Kyara Tobias, August 2013– Un-hired Ed: the growing adjunct crisis. How our best and brightest can work tirelessly for 8 years only to receive food stamps, debt, and no career. Click on the image for an extremely eye-opening, informative infographic.
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Posted in Accountability, Adjuncts & Sessionals, Advocacy, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Job market, Organizing, Protests, Research, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged adjuncts, Budgets & Funding, Contingent labor, Equity, Ethics, Organizing, Students, Working conditions
CTV Montreal, September 6, 2013– A group of 91 Quebec thinkers – mostly francophone academics – have signed a letter denouncing the PQ’s charter of values that is expected to be debated at the National Assembly as soon as next week.
Although the exact details of the soon-to-be proposed legislation remain unknown, the group is clear in its rejection of the project, as evidenced in its 1,000 word manifesto entitled “Our values exclude exclusion.”
The letter begins emphatically: “We are against any proposed Charter of Quebec Values. We share values such as equality between men and women and the secular nature of the state and public institutions.
The signatories include McGill academics Abby Lippman and Ethel Groffier, writer Norman Nawrocki and activist Will Prosper.
The letter defends what it calls “the rejection of racism,” and calls the bill a “repressive and divisive project.”
Read more: CTV Montreal
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Posted in Academic freedom, Censorship, Ethics, Government, Human Rights, Politics, Protests, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Academic freedom, Government, Protests, Students, Unions
Brian Haman, Counterpunch, August 30, 2013 — It has become a truism in American higher education: seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by contingent faculty1, most of whom lack health insurance,2carry onerous student debt,3 receive poverty-level compensation, and often rely on public assistance such as food stamps in order to make ends meet.4 This percentage translates into more than 1.3 million highly-educated, qualified, and competent, but poorly-paid, undervalued, and underappreciated American workers. Conversely, administrative costs at colleges have soared in recent years. The academic managerial class (provosts, vice and associate vice provosts, deans, presidents, vice presidents, etc.) routinely earn six-figure salaries, often with generous perks including vacation homes.5
According to U.S. Education Department data, “U.S. universities employed more than 230,000 administrators in 2009, up 60 percent from 1993, or 10 times the rate of growth of the tenured faculty, those with permanent positions and job security”.6 Most new hires on American campuses never even set foot in the classroom simply because they are not teachers but administrators.7 Furthermore, the cost of a college degree in the U.S. has increased by 1,120 percent since 1978.8 The overwhelming majority of the academic labor force (to say nothing of students, who voluntarily submit to indentured servitude in the form of student debt) suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
We find a similar dynamic in other segments of the American labor force, especially in the fast-food industry. Fast-food workers endure low wages (and indeed wage stagnation), few if any benefits, and a scarcity of full-time contracts.9 The marginalized and contingent workforce at places such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and KFC share similar concerns and face similar challenges such as starvation wages, reliance on government assistance, and job insecurity that academic workers endure at some of our nation’s leading universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Michigan.10 However, unlike the academy, the difference between CEO compensation and fast-food workers’ pay is truly breathtaking. David C. Novak, CEO of Yum Brands, which includes chains such as KFC and Pizza Hut, received a total annual compensation of $29.67 million in 2012.11
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Last year, McDonald’s gave [Dan] Thompson a compensation package worth $13.8 million, or more than 558 times what McDonald’s expects employees to make — from two jobs”.12 The national minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25 per hour and the top five largest employers (McDonald’s is among them) pay its workers at or near the minimum wage. We may reiterate the conclusion of the previous paragraph with one minor revision: The overwhelming majority of the fast-food labor force suffers disproportionately due to enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a small and privileged elite.
When faced with such systemic and structural inequalities, how have fast-food workers responded? The answer is quite instructive. They have staged local protests and walkouts in cities across the country and are planning a national walkout in order to fight for a higher minimum wage. As Professor Anne Kalleberg has noted, however, the protests are not union-sponsored but socially organized.13 Fast-food workers, just like their academic counterparts, often struggle to unionize due, at times, to explicit efforts by their employers to prevent them from doing so. Nevertheless, despite such grim circumstances, fast-food workers have pushed their plight quite successfully into the national consciousness just as Occupy movements have done.
Their campaign, entitled “Fast Food Forward”, articulates their purpose with self-assured clarity: “Fast Food Forward joins the momentum of the Black Friday strikes and other low-wage worker struggles to build community engagement, hold corporations and their CEOs accountable, and to raise wages so that all Americans can prosper”.14 Despite its origins in New York City, the movement is gaining momentum; many are now calling for a nationwide strike to take place on 29 August and even President Obama has addressed the issue.
