In the midst of contract worker disputes at the University of Toronto and York University, an organization representing 17,000 Ontario faculty and university staff has come out with a campaign to highlight the importance of contract faculty.
The campaign, called “We Teach Ontario,” was unrolled by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) on Feb. 25, the same day thousands of contract workers across the United States walked out of their classrooms en masse to protest working conditions.
Graeme Stewart, communications manager for OCUFA, said the campaign will try to emphasize fairness and social justice.
“We want people to know that these talented teachers and researchers are struggling,” he said. “The working conditions of contract faculty are the learning conditions for students.”
The OCUFA is asking faculty to share their personal stories about working in a contract position on the campaign’s website, Facebook and Twitter.
Since Feb. 25, 18 Ontario contract instructors have posted their profiles.
Andrew Robinson, the Carleton physics contract instructor who has received national attention through his open letter titled “Enough’s Enough,” posted his story on the campaign’s website.
Robinson’s letter, published Jan. 30 on Medium and later the Huffington Post, details the low wages he and fellow contract instructors receive.
Robinson said the current situation with contract instructors is “deplorable” and said they get low pay, no pension plan, no job security, and have to reapply for a job every four months.
The next step for the OCUFA will be “taking [its] concerns to government, to university administrators, and to the public,” Stewart said. “We Teach Ontario will be active for the next few months, and expect [the] next initiative to begin in the 2015-16 academic year.”
Stewart said OCUFA started the campaign because of the “alarming rate” in which faculty are being hired on a contract basis recently.
“Since 2000, the number of courses taught by these individuals has increased by 87 per cent,” he said.
Robinson was criticized by fellow Carleton physics department contract instructor David Maybury in an open letter published last week.
Maybury is critical of OCUFA’s recent campaign.
“I think that the ‘We Teach Ontario’ campaign is simply a deeper reflection on this gross sense of entitlement,” Maybury said. “No one who reads Dr. Robinson’s blog posts would voluntarily offer a car dealership 50 per cent above asking price.”
Maybury said he believes Carleton is doing the best it can for contract workers.
“The university fills all of its positions with the current wage offer. What else do we expect Carleton to do?” he said. “We are talking about highly educated, highly intelligent people here, not the ragged edge of society.”
