More than 200 contract academic staff activists from across North America gathered in Montreal in October for the fifth conference of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor. Representatives of faculty associations and unions from nine provinces, 15 states and Mexico spent a weekend networking, sharing information and developing strategies to resist the casualization of academic labour.

"The conference was fantastic," said Maria Peluso, president of the Concordia University Part-time Faculty Association and one of the conference organizers. "There were important long term relationships established. COCAL provides the ideal arena for the word 'solidarity' to have real meaning."

The conference agenda featured workshops on a wide range of topics, including job security, inter-union coalitions, integration and governance, collective bargaining and discrimination in academia. Plenary sessions engaged delegates in a broad overview, examining the state of contingent academic labour in North America, the struggle to defend academic freedom for all academic staff and the globalization of contingency, in which speakers drew comparisons between the resistance to casualization in academic labour and current developments in organizing contingent workers in other sectors.

Following the opening workshop on mobilization, COCAL participants were given an opportunity to participate in a lively march and rally in support of bargaining demands of contract faculty at Montreal colleges and universities, all of whom are in negotiations this fall.

"The march was a wonderful change from panels and workshops," said CAUT organizer Vicky Smallman. "The banners, signs, buskers and marching band had a real impact, and sent a strong message to Montreal university and college administrators. It really set the tone for the rest of the conference."

COCAL is a network of academics involved in contingent faculty issues, working to share information, educate colleagues and the public and build solidarity among the scattered ranks of faculty activists. This was the first COCAL conference in Canada, a cooperative effort between the Concordia association, CAUT, and the Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec. Previous conferences were held in San Jose, Boston, New York and Washington, and the coalition was the driving force behind Fair Employment Week, a campaign of coordinated activity on contingent faculty issues in 2001.

This was the first COCAL meeting with participation from Mexico. Two leaders of the Sindicato de trabajadores de la Universitad Autonoma de Mexico addressed the conference and described challenges facing their union members.

"The level of contingency in all three countries is alarming," Peluso said. "It's not an accident that the quality of higher education is suffering as much as the quality of our working lives."

Nearly 60 per cent of undergraduate courses in the U.S. are taught by people off the tenure track. As much as half of the undergraduate teaching load at Quebec universities are taught by contract faculty. And, although data for the rest of Canada is unreliable, similar trends are apparent across the country.

In a plenary session on the state of contingent academic labour, representatives of major unions and professional associations identified some common issues, including integrating contract academic staff into the decision-making structures of universities and colleges and developing a career path for contingent faculty.

"Prior to 1998, faculty activists often labored in isolation with few sources of information and a limited conception of what was possible or desirable," says Richard Moser of the American Association of University Professors.

"COCAL has become one way that contingent faculty have struggled to create new forms of solidarity to compensate for what is often lacking in the workplace. Now a victory in Canada or California is a victory for the entire movement and a learning opportunity for all of us. That sense of inspiration and solidarity was palpable in Montreal."