How is all of this relevant for the contingent academic workforce? Well, for one thing, there is strength in numbers. Collective action is an especially effective instrument both to challenge and redress structural inequalities. If, as the aforementioned statistics indicate, seventy-five percent of undergraduate courses at U.S. colleges and universities are taught by adjuncts, then a walkout would bring the academy to a grinding halt. If fast-food workers with fewer career opportunities, less educational attainment, more grueling working conditions (e.g. fast-paced environments, high-temperature workplaces, etc.), and far more to lose can risk their only source of income for themselves and their families for the sake of the collective good, then what is preventing adjuncts from doing the same? The short answer is simple: nothing.
Alas, many adjuncts enable and perpetuate the “system” through their deferential subservience simply by participating in it (recent unionization efforts at Georgetown and elsewhere duly noted). As universities and departments downsize and the numbers of Ph.D. graduates outpace available jobs, many adjuncts accept grossly underpaid positions with long working hours and virtually no benefits with the expectation that a foot in the door will somehow lead to the promised land of a tenure-track position. Supply and demand dictates otherwise and the vast battalions of well-paid academic administrators are more than happy to continue to exploit such naïve and misguided expectations in the name of efficiency.
Surely, too, graduate programs inculcate (and indeed indoctrinate) students in the ways of the academy: publish or perish and do not rock the proverbial boat. On the one hand, academics are expected to challenge scholarly orthodoxies in their respective fields through creative, innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. And yet in other aspects of their lives, namely those that deal with the contractual conditions under which they labor, they must conform and remain obedient in order to secure employment. It becomes an insidious and corrosive form of selection in which independent thought is filtered out of a system that was designed to protect it. Contradictions become self-evident: the imposition of an authorial canon in the humanities is anathema, whereas wage slavery becomes institutionalized.
Read more: Counterpunch
Posted in Academics, Accountability, Adjuncts & Sessionals, Administration, Advocacy, Equity, Ethics, Faculty, Government, Job market, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged adjuncts, Equity, Faculty, Organizing, Protests, Students, Unions, Working conditions
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The walkout by service workers in the US on August 29 marked a number of efforts over the past year to organize and make a statement on cost of living ground lost amidst inflation and a tanking economy. Economic reports in Canada and the US for August merely indicate the long trend toward part-time McJobs as youth are more and more often finding that their competition is their grandmothers or seniors unable to make it without additional income. Requests by the workers is an increase in the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25/hr to $15/hr and the right to unionize without interference from employers. Obama democrats are proposing a modest increase to $9/hr.
Like the McJob trend, the large balance of college and university jobs are now part-time and low wage. Many with the McAdemic job, defined by low pay and limited prospects, work just above minimum wage when it’s all said and done. Although among the most exploited of part-time workers given their expertise and education debt-load, adjunct, contingent, or sessional faculty members in Canada and the US retain an element of autonomy for their job. Whether with a modicum of a wage per course or a piecemeal per student wage for online instructors, many by and large take home a pay that hovers just above minimum wage after hours in are calculated. Unlike the basic McJob, which has a definitive beginning and end to the workday, the academic job has no limits to the amount of time expended to prepare, teach, counsel, and assess. And given that, like for most with a McJob, there is a dignity to a McAdemic job and most put in long hours (e.g., 10x contact hours required) that knowingly reduce their wages to something just above the minimum.
In BC, the minimum wage is merely $10.25, which today after exchange and purchasing power parity is about $7.25/hr USD. At UBC, the step 1 salary for contingent or sessional faculty is $5,970 per 3 credit course (about $4,305 USD after exchange and PPP). Comparisons of McAdemic job with McJob and of stratification within the two sectors are not exaggerated, as Postdoctoral Fellow Brian Haman wrote in “What Contingent Faculty Can Learn From Fast-Food Workers:”
As universities and departments downsize and the numbers of Ph.D. graduates outpace available jobs, many adjuncts accept grossly underpaid positions with long working hours and virtually no benefits with the expectation that a foot in the door will somehow lead to the promised land of a tenure-track position. Supply and demand dictates otherwise and the vast battalions of well-paid academic administrators are more than happy to continue to exploit such naïve and misguided expectations in the name of efficiency…. Clearly, something must change. It seems, therefore, sensible, entirely feasible, and just to stand in solidarity with fast-food workers, many of whom earn as much as adjuncts. Their struggles are our struggles. Moreover, their lessons can be our lessons. The efficacy and consequences of collective action are unambiguous.
