York’s Markham campus is big news this fall. 10-stories high with state-of-the-art facilities and cloaked with “variegated patterns of vision glass and bronze anodized aluminum panels,” it is expected to welcome over 5,000 students within the first five years. Meanwhile, the Keele and Glendon campuses are slowly sinking into a billion-dollar repair backlog that defines the everyday experiences of over 50,000 students.
Modern facade, deteriorating facilities
The aerial pictures of the Lassonde building or of the futuristic outline of York University subway do not accurately represent the state of the university’s spaces.
During an independent audit of the university’s operations and capital, the auditor general concluded that the Keele and Glendon campuses have slumped into a “state of critical disrepair.” In the five years that York has spent $745 million on new capital buildings, the repair backlog more than doubled, growing from $459 million in January 2019 to $1.04 billion in January 2023.
According to a source with over a decade of experience with campus operations, who chose to remain anonymous in fear of reprisal from the employer, the university’s expansion projects, including the Markham campus, have come at the cost of mechanical and HVAC systems repair, preventative maintenance, and the number of full-time custodians.
“The Markham campus hurt York,” shares the source. “The provincial government pulled out its funding for the Markham campus, so what [York] did was they deferred maintenance [at the Keele and Glendon campuses]. They took that money and built the Markham campus on their own.”
As a result, the Keele and Glendon campuses currently face several pressing issues, which, if not addressed promptly, threaten to disrupt campus activity and impact the health and safety of its members.
“We’ve talked about the issue of deferred maintenance because it affects the students on campus, but it also affects the staff who are working here five days a week, eight hours a day,” says Sonny Day, the President of York University Staff Association (YUSA).
“A lot of these buildings, they’re just really old, and they haven’t received the maintenance. We had buildings that had no cooling whatsoever. I went to areas, for example, where it was 30 degrees or higher inside people’s offices. And that’s not a safe working environment.
“Many areas don’t have adequate HVAC and there’s air quality issues. I know even in my own office where I work on campus, we’ve had an ongoing issue where we have dead leaves and insects coming out of the HVAC vent itself,” explains Day.
The anonymous source says some of the buildings would be “unusable” if repair is delayed. “If they did not renew or upgrade Curtis Lecture Halls, they would have to close them.” The source explains that the flood in lecture hall L from earlier this year was caused by a “mould issue from a steam leak,” underlying the impact of deferred maintenance.
The allegedly undisturbed deposits of asbestos in the ceiling, tiles, drywall and paint contained in many of the university’s buildings constructed in the ‘60s and ‘70s present another complication.
“Over the period of time, [asbestos] gets worn out, it gets frayed, and it gets airborne. This is why they had to renovate those buildings,” says the anonymous source.
“The facilities people — the directors and managers — it seems like now they don’t care. They’re just more concerned about putting out the fires — daily fires — than having to fix something properly,” the source states.
“No money” or “no money for maintenance”?
Yanni Dagonas, York’s Deputy Spokesperson, explains that the Markham campus was an essential part of the university’s development strategy.
“Located in a region with one of the fastest growing populations of 18- to 21-year-olds, the programs at the Markham campus focus on the ways technology and entrepreneurship are impacting every aspect of society, contributing to the university’s enrollment and serving the needs of the growing tech industry.”
The university blames its growing repair backlog on the lack of funding. “Like many post-secondary institutions across Ontario, York continues to actively manage financial pressures resulting from shifting enrolment trends, government funding frameworks, inflation, and other factors,” says Dagonas.
On the other hand, Day believes the real problem is that the university is becoming too “top-heavy.” From 2016 to 2023, the number of senior executives and managers at York grew from 774 to 1,090. Neither student population nor faculty have experienced an increase dramatic enough to justify this 42 per cent expansion in the university’s governing body.
“We keep hearing from the administration, ‘Oh, we have no money for things. We have no money for deferred maintenance.’ But then why are you hiring hundreds and hundreds of more managers at the university when the staff isn’t increasing by 40 per cent, the students aren’t increasing by 40 per cent?” asks Day.
