October 16, 2024
Fair Employment Week
Oct 21-25
It’s that time of year again when sessionals and contract faculty across the country officially raise their voices against labour exploitation at our Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions, including UFV.
As and LTA is Visual Arts I have just received my 10-year service recognition at this year’s long term service dinner. This is only the second year that non-regulars have been included at this dinner and I was in good company with sessionals and LTAs listed at the 