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Posted in Academics, Accountability, Administration, Advocacy, Contingent labor, Equity, Ethics, Job market, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged adjuncts, Equity, Organizing, Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Working conditions
August 19, 2013 9am – 5pm Holiday Inn Yorkdale
3450 Dufferin St, Toronto
Student, social movements and labour activists from across Ontario will come together to build alternatives to a right-wing agenda of austerity, poverty and repression. We believe a future is possible that respects democracy, environment, land and human rights. But we need deep organizing. Speakers include:
For more information: http://weareontario.ca/index.php/ontario-common-front-general-assembly-august-19-2013/
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Posted in Advocacy, Conferences, Employment rights, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged Organizing, Protests, Students, Working conditions
Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society will devote a thematic issue to Building International Labor Solidarity, which will be published in early 2014. The thematic editor is Kim Scipes of Purdue University North Central who will work closely with Working USA editor, Immanuel Ness. As new labor movements emerge in Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania, we seek essays that focus on research that is designed to build international labor solidarity with these and other workers. The editors seek in-depth, critical description and analyses of efforts motivated by the rise of workers’ movements that engage in transnational solidarity, as well as articles that examine imperial and global power efforts to control, guide, and circumscribe them. Historical examples must retain focus that refract on today’s problems and concerns.
Paper proposals are encouraged that address labor unions and workers’ movements in the United States and beyond, but priority will be given to research across the developed-developing country divide, or among developing countries of the Global South. Proposals for papers in the journal should be submitted by August 15, 2013, with a length of 250-500 words. Final papers will be peer-reviewed by referees appointed by the editorial board, and should not exceed 7,500 words.
For author guidelines, go to the following website: http://www.working-usa.org
Papers must be received by October 15, 2013.
E-mail for questions or submissions: kscipes@pnc.edu and iness@brooklyn.cuny.edu
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Posted in Advocacy, CFPs, Labor Programs, Organizing, Publications, Research, Solidarity, Unions
Tagged Protests, Research, Unions, Working conditions
You are cordially invited to the 22nd annual Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) conference and the 9th annual Canadian Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions conference, hosted concurrently by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America Local 896/Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS). This year’s conference will be held on the campus of the University of Iowa from August 1-4, 2013. The conference will begin in earnest Friday morning and wrap up by noon on Sunday.
The C/CGEU was formed to support the organization of new graduate student employee unions; to strengthen established unions; and to provide a forum for graduate employee unionists to meet, share information, and work together toward common goals. The annual conference features workshops on organizing, leadership development, negotiation strategies, and member mobilization.
We invite you to participate on panels and/or in workshops on a variety of subjects. Possible topics might include:
• Organizing in a Right-to-Work (for less) State: Examples and Strategies
• Fighting “Back Door Tuition”: Bargaining Against Increased Student Fees
• The Affordable Care Act: Anticipating Changes and Using Them to Your Advantage
• Effective Use of Social Media
• Higher Education and the Labor Movement: Where Do We Fit In?
• Developing New Leaders
• Building Coalitions On and Off Campus
• Political Action and Legislative Fightback: On ALEC and other Woes
• Strengthening Steward System/Training
You’ll find other options on the registration form, including panels on bargaining contexts. If you would like to propose a panel or workshop not listed above, there will be a space on the electronic registration form to do so. We look forward to your suggestions.
Please join us in Iowa City in August to meet unionists from throughout Canada and the United States. To register for the conference, please use the following link at the bottom of the page or click on the CGEU tab of our website, cogs.org. For a discounted registration rate of $45, please submit your registration by Monday, July 1, 2013. After that date, registration will increase to $50. Please be sure to bring your conference registration fee with you to the conference if you choose not to mail it in advance.
In Solidarity,
The CGEU 2013 Organizing Committee
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Posted in Adjuncts & Sessionals, Advocacy, Employment rights, Job market, Organizing, Protests, Solidarity, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged adjuncts, Contingent labor, Organizing, Protests, Students, Unions
Have you attended a for-profit university, such as the University of Phoenix?
If so, we’d like to hear about your experiences.
For Profit U is a project of Service Employees International Union centered on improving transparency and increasing student and faculty success at for profit universities. We need input from you. Click the link to take a short survey about your experiences as a student at a for-profit university: http://action.seiu.org/page/content/for-profit-students/
For-profit colleges enroll between 10 to 13% of college students, yet receive 25% of all federal financial aid dollars. Ninety-six percent of for profit students take out student loans, and almost one-quarter default default within 3 years of entering repayment. By sharing your experiences, we can work to improve transparency and student outcomes at for-profit schools. Take the survey here: http://action.seiu.org/page/content/for-profit-students/
If you haven’t attended a for-profit university but know someone who has, please forward the survey to them. Thank you, as always, for your continued suppport.
