Editorial: Carleton is disrespecting precariously employed contract instructors and students — again

Less than two years after a labour disruption involving roughly 3,000 campus workers left the winter 2023 term in jeopardy, it seems Carleton University has learned nothing from its past labour blunders.

In fact, Carleton’s administration is already gloating about plans to slash the number of contract instructors amid a massive and still-growing financial deficit. 

CUPE 4600, the union representing contract instructors and teaching assistants, has repeatedly expressed grave concerns with the university’s communication of the issue, to no response.

Cutting contract instructors might offer the university some short-term financial relief, as administrators wring their hands over tuition freezes, international student caps and stagnating enrolment numbers.

But the university is leaving its own vulnerable workers out in the cold and neglecting the needs of its most critical stakeholders: students.

In a Dec. 13 email to some members of the Carleton community, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences dean Anne Bowker said she was “pleased” to be reducing the university’s “reliance” on contract instructors by 50 per cent.

“Pleased” is a fascinating choice of wording for a mass layoff announcement 12 days before Christmas.

Even though some contract instructors have been educating at Carleton for as long as 20 years, they have little job stability, low wages and enormous workloads.

Carleton is pleased to announce that seasoned academics with years of experience teaching at the university will soon be out of work? That students paying thousands in tuition will be sitting through more crowded classes with fewer specialized course options? That departments will be scrapping beloved educators from diverse communities? All of the above?

Equally on brand for Carleton is the fact that the university still hasn’t offered any meaningful additional information about what the contract instructor reduction will look like. 

Esther Post, president of CUPE 4600, said in a Dec. 16 open letter that the union had not received any information prior to Bowker’s email. Post added the union does not know what criteria will be used to determine which contract instructors get to keep their jobs next year.

Thirty-seven days later, the university has not responded to her questions. Nor has Carleton’s media relations department meaningfully responded to a single question posed by the Charlatan about the contract instructor reduction.

This means conversations about the future of contract instructors at Carleton are relegated to events like union town halls, which are not especially popular with students.

They should be playing out instead in the form of transparent and accountable answers to unions and student media.

In this moment, what students at Carleton need is not flashy new signs, a new residence building or a new swimming pool. Carleton students also don’t need to see their favourite educators lose their jobs.

What they do need is accountable, bare-minimum communication from administrators making six-figure salaries and a guarantee that the quality of their education isn’t about to tank. 

Featured graphic from files.