Fair Employment Week - October 26-30
♦ You can download this 11x17inch colour poster (PDF
157Kb) here.
The overuse and exploitation of contract academic staff is one of the biggest challenges facing the academic profession. That's why FPSE has joined with a coalition of organizations, unions and activists across the US, Canada and Mexico to organize Fair Employment Week.
FEW is a highly decentralized and flexible campaign. The uniting theme of fairness for fairness for non-regular faculty is sufficiently general to allow faculty associations across North America to focus on the issue or issues most relevant to them, and to hold events appropriate to their situation. In previous years, the campaign has had a positive impact on negotiations. It has also helped increase non-regular faculty involvement in faculty associations.
For the FPSE, the goals for Fair Employment Week are to stimulate organizing and to support collective bargaining initiatives. Specifically, the FPSE campaign seeks to build support for the elimination of secondary scales and better benefit coverage for non-regular faculty.
What is the FPSE providing?
The FPSE is providing each local with buttons and posters. The FPSE is also providing staff support for locals who want to develop more extensive materials for the campaign.
The Non Regular Faculty Committee (NRFC) encourages locals to focus FEW activities and messages on the issue of secondary scales. The NRFC will continue a campaign on secondary scales throughout the rest of the year. The goal of the campaign will be to develop the membership's awareness regarding secondary scales and to build membership support for the elimination of those scales.
The most successful activities appear to be social events. This year, FEW coincides with Halloween. Consequently, the NRFC suggests that FEW social events could have a Halloween theme.
Links
The following links provide additional information about FEW and about the realities of being a non-regular faculty member.
http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=212
http://www.campusequityweek.org/2007/