Sincerely,
Rob, Kyle, Natalia, Aaron & The Student Debt Crisis Team
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Posted in Adjuncts & Sessionals, Corporate University, For Profit Universities, Organizing, Students, Unions
Tagged Contingent labor, Students, Unions
News and Views from the
Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW), OISE/UT
http://www.csew.ca
NEWS & VIEWS
‘PUSHED TO THE EDGE,’ SEATTLE’S LOW WAGE WORKERS JOIN SWEEPING MOVEMENT
By Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams In the seventh action in just eight weeks across the United States, fast food workers in Seattle are walking off the job Thursday joining a sweeping movement of low-wage workers who have been “pushed to the edge and are now taking a stand.” “We work in one of the fastest growing industries in the nation, and our companies are making huge – even record – profits, but we barely earn enough to pay for basics like rent, food and transportation to and from work.” -Caroline Durocher, striking worker Repeating the calls made by striking workers in other cities, the Seattle workers are demanding a living wage of $15 per hour and the right to form a union without intimidation. Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/30-7
THE COST OF A BARGAIN From The Maytree Foundation As Alan Broadbent writes in this month’s Maytree Opinion, we all have become used to the notion that we can get most things cheap or free. But when we are faced with the true cost of things, we don’t like it. We only have to look at areas such as housing, transit or maintenance of public spaces to see what happens when we expect high quality while preserving the fiction that we can have things cheap. Read more: http://maytree.com/spotlight/the-cost-of-a-bargain.html
THE CASE FOR A CANADA SOCIAL REPORT By Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman, The Caledon Institute The demise of the National Council of Welfare, announced in the 2012 Federal Budget, has punched a huge hole in Canada’s social policy database. The Council’s annual Welfare Incomes and Poverty Profile reports have for decades provided invaluable information on welfare and low income. Rather than simply lamenting this loss, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy is acting to rescue this important data by taking over its preparation and distribution. The welfare and poverty information will form part of a new Canada Social Report. Read more: http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/Detail/?ID=1011
HEALTH CARE SPENDING IN ONTARIO CONTINUES TO DECLINE By Doug Allan, The Bullet Contrary to the hysteria from conservatives, health care spending continues to decline as a percentage of the provincial budget. Last year, health care accounted for 38.5 per cent of total expenditures, this year the government plans to bring it down to 38.3 per cent. This continues the trend downward since 2003/04 when health care accounted for 40 per cent of total expenditures. The Ontario provincial Budget reports that program spending is going up an impressive sounding 2.99 per cent and health care spending is going up 2.3 per cent. Although that sounds like a larger than expected increase in these days of austerity, these figures are, unfortunately, misleading. The reason is that last year funding fell well short of the Budget plan and the government is now playing catch-up. Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/826.php
VIDEO – CSEW’S D’ARCY MARTIN GIVEN UNITED ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR EDUCATION’S 2013 LIFELONG ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Watch the video: http://vimeo.com/65786753
ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):
Head: Peter Sawchuk Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work. Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca. If you have any questions about the list, or have an event you would like to promote or news to share, send an email to csew-broadcast-oise-l@listserv.utoronto.ca. Messages will be reviewed before posting. For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca
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Posted in Advocacy, Equity, Government, Job market, Labor Programs, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Unions, Working conditions
The BC NDP may have ‘snatched defeat from the jaws of victory’, but education is one of the biggest losers in this week’s election of the fourth consecutive Liberal majority government in the province. In addition to education, the handful of biggest losers in the election includes labour, students, youth, and the increasing volume of people scraping to get by in general.
With more than a decade of labour disputes over the Liberals’ irresponsible and often careless bargaining practices, the BC Teachers’ Federation is now bracing once again to enter the fray of contract negotiations. The past dozen years of degraded labour relations included a range of arbitrations and trips to courts to stave off the Liberals’ intentions of stripping bargaining rights from teachers and alarming erosions of their academic freedom and civil liberties writ large.
Blind to the stunning turn of election fortunes this week, universities in the province were holding their breath for the NDP’s promises to invest millions in education. Flush in the face, now there is not much more for the Presidents to do but go begging for more or just morph into real estate, as UBC has, and build more, oh yes, and raise tuition. In the backyard of the provincial legislature, the University of Victoria is cutting staff and raising tuition once again.
Actually, most universities in the province, such as UBC, raise tuition 2% annually to build on the students’ backs. Smarting from the trend, students are realizing that they are “paying significantly more” and “getting less,” as Melissa Moroz of the Professional Employees Association observed. Students are also waking up to the hard facts of the fictitious economy presented to them in low res 3D: the job market for youth is actually the worst in decades and sinking to new lows. Indicators for the summer 2013 summer job market point to bleak months ahead while university graduates are left praying and hoping for mere job ads as jobs for University grads become the stuff of the past. Education PhDs, for example, anxiously open the CAUT Bulletin and University Affairs month after month only to find blank columns and a job ad section less than full enough to fold a single paper airplane.
Meanwhile back on the mainland, students at Capilano University are burning and destroying their artwork in protest of impending cuts of entire arts programs. This past year, strikes and other forms of labour action at SFU and UBC marked the sign of the times of universities, over-extended and under-funded, unable or unwilling to pay fair wage increases. Next month begins an arbitration between the Faculty Association of UBC and the University to settle a contract bargaining dispute now in its second year. There isn’t much to bargain for or with, as for the Liberals, the universities’ staff, students, and faculty remain net zero workers.
