In September 2025, York informed many Unit 1 members that they may not receive a Teaching Assistant (TA) contract for the Fall. This has raised multiple questions, some of which are still yet to be fully answered.
Below are the answers we have so far; we are continuing to seek information from the employer and will update this FAQ if more answers become available.
Why are some members not getting contracts?
The basic answer is that many departments have been ordered by their Dean’s Office to cut course offerings. This means that there are fewer TAships available this year than in previous years. It is unclear why the employer did not calculate how many contracts were needed to fulfill graduate funding when they made these cuts. As such, the broader answer is rooted in the ongoing mismanagement by York’s upper administration.
Who is impacted?
As far as we are aware, a few dozen graduate students who were expecting TA contracts as part of their funding have not received a contract for the Fall. Some of them are returning members, who are in the priority pool already. Others are incoming students who have not yet held a contract as a grad student at York.
If you are an incoming graduate student who anticipated receiving a TA contract and have not yet received a contract, please inform Prateeksha Pathak, Lead Steward Unit 1, at lsu1@cupe3903.org as soon as possible.
What will graduate funding look for those impacted?
York has stated that they will post Fall funding by the end of September for all those who have not received a Fall contract. However, many have reported that they did not receive this funding yet.
In addition, the Employer has not clarified whether they mean that wages and vacation pay will be posted as a lump sum with Grant-in-Aid (GIA) and Graduate Financial Assistance (GFA) included, or whether GIA and GFA will be posted separately in the normal way when there is a contract (i.e. as one payment per term for GFA and one payment per month for GIA). All of these amounts are components of your funding.
- Wages for a 0.5 TAship: $7,136
- Vacation pay for a 0.5 TAship: $285.44
- One term of GIA: $2356.50 (or $589.12 per month)
- One term of GFA: $844 (domestic student in year 1-2), $1057 (domestic student in year 3+), $1409 (international student in year 1-2), or $1680 (international student in year 3+)
Whatever form the payment takes, whether it is a single lump sum or several payments, it should match the total amount one would expect to receive under normal circumstances.
What will happen if someone also does not receive a winter contract?
York claims that they will post Winter term funding in the same way if Winter contracts cannot be found. This is a worst-case scenario for members who need union benefits and access to funds (see below). If you do not have a Winter contract yet, it is strongly recommended that you work with your department to find one if at all possible. Even a fractional contract (e.g. a 0.25 marker/grader) would allow you to enter the health benefits plan.
What does this mean for access to health benefits?
The Sun Life benefits plan is tied to holding a contract. Health benefits always extend for 5 months after the end of your last contract. For Unit 1 members who last had a contract in Winter 2025, this means your benefits expired on September 30th, 2025.
If you are a member of the priority pool (i.e. a PhD student who has held at least one previous contract) and are not in the 6th year of your PhD, you qualify for an extension of health benefits for a total of 8 months, as long as you receive a contract at the end of those 8 months.
However, you will have to a) retain all your receipts from the period of three months between the expiry of benefits and the start of your next contract, b) manually re-enroll in the benefits plan, and c) submit your receipts for reimbursement after you have been re-enrolled.
The situation is much worse for incoming students, who will not be able to enroll in the Union’s benefits plan until they hold their first contract.
The York University Graduate Student Association (YUGSA) does have a health plan. Anyone who does not have a contract will be enrolled automatically. The plan costs $517 (more if you enroll dependents) and the coverage is much less comprehensive than the Sun Life benefits plan negotiated by the union. Full-time funded registered active students may receive a $1,000 healthcare bursary from FGS to help cover the cost of enrollment and co-pays. For more information on YUGSA’s plan, including information on how to opt-in or opt-out, click this link to see the YUGSA webpage on their Health & Dental Plan.
What does this mean for access to other union funds?
Current political members (within one year of the last contract) may be eligible to access certain funds. Each fund has rules surrounding who can access it. See here for all available funds.
For incoming students who have never held a contract and are therefore not political members, there is currently no way to access collective agreement funds. There has been active dialogue regarding whether our available funds can be made to adapt to this situation.
What does this mean for the priority pool?
The Priority Pool is a collective agreement provision that confers certain rights on PhD students once they have held their first contract. The most important ones are that funding is guaranteed until the 6th year of your PhD, and the Right of First Refusal (the right to teach the same class as the previous year if it is offered).
If you are currently in the priority pool, your priority pool status will not be harmed by the employer’s failure to find you a contract this Fall.
If you are an incoming graduate student, you are not yet in the priority pool if you have not been offered a contract. It is very important that you find a contract for winter, if at all possible, to enter the priority pool and access those rights.
What is CUPE 3903 doing about this?
CUPE 3903 has been gathering information and challenging the employer in several venues since the issue emerged in September. Given that these attempts have not been successful, we have filed a policy grievance on behalf of every impacted individual. We believe that it is wrong for graduate students to be materially punished as a result of the employer’s poor planning. The grievance remedies demands, among other things, that benefits coverage be extended to the impacted individuals.
Filing a grievance is only the first step in what can be a lengthy process. We hope that the employer will be reasonable and find a solution that recognizes that it has a responsibility towards the graduate students it chooses to admit. However, if they don’t, it is hard to predict how long the process will take, or what the outcome will be. We will provide updates as matters develop.