Unit 1 members in a PhD program! Did you know that you have certain rights for the duration of your degree once you have held at least one TAship? It’s called the Priority Pool. Here’s what you need to know:
Once you hold one TA position, you’re in the Priority Pool.
This is why it’s important to get a TAship in your first year! If you get your first TAship later, however, you can still enter the Priority Pool.
You’re guaranteed work or equivalent until the 6th year of your PhD.
Once you’re in the pool, you can expect Fall/Winter work until your 6th year, regardless of what it said on your offer letter or departmental policies. This means you have priority access to up to one full TAship, and if they can’t find you one, your funding needs to be met in other ways.
You’ll receive Fellowship funding until the 5th year of your PhD.
The York Fellowship is not funding from the goodness of York’s heart. It’s guaranteed in the Unit 1 collective agreement through your 5th year, again, regardless of what your offer letter or department says.
Your Priority Pool can be extended on Human Rights Code-based or union service grounds.
You may be eligible for extra funding if you have a disability, injury, family responsibilities, or other Code-based grounds that impacted your degree progress. Likewise, those who served one the union’s executive committee or bargaining team can apply for an extension. If you’re approved for an extension, you will get work into at least the 7th year of your PhD, and you will retroactively receive the Fellowship funding for the 6th year of your PhD. Find out more about the process here, and contact Nadia Kanani, Staff Representative Equity, if you have questions or would like help with your application.
You have Right of First Refusal in the first few years.
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.
You don’t necessarily have to accept the first contract you’re offered.
If you have Right of First Refusal for a course, that doesn’t mean you have to take it the following year. Likewise, if the contract you’re offered doesn’t work with your schedule or you have an otherwise good reason to decline it, doing so doesn’t mean you’re waiving your Priority Pool right. Make sure you’re very clear about that when you turn it down!
Nothing is official until you’ve signed your offer of appointment.
A phone call, Facebook message, or even an email without an offer of appointment attached is not an offer! Make sure to sign and return the offer of appointment so you’re sure you’ve got the position and you will be entered into payroll properly.
You can always talk to your union if your rights aren’t respected. These are your rights, protected by your collective agreement, which is a legally binding contract. You’re not being too demanding or difficult to want to have these rights respected!
You can always talk to your departmental steward, the Lead Steward Unit 1 (lsu1@cupe3903.org) or one of the union’s staff if your rights are not respected (or you think they might not be respected).