Politics in British Columbia: 14 May election results.
What happened? With all due respect NDP (and I voted NDP), please quit the laughable fiction suggesting that their negative campaign simply overshadowed our positive campaign–their power out-spun our truth. For sure, the NDP was out-campaigned and badly so. Out-witted and out-strategized would be other ways of describing this. What’s worse than a Liberal? A smug Liberal. But hey, at least we have the Vancouver-Point Grey and Vancouver Fairview ridings, two of the few flies on the windshield of that ostentatious red parade float!
Visibly fussed the day after the election, the best the NDP could muster up was the simplistic negative v positive excuse. Even some among the left press, such as The Georgia Straight, could find nothing to say but to parrot the NDP: “It’s sad, but negative politics rule” the Straight began its “NDP Grapples with Stunning Loss” story. NDP candidate George Chow, who went down in defeat in the Vancouver-Langara riding, decried that they lost because “negativity works.” George Heyman, who displaced the Liberal Minister of Health in the Vancouver-Fairview riding went as far as to mystifyingly say that the Liberals’ “negative campaign” “turns people off.” One does not have to be a strategy or policy wonk to know that the Liberals hardly ran a negative campaign and those who argue they did appear clueless, or more generously are understandably squeezing sour grapes from what’s left of the BC NDP’s election machinery. A federal NDP MP joined in nonetheless: the Liberals’ victory “shows the power of negative politics,” he said. C’mon now, who are we trying to kid? The ridings that went red and went to the Liberals– nay, all of us–deserve a believable and better explanation from the NDP for what happened on election day.
What happened? Is not BC a conservative province and the Liberals just as well neoliberals or neocons? Isn’t liberalism and neoliberalism basically the same at this point in time? The glove fits the hand that feeds business, if not business as usual. We know that Canada as a whole has become quite comfortably conservative. In BC, Gordon Campbell brought the Liberals to victory in 2001 and the province took a right turn that obviously sits right with a majority of the people. In this week’s election on 14 May, there were pockets of ‘vote the bums out’, such as in my riding where we did vote out the Liberals’ very astute strategist and standing Premier Christy Clark. But for the most part, if you lean left toward NDP, election night sadly trended from ‘vote the bums out’ to ‘vote the bums in’.
Now, as #IdleNoMore confronts #IdleForeverMore, it is going to be an interesting four more years in BC.
Posted in Academic freedom, Accountability, Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Government, Idle No More, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Government, Job cuts, K-12 issues, Organizing, Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions
Jim Sinclair, President, B.C. Federation of Labour, May 10, 2013 — It is perhaps one of the more twisted ironies of this election that Premier Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals are running on their record of job creation, a record they would probably be smarter to run away from.
Their much touted B.C. Jobs Plan has been discredited by the facts — more than 30,000 jobs have been lost since its inception. The latest figures show that B.C. lost 15,000 full-time jobs in March, setting off the largest rise in Canada. What to do when the facts don’t add up? Answer: buy ads.
While the last provincial budget cut money from programs that train workers, the Liberals could find $16 million of taxpayers’ money to try and sell us on the failed jobs plan.
But perhaps the most blatant example of the betrayal by this government on the critical issue of jobs has been its role in promoting the use of temporary foreign workers in British Columbia. Today, our province is breaking Canadian records for growth in the use of foreign workers — more than 74,000 — while at the same time more than 200,000 British Columbians are struggling to find a job and thousands cannot get the training they need.
The most high-profile case in this long, sorry story has been the HD Mining proposal to bring more than 200 miners from China to work in Northern B.C. During her trip to China, Clark announced that the B.C. Jobs Plan was working because the company was investing in the province. Nothing, it turns out, could be farther from the truth.
The facts are well known. The company claimed they could not find one single British Columbian to work at the mine. Not only that, the company claimed it would be four years before a single Canadian would be hired — and 14 years before Canadians would fully run the mine.
Yet more than 70 of the temporary work permits were granted for “low skill” workers. More than 300 Canadians applied, some with years of experience, and not one was hired. In China, HD Mining has a three-month training program for miners.
The more the facts came out, the more the people of B.C. knew something was rotten.
But the smell did not reach Victoria. Did the Liberal government stand up for jobs in our province? Absolutely not. Court documents — available thanks to construction unions spending hundreds of thousands of dollars standing up for us — show clearly that the government secretly supported the plan to bring in the workers. They even went so far as to pressure federal government officials “on a daily basis” to open doors as soon as possible.
They were successful. Within weeks, the company got the permits and British Columbians lost the jobs.
Was this an isolated event? Not in the least. According to briefing notes obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, for three years the government held information sessions “for mining companies, concerning labour-market opinion and work-permit processes.”
The truth is that rather than training British Columbians to take the jobs and support their families, the government was training employers to bring in foreign workers to take those jobs.
