librarians at McMaster, has issued information and drafted letters to the university administration regarding recent information about the loss of 2 of their workers, long-service librarians, who join the ranks of our 200 sessionals on the chopping block.

Read more here: http://unit2jobcuts.wordpress.com/mufa-cuts/

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April 17, 2009

Job Cuts From Stelco to McMaster Prompt Workplace Occupation!

While the impending Unit 2 job losses at McMaster are no laughing matter, the university administration gave us all a good laugh on Thursday, April 16, when the wealthy employer planned for a total lockdown of the office of President Peter George, in response to Union plans to leaflet attendees to a special townhall meeting that afternoon.

Hilarity mitigated the stress felt by those facing unemployment as university security outnumber the small group of CUPE members and allies who took time out of their busy April afternoon to raise community awareness of the looming mass terminations by handing out approximately 200 fliers to townhall attendees.

CUPE members in attendance were please with the support offered by community members, but were dismayed at the heavy-handed response by the administration, which included threats that their outreach efforts would be shut down.

The administration had feared a planned occupation after intercepting a private e-mail communication, in which members voiced opinions that the unconscionable decision by the administration to battle the difficult economic situation by eliminating the jobs of the most precarious and lowest paid university faculty should be met with the same resistance seen across the province at other sites facing massive layoffs.

Whether such action will be taken remains to be seen.  What’s certain, however, is that when such threats have historically faced workers, and there is nothing left to lose, workers imagine and entertain all options.

CUPE 3906 remains hopeful that community pressure will turn the tide, and result in better planning, more creative responses to the economic crisis, and options that sustain the quality of education and employment at McMaster University in the years ahead.

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April 20, 2009

Annual Meeting Set for April 22, 2009

WHAT: GMM and AGM

WHEN: April 22nd, 2009, 5:30 P.M.

WHERE: Divinity College, Room 136

This is a reminder that our next GMM and Annual General Meeting will occur next Wednesday, April 22nd, at 5:30 P.M. in Divinity College room 136.

Refreshments will be provided at 5:00 P.M. and childcare costs can be covered by the local.

Since this is the Annual General Meeting, a number of important items are on the agenda, including the election of executive officers, the ratification of Unit 1 bargaining priorities and the election of a unit 1 bargaining team, and an update on the Unit 2 job cuts and Unit 3 bargaining. All members can run for executive positions, and all members can run for bargaining team positions specific to their bargaining unit.

This is one of the most important meetings of the year – please come out, vote, and have your voice heard.

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June 5, 2009

SESSIONAL FACULTY LAY-OFFS: DROP-IN SESSIONS AND SOLIDARITY SOCIAL FOR UNIT 2 MEMBERS JUNE 9, 10 and 11

Members of Sessional Action Committee will be available for consultation at the CUPE 3906 office on Tuesday & Wednesday between 3:00-5:00pm (Wentworth House B 108) to discuss the ongoing impact of across-the-board Unit 2 layoffs at McMaster.  We need your information about the situation in your department and input into how we can best respond.  If you cannot attend please contact us via email at president@cupe3906.org or staff@cupe3906.org.

On June 11th the Sessional Action Committee will also be holding a Solidarity & Strategy Reception at the Phoenix from 3:00-5:00pm with a list of speakers that includes Sessional Faculty members from York, Guelph and other locals accross the province facing similar challenges.

CUPE 3906 is committed to defending the jobs of its members and assisting Sessional Faculty members facing lay-off.