Hiring practices are an essential part of each collective agreement. This is to ensure that how contracts are offered is transparent and fair, following principles of seniority and equity for all qualified applicants.
This page discusses these overarching principles and some of the provisions in place concerning hiring.
Myth: Seniority and Equity Are Incompatible
The overarching rule of hiring is that the most senior qualified member should be offered the contract. We have further strengthened this important principle with equity hiring provisions to ensure diversity in the workplace and protect those who belong to underrepresented groups. Equity provisions make modest adjustments to eligibility for job security programs (described below). Their impacts will accrue over the longer term.
Unfortunately, employers sometimes pit equity and seniority against each other, saying, for example, that it is only possible to ensure diversity in the workplace if employers have full discretion over hiring (thereby violating seniority). Unchecked discretion creates more precarity for workers by enabling employers to follow their whims in hiring. Opposing equity to seniority also fails to acknowledge how seniority protects everyone, including those who belong to underrepresented groups. For example, seniority rights can be used to protect a member whom the employer is attempting to push out due to racial harassment. To have a workplace that is equitable for all, we need to promote both seniority and equity.
Contract Faculty: Regular Hiring Process
Teaching positions in Unit 2 are posted to York University’s Contract Academic Employment Opportunities webpage as they become available. Positions must be posted for at least two weeks, unless they are emergency postings (i.e., posted after August 1st for Fall appointments or three weeks before the start of the appointment), in which case it must be posted for at least 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.
There are three application types: a yearly blanket application (due January 31st of each year) which indicates availability for all courses in a hiring unit for the following Summer, Fall, and Winter terms; a CSSP application (see below); or a specific application (for a single specific posting). All these applications can be accessed online. You can also access soft copy versions on the Useful Forms and Documents page.
Following the application process, the hiring unit will issue Notices of Recommended Appointment (NRA). Hiring units are supposed to recommend for appointment the most senior qualified candidate for each position. An NRA makes public who the recommended candidate is for each position so that other members have a chance to check to see if the appointment rightfully should have been theirs. NRAs should be emailed to all applicants who have submitted blanket or specific applications and posted to Contract Academic Employment Opportunities. In cases where two or more qualified candidates have equal seniority, preference is given to members who are Indigenous or racialized.
If you believe you should have been named in an NRA, you can (with the help of the union) file a query requesting information about the recommended candidate so you and a union representative can evaluate the basis on which the hiring decision was made. That query must be submitted within 28 days of the date of the NRA (17 days if it’s an emergency posting). The hiring unit must provide this information within 10 days of the query.
If the requested information confirms that you should have been appointed, you have 17 days to file a grievance challenging the appointment.
If the NRA is not queried or grieved or any grievances are resolved in your favour, the hiring unit should promptly email you a Written Offer of Appointment. This written offer should include the hiring unit, faculty, position type and title, course number and name, assignment hours, session, meeting times, and salary for each course to which you are being appointed.
If you were recommended for an appointment on an NRA but subsequently lost the position as a result of a grievance by a more senior, qualified member, you may query and/or grieve other positions even if the deadlines have passed.
Contract Faculty Job Security Programs
Many contract faculty have taught at York for years, if not decades, without any of the stability and respect afforded to their tenured colleagues. This is not the result of the quality of their work; if it were, surely York would not keep hiring them to do around half the teaching of their university! We believe that contract faculty deserve stability and security, and have bargained programs to that effect. These programs are hard-fought and still don’t provide as much as they should.
Continuing Sessional Standing Program (CSSP)
The CSSP gives first priority for courses to Unit 2 members who have taught at least two full course assignments (2 Type 1) or equivalent per year over three years. If you qualify for the CSSP, you will be notified by the university and must apply by November 1 of each year. By January 22, the most senior qualified candidate from the CSSP pool should be appointed to courses within the CSSP. If you are in the CSSP pool and have taught an average of 2 Type 1s over five years but are offered ⅔ or less of your average teaching load over those five years, you are eligible for a one-time payment of ¼ of the difference between your appointment average and number of appointments received. If falling below ⅔ happens a second time, you are eligible for a one-time payout of ⅛ of the difference. There are no payments for third and subsequent losses of work.
