The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) raised awareness for “the growing use and abuse” of part-time university and college professors during its Fair Employment Week (FEW) Oct. 27-31, according to the FEW website.
Robin Vose, an associate professor of history at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick and the president of CAUT, said in an email that the purpose of the event is to “raise awareness about the unfair conditions contract academics staff (CAS) face in their work, how widespread the phenomenon is, and why it is growing so rapidly.”
The campaign is designed to “get people talking about fairness in the workplace, and how we can make changes to achieve it,” Vose said. “Every worker deserves a stable, rewarding job which is fairly remunerated—and in which they are given the tools necessary to do the job right.”
The campaign was rolled out on various campuses across the country, including Queen’s, Western, Ryerson, and McMaster. Carleton University was not one of them, according to Vose.
Vose said CAUT aims to “encourage local faculty associations and campus unions to organize their own events, whatever makes sense to them.”
“There are also parallel events in other countries: in the US and Mexico it is called ‘Campus Equity Week,’ while in Britain the University and College Union also organizes an ‘Anti-Casualisation Day of Action.’ This is a growing problem globally, and we are taking it on together,” Vose said.
“Casualization, two-tiered pay systems and underpayment, part-time and precarious work, are all becoming more and more widespread throughout our society, since it gives employers a great deal of power,” she said.
“Unfair treatment of CAS has consequences for them, but also for our students and for the integrity of our universities as a whole.”
