FAIR
EMPLOYMENT WEEK
Since 2001, the Canadian Association of
University Teachers (CAUT) has endorsed “Fair Employment Week” and is
encouraging member associations -- particularly those which represent contract
academic staff -- to participate.
The goals of this Week are 1) to raise
contingent academic labour issues nationally and locally in media and policy
circles, and 2) to stimulate organizing of unorganized contract academic
staff.
Fair Employment Week is organized by the
Coalition of Contingent Academic Labour (COCAL), a
network of faculty and student organizations and unions representing contract
academic staff across North America.
CAUT and the American Association of University Professors are active
participants in COCAL.
During the first Fair Employment Week, which
took place in 2001, CAUT member associations held petition drives, poster
campaigns, and organised displays featuring members’ scholarly and professional
activity. The uniting theme of the event
was equity for contract faculty.
This year, Fair Employment Week will take place
between October 27 and 31, 2003. Here at
Acadia, we have two types of “contract academic staff”, those of our members
who hold CLT appointments, and those who have part-time positions. Both of these groups are now “organized”, but
the importance of their contributions to Acadia is often overlooked. Both the AUFA executive and the AUFA
negotiating team are working hard to ensure that we achieve a fair and
equitable collective agreement for all of our members. During Fair Employment Week we will be
conducting a poster campaign and asking you to wear buttons in support of
equity for both our CLT and part-time members.
We are also organizing a round table discussion which will take place on
October 28, at 4:30. This will be an
opportunity for you to meet with the members of the AUFA executive and the AUFA
negotiating team to discuss our bargaining positions on rights for our CLT and
part-time members. In addition, we want
to highlight the notions of bargaining in bad faith, and bargaining to
impasse. We hope you can all attend.
Janice Best