Long Service Teaching Appointment (LSTA)
A Long Service Teaching Appointment (LSTA) is a three- or five-year contract that guarantees an appointee a minimum number of courses each year. To be eligible for an LSTA, you have to have been in the Conversion (Affirmative Action) pool for at least five years and have taught at an average intensity of 2.5 full course equivalents per year during the previous three years. Typically, an LSTA guarantees a 3.0 teaching load, paid at the regular rate plus an extra ⅛ of a Type 1 salary per full course equivalent. A member may receive 3.5 if they have incumbency for the additional 0.5 assignment, and can apply through the regular hiring process to teach additional courses up to the regular maximum of 5.5 full course equivalents.
Six LSTAs per year will be awarded in 2024–25 and 2025–26, and an additional six LSTAs must be awarded before our current collective agreement ends in August 2026. At least ⅓ of the total LSTAs will be reserved for members of one or more equity groups, with the priority going to someone who self-identifies as Indigenous or racialized.
Conversions to tenure track
The Affirmative Action Pool was created to provide long-serving Unit 2 members who regularly teach at a high intensity increased access to job security. To enter the pool, you must have at least five years of service and have taught at least the equivalent of 12 full courses (12 Type 1) or the equivalent in the past four years and a minimum of 3 Type 1 or equivalent in at least one of those years. The entry requirement for members who belong to an employment equity group is at least three years of service and a teaching load of seven full course equivalents, including at least 2 Type 1 appointments, over the previous three-year period.
Members in the Affirmative Action pool are eligible to apply for a “Conversion” into a permanent, tenure-track position within the York University Faculty Association (YUFA). Members who receive conversion appointments are no longer CUPE 3903 members. The university must hire at least two AA-pool members in each of the 2024–25 and 2025–26 contract years, plus two more by the end of the current collective agreement in August 2026. At least one conversion per year will be reserved for a member of one or more equity groups, with priority going to someone who self-identifies as Indigenous or racialized.
Unit 1 Hiring
Teaching positions for full-time graduate students (Unit 1) are a part of the funding package for graduate students. PhD students who hold a TA contract in their first year of studies are guaranteed continuing appointments for up to six years, unless granted an extension for further funding. Some Master’s students also have TAships as part of their funding packages. All grad students should fill out a blanket application (available online or in soft copy) by January 31st of each year to be eligible for employment in the following Summer, Fall, and Winter. Because these contracts are guaranteed as part of graduate funding, they are not awarded by seniority in the same way as contract faculty contracts. Unit 1 members do still have rights with regard to hiring, however.
Right of First Refusal
The Right of First Refusal entitles you to teach the same course you have taught before,
assuming it is offered by the hiring unit. You have the Right of First Refusal three times (so typically in years 2, 3, and 4 of your PhD). This means that, in those years, your first TA offer should be for the same TA you held in the previous year. If that exact position no longer exists, the hiring unit has to give you priority for other positions in the unit. Both accepting or declining the offer counts as exercising your Right of First Refusal. The only time it’s not exercised is if the course you’d previously taught isn’t offered that year.
Summer Teaching Assistantships
Priority for summer TAships is given to international students. Make sure to indicate to your hiring unit that you are available and interested in summer work.
Ticketed Course Directorships
A course directorship held by a full-time graduate student is called a “ticket” because a limited number of these positions are available in Unit 1. In order to apply for a ticket, you will need to indicate as much in your blanket application, and provide the required additional documentation.
Upper-year PhD students (year 4+) have priority for ticketed course directorships. Within that pool, at least 50% of tickets within any given Faculty should be prioritized to a member of an equity seeking group, with half of those to members who self-identify as Indigenous or racialized.