UPDATE
ON PART-TIMERS
As many of you know, one of the tasks the AUFA executive undertook last year, following an enabling motion from the membership, was to organize the part-time, per course academic staff to be part of our bargaining unit. Members of the AUFA executive, with the help of a number of other AUFA members, undertook to contact and sign up the part-time faculty. This was a lengthy process, partly because many part-time faculty do not have easy access to an office, phone and/or e-mail. Vicky Smallman from CAUT played a very important role in this process, providing advice, experience and encouragement.
By early April we had more than half of the eligible part-timers signed up and we made formal application to the Nova Scotia Labour Board (again with considerable help from CAUT). Three days later, on April 12, 2001, a formal vote was conducted here at Acadia. Then the lawyers stepped in and the process slowed considerably. At one point it looked like it might drag out all summer, but on June 26 "the parties" met (two lawyers, one AUFA rep and four representatives of the employer) at the Labour Board in Halifax for an all day session. At the end of the day we had hammered out an agreement on the eligible voters. The Labour Board established that we had more than the requisite number of cards signed from eligible voters, and a clear majority of votes cast on April 12. We had done it!!!
Since that time the AUFA executive has struck a committee to initiate a process that will result in proposals for consideration at the negotiating table. A negotiating team is being put in place to take the next steps of negotiating terms for our members.
We have taken an important step by including these contract academic staff into our union, and we look forward to working with them to help improve their working conditions and protections.
Dianne Looker