In their glossy election platform document the Liberals proclaim that “creating jobs is the best thing we can do to protect a brighter future for B.C. families.” British Columbians would be right to ask — jobs for whom? Which families?
We are at the crossroads in British Columbia. The road to prosperity is not allowing companies to bring in temporary foreign workers in record numbers while we starve training programs for British Columbians.
Completion rates for apprenticeships have dropped to 37 per cent, the lowest in decades. Apprenticeship offices were boarded up around the province at a time when need was the greatest.
We need a government that will put British Columbians first, that will work with business and labour together to ensure the benefits of our economic development finds its way into the pockets of British Columbians who spend the money supporting local businesses and communities.
The choice is clear. On May 14, vote for change to ensure that our kids have a chance to proper training, decent jobs and to live in a province were the needs of all British Columbians come first.
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Posted in Accountability, Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Economics, Government, Organizing, Politics, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Government, Organizing, Protests, Unions
Posted by Capilano University Faculty Association, May 8, 2013:
Thank you for your letter highlighting your concerns about the future of Capilano University’s Studio Arts and Textile Arts programs. We understand that the university is facing a $1.3 million budget shortfall, which has threatened about 220 classes in the areas of studio arts, textile arts, interactive design, applied business technology programs, and more.
Times have been tough for BC universities for the past few years. The BC Liberals’ 2013 budget cut funding for the Ministry of Advanced Education by 2.5 per cent or $46 million over the next three years. Every president of BC’s 25 universities and colleges signed a letter protesting these planned cutbacks in 2012. Colleges throughout British Columbia have been forced to cut budgets and reduce programs as a result – the cut of Capilano University’s Arts and Textile Arts programs is surely a result of this.
Education and skills training is the number one priority of the BC NDP, and our platform commits to a needs-based student grant program as well as investing in skills training and apprenticeships. Eighty per cent of the jobs of tomorrow will require some form of post-secondary education or training and access to education is key to growing a sustainable economy that will attract investment, create good jobs, and build ladders of opportunity into a strong middle class.
The decision to cut these programs is ultimately the decision of Capilano University’s Board of Governors, but we urge them to wait until after the May 14th election. The plan does not need to be rushed through. The decision should wait until a new government in BC has the chance to discuss the future of these programs with Capilano University and determine if any additional funding is available at that time.
Sincerely,
Adrian Dix, BC NDP Leader
Vancouver Kingsway
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Posted in Accountability, Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Economics, Government, Organizing, Politics, Protests, Solidarity, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Faculty, Government, Organizing, Protests, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Petition to Save the Capilano University Computer Science Department
The Computer Science Department At Capilano University is scheduled to be suspended: The Board of Governors are voting on whether or not to discontinue the program on May 14. Please help us spread the word that the loss of this department would be a blow to the technology sector in BC.
Capilano University’s Computer Science is an integral part of Capilano’s education platform. If there’s any doubt about the value of these programs, there won’t be after you see some of the phenomenal work that’s been created by current and former students. Not only is this a blow to technology and innovation, it also limits the ability of students in other departments to collaborate with someone in the industry. The instructors in this department are both brilliant and motivated to help their students achieve success in the field of computer science from programming to web design and basic computing. They should be praised for their dedication in spite of all these funding cuts… If these Cuts are allowed to take place Students will be Robbed of an Important Educational aspect, which leads to the question:
WHICH DEPARTMENT is NEXT to get CUT!
Copyright © 2013 B.C. Federation of Labour, All rights reserved.
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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Economics, Government, Organizing, Politics, Solidarity, Unions
Tagged Government, Unions, Working conditions
Premier Christy Clark’s proposed plan for a 10-year deal with public school teachers ignores court rulings, contradicts government’s own legislation, and risks scuttling a positive bargaining framework on the eve of its expected ratification by the BC Teachers’ Federation and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
“The premier’s plan is flawed in a number of significant ways,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert.
“The key problem is that it ignores the ruling of the BC Supreme Court that teachers have the right to bargain working conditions, such as class size and class composition. The Liberals’ own Bill 22 also allows for these issues to be negotiated in this round but her new plan requires teachers to give up this hard-won right. Over the past decade, when Liberal policy regulated learning conditions, class sizes grew and support for students with special needs suffered,” Lambert said.
As a consequence, BC has the worst student-educator ratio in the country, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. In order to bring BC’s teacher staffing levels just up to the national average, the province would have to hire an astounding 6,800 more teachers.
Another major problem is the indexing of teachers’ salaries to average increases of other government employees. “This is fundamentally unfair because it effectively prohibits teachers from negotiating for their own salaries,” Lambert said. “Under such a scheme government has all the cards. The average of net zero is zero.” BC teachers’ salaries are lagging far behind those of other teachers in Canada, and the gap will only widen under this plan, she added.
