Fairness for All college and university teachers
This week, educators across the continent join together to call attention to the employment conditions of contingent academic staff at our colleges and universities. These professionals form the often-unacknowledged labour force that makes the university work, ranging from sessional and part-time instructors to teaching assistants and other graduate employees. McGill’s teaching assistants, members of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM, FNEEQ-CSN), take the opportunity of Campus Equity Week to highlight their contribution to the quality of education. In recognition of this contribution, they seek more equal salary and working conditions.
Initiate by the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL), the objective of Campus Equity Week (CEW) is to alert the broader community about the trends to undermine the tenets of higher education by staging media events, improving legislation governing funding and so-called accountability efforts, and identifying colleagues at institutions and assisting them in forming collective bargaining units and winning strong contracts.
COCAL is a floating conference and a network of North American activists working to improve higher education through the collective achievement of job security, livable wages, academic freedom, and time and resources for academic research and professional development for contingent academic laborers. FNEEQ was part of the conference held in San Diego in last summer. FNEEQ is associate from the beginning together with the affiliated part-time teachers unions.
This year, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is fully involved in the Campus Equity Week activities. They are especially insulted and disappointed by a decision of the Labor Relations Board (Commission des relations de travail) that did not take into account the particular organisation of work at the university. The TAs also hope that McGill will respect its promise to pay them for the work done before the start of the recent strike.
You can access
- To the FNEEQ report on the COCAL VIII Conference (in french) ;
- To to the COCAL California website ;
- To access to the leaflet produced by AGSEM with the support of FNEEQ and CSN.
The attached flyer will be distributed at McGill and will be sent to the member unions of the FNEEQ. In addition, and as agreed at COCAL VIII at San Diego, the flyer will also be sent to our Canadian, U.S. and Mexican colleagues, so that everyone learns how McGill treats its teaching assistants.