"The most effective tool we have to stop post-secondary employers from exploiting contingent academic labour is collective bargaining and collective agreements," said Cindy Oliver, President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators. Oliver was speaking to the Conference on Contingent Academic Labour that was held in Vancouver on August 11-13. "The best protection that we can offer these contingent academic workers is fair representation in a union collective agreement that provides decent salary scales, proper benefits and a system of employment security that prevents employers creating this contingent workforce in the first place," said Oliver.

 

Oliver's remarks were made as part of a panel discussion that examined how unions in post-secondary education can use organizing strategies to protect contingent academic labour. "Our experience within FPSE has been to use our collective bargaining strength to establish a standard system of employment security for all faculty. We call it regularization and it has provided an important protection in our bargaining units for educators who might otherwise remain part of this contingent academic workforce," Oliver added. "FPSE has also developed strategies that link our fight for better collective agreements to our struggle for better funding of our public post-secondary education system. The two issues are closely linked and our strategy has always been to advance our members' interests in both areas," Oliver noted.

 

Click here for a full text of Cindy Oliver's presentation to the COCAL conference.

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for more information contact
Phil Legg
Staff Representative, Communications and Policy
plegg@fpse.ca
(604) 788-2877