Lambert questioned the government’s timing on today’s announcement, given that it comes one day before the beginning of the BCTF’s Representative Assembly and the BCPSEA’s annual general meeting. Representatives of both organizations are slated to vote on a new Framework Agreement which offers a positive process for the upcoming round of bargaining.
“In recent months we’ve quietly had productive conversations with the employer about how to achieve a smoother more effective round, and it’s most unfortunate that government chose to intervene at this time,” Lambert said. “The BCTF will continue to recommend ratification of the Framework Agreement and we hope this abrupt announcement from government will not prevent BCPSEA from doing the same.”
On the surface the premier’s rhetoric sounds conciliatory after more than a decade of conflict between the BCTF and the BC Liberals but, in reality, her plan is yet another effort to severely limit teachers’ constitutional right to bargain.
Read More: BCTF News Release
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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Campaigns & Contracts, Employment rights, Government, K-12 issues, Legal issues, Politics, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Government, K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
Feeling pressures of government intervention and the net zero worker mandate of the Liberal Government’s Public Sector Employer’s Council (PSEC), CUPE 2278 Teaching Assistants curtailed job action and the University of British Columbia ratified an Agreement yesterday. The 0%, 0%, 2%, 2% wage increases for the 2010-2014 contract is in line with the average annual increases of just 0.3% for public employees in the province, the lowest in Canada.
With an upcoming election in the spring of 2013, at this point unions are better off deferring settlements and betting that the 99% have had it with the BC Liberals and will elect an NDP government on 14 May 2013. After years of the Liberals suppressing wages under PSEC’s net zero worker mandate, which made wage negotiations with employers a fiction, bargaining with the NDP will actually be bargaining.
NDP leader Adrian Dix has demonstrated the signs necessary to lead a pro-labour party to election victory and was quite candid about this in a recent interview with BCBusiness:
Public-sector unions have tolerated “net-zero” wage controls in recent years, but tolerance seems to be wearing thin. Would you be in favour of substantial “catch-up” wage hikes? You negotiate at the bargaining table and what we’ve had over the last period was real inconsistency from the current government in the way they’ve treated public-sector unions. You’ve had, contrary to specific promises, the tearing up of contracts. Can you imagine engaging in that practice on the business side and that being good for the economy? The [current] government’s bills 27, 28 and 29, which were singularly important in health and education bargaining, were found to be illegal in the courts. That’s their approach. We had to pay for those actions. So I think you need to be balanced in these things.
These are difficult fiscal times and I expect negotiations to be difficult and challenging. Remember, the government at the bargaining table right now is offering wage increases. Should they be offering wage increases? I think the Liberals have answered yes. In order to get agreements in these next two years they’re offering wage increases right now as we speak. So they’re no longer at net zero. You only have one government at a time and they’re negotiating right now. My recommendation to all parties is that they negotiate at the bargaining table.
Read more: BCBusiness November 2012
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Posted in Advocacy, BC Education, Budgets & Funding, Employment rights, Government, Organizing, Politics, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Government, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, Working conditions
With a day of general strikes, Italy, Portugal, and Spain joined Greece in anti-austerity protests and blockades. For the last moth, the theme in Greece has been “enough is enough” as the worst capitalist crisis in Europe since the Great Depression fuels uncertainties and moves students and workers toward unity. In May, students launched mass protests across Spain while faculty members followed with their own strikes. The financial crisis is the tip of the iceberg. For example Spain, with an unemployment rate 25.8% and a youth jobless rate of 54.2%, faces the deepest budget cuts on record with cuts to spending on health, education and benefits, and increases in sales taxes and levies on income.
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Posted in Economics, Government, International, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions
Following strike approval of its membership last week, the Faculty and Staff Association (FSA) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology have withdrawn services this afternoon. Seen as a wake-up call, job action will escalate until the Union reaches an agreement. Like a number of other locals in the province, the Union’s contract expired 30 June 2010. “Better salaries and working conditions are needed to attract career-seasoned professionals from industries where wages have kept pace with inflation,” FSA executive director and chief negotiator Paul Reniers said in a press release. “Fair wages will ensure that BCIT can hire and hold on to the kinds of professionals who built this important institution.” The FSA represents over 1,400 BCIT employees including technology and part-time studies faculty, assistant instructors, technical staff, researchers, curriculum development professionals, librarians, program advisors and counselors.
Reniers noted that “low wages are already impacting BCIT’s programs. Our rates for night school are among the lowest in the region, yet 60% of BCIT registrations are in Part-Time Studies. We are losing instructors to other colleges and universities.”