Day also notes that the management positions at York get paid a lot more than some of their counterparts at other universities.
“Why does the university have enough money to give one manager a $120,000 raise in one year, but not enough to provide locks on doors, or fix the HVAC system?” he asks.
The growing rift between the university and its employees
While the number of managers at York grows, some maintenance staff feel they are grossly understaffed to perform their duties.
“We need more manpower. That’s the big thing,” shares the anonymous source. “When I started, we were about 68 people in maintenance. Right now we’re down to probably 38 on paper.”
Day further explains that York has introduced the Voluntary Exit Program, a program which “pays staff money to quit” and restricts them from returning to the university for another two years. The program is supposed to “address current financial pressures” by reducing the number of staff.
“This is only applicable to our YUSA members who do the administrative work and also to CUPE 1356 — the custodial staff who keep the buildings clean, the plumbers and electricians who maintain the university,” says Day.
“They are only offering this to the unionized staff. They’re not offering it to managers. Even though the ratio of staff to management has become more heavily skewed in favour of management, they’re trying to reduce the staff component even more.”
Instead of relying on full-time maintenance staff, the university now outsources its repair work to building operators, who perform “electrical, plumbing, HVAC, mechanical, painting and carpentry tasks that do not require a trade license.” The anonymous source explains that because the building operators do not possess trade licenses, this puts even more pressure on the remaining maintenance staff.
“Now you have more people walking around checking things. Yeah, they do check things, but they can’t fix them. They’re not licensed to fix anything. So they’ve created more work for the fewer people that we have here — the tradespeople.”
A lack of communication between building operators and full-time staff creates other safety risks. With the in-house team — those trained to remove asbestos from pipes — gone, the task is now transferred to those unfamiliar with the university’s asbestos database.
As a former member of the Health and Safety Executive Council, Day recalls taking part in investigations concerning accidental disturbance of asbestos by contract workers.
“When the employer becomes aware of it, they say ‘we better stop that and do something about it. But it’s a little bit late at that point,” says Day.
Sources in custodial and maintenance services agree. It would take a disaster for the university to prioritize investing in deferred maintenance and repairs:
“I think that before York steps it up, it’s going to get worse.
“There was one year when CUB [Central Utilities Building] caught fire and was shut down.It basically cut York — the whole building was off. No heat. No electricity. No water.
“The maintenance people got that building up and running in one day. If that was to happen today, forget it. I know the maintenance guys, when 3:30 p.m. comes, they’ll be going home. But back then we worked around the clock to get York back up and running.”
These feelings of discouragement stem from the administration’s failure to involve maintenance and repair personnel in crucial decisions such as building design, financial planning, and recruitment.
Day presents one solution for the administration: “Talk to the front line staff, talk to the union, try to work together with us.”
Workers who opted for anonymity due to concerns about retaliation say the upper management used to have more care for them than it does now.
“When I first started here, the whole month of December, we would be invited from one faculty Christmas party to another. They respected us for what we did. Now, they don’t respect us anymore. Because there’s hardly any of us now.
“The new management they have now, the new administration, they don’t care about the students and they don’t care about their employees. All they care about is looking good and being ranked whatever ranking that they go by.”
The university has much to rebuild, not just its decaying infrastructure, but also the trust and relationships with some of its oldest and most loyal employees. It’s time for York to re-evaluate its priorities, to put students and staff first.
— Gallery images courtesy of Stacey Kuznetsova
I applaud you for your bravery. This article needed to happen. The management at PRB are running these campuses into the ground. They need to cut the excess bloat (managers and administration) not cut the workers who are fixing the place and keeping it clean. For shame York U, especially for letting Glendon’s heritage properties rot into the ground
And I applaud the informants. They speak the truth. Keep them anonymous.
Lots of departments and programs are being “restructured” just to pay for the growing ranks of administrators.