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Posted in Advocacy, Employment rights, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Technology, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions
The CUPE 2278 bargaining team for Teaching Assistants at the University of British Columbia has recommended a tentative agreement for ratification tomorrow. Comments on the 2278 Facebook nearly unanimously describe the tentative agreement as “disappointing.” One week into job action and rolling picket lines the Union bargaining team signed on to mediation with Vincent Ready. Now with a tentative agreement to accept 0%-0%-2%-2% for 2010-2014, it would appear that mediation failed the students, which is to say, UBC missed an opportunity to finally recognize and validate, in wage increases, the work of its TAs. Granted, the 2278 tentative agreement is perfectly in line with the agreements of other CUPE locals but there should have been an exception made for the TAs for any number of reasons.
Managerial salaries excepted, the University stands solid with the Government’s depiction of public employees as net zero workers. The BC Liberals’ promise to make net zero=0% at the end of this month made it easy for the University and put tremendous pressure on the 2278 bargaining team. The TAs will average this out at just 1% per year. At a national level over the past 3 years, BC employees have received the lowest average increases in the country, averaging just a bit over 0.3% per year.
Ok. There have been questions raised concerning a post on administrative salaries and increases over the past 6-7 years at the University of British Columbia. The UBC President’s Office had the Faculty Association retracting a component of a CUPE 2278 letter forwarded to faculty members, which ended in a public apology by FAUBC President Nancy Langton for not fact-checking the Union’s summary of UBC President Toope’s salary increases. So here are some facts…
One question concerns a net increase in administrators or managers in the University and average 5% annual increases in their salaries while the BC Liberal government has designated most public employees as net zero workers. At a national level over the past 3 years, BC employees have received the lowest average increases in the country, averaging just a bit over 0.3% per year. Are administrators’ salaries at UBC increasing, or how can they be, at an average of 5% per year? And why are these same administrators intent on suppressing already excessively low wages, against inflation, raising tuition and costs, etc., of Teaching Assistants?
As GTA wages at UBC have been stagnant (i.e., 0%), administrative salaries have skyrocketed. UBC President Toope’s salary was for 2010-11 depending on which UBC report is used, $528,504 (UBC’s Financial Information Act Report for Year Ended March 31, 2011) or $378,000 + $50,000 Incentive Plan + $58,408 Housing perks + others = $580,978 (UBC’s Public Sector Executive Compensation Report, 2011/12) (For comparative information across Canada, see How Much Does Your University President Make?). Using UBC’s Financial Information Act Report, from 2005, the year UBC began to basically roll over CUPE 2278 contracts, to 2011, the last year of accessible data, the President’s salary rose from $434,567 to $528,504 (22% increase). The Provost’s salary increased from $230,887 to $321,023, a whopping 39% increase! These two are comparison’s between 2005 and 2011 in the differential of salaries for the positions (e.g., President Piper’s outgoing salary and President Toope’s ongoing salary, which is a fair comparison and similar to the way initial appointment salaries are handled). The new Concordia University President’s salary ($357,000) raised eyebrows recently in Quebec on the heels of the largest and most sustained student strike in Canadian history.
Comparatively, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s salary was for 2011, $317,574 (inc. car perk) + benefits + house perk 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa). US President Barack Obama’s salary was for 2011, $400,000 + $50,000 expense account + $100,000 travel account + $19,000 entertainment account = $569,000). Of course, these salaries pale next to private sector University President and corporate Chief salaries. The four top Executives of UBC Properties Trust enjoy a combined $1.3m in salaries, including perks for cars.
The salary of VP Human Resources, who manages bargaining for the University, jumped between 2005 and 2011 from $191,793 to $230,704 (20% increase). The Director of Faculty Relations’ salary rocketed from $119,615 to $198,209 (41% increase). And so on. Deans have made certain that there is similar progress with their salaries. For example, the Business Dean’s salary bounced from $334,196 to $422,304 (26% increase) while the Education Dean’s salary leaped from $216,519 to $261,732 (21% increase). Through 2010, the Arts Dean’s salary quickly grew from $191,408 to $249,816 (30% in 6 years). It is no mystery why the ranks of managers at UBC have swelled in numbers over the past few years. The transition of Associate Deans and others to management via the 2010-12 Collective Agreement merely instrumented trends and ambitions.
Another question raised is why are these same administrators intent on exploiting Sessional faculty members at UBC and suppressing their already pitifully low wages? For example, the Masters of Education Technology revenue generating program at UBC, which has basically bailed the Faculty of Education out of a dire financial crisis (e.g., 130% or $1,893,015 over budget for its 270 Sessional faculty appointments in 2008-09), uses Sessionals to teach about 85% of its courses and pays them a piecemeal $242.28 per student wage. Denied office space, the Sessionals often work below the minimum wage ($10.25 / hour) after gross hours in and net wages out are calculated.
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Posted in Accountability, Administration, Budgets & Funding, Corporate University, Employment rights, Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Student Movement, Students, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Administration, Budgets & Funding, Salary/Economic Benefits, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Students, Unions, University presidents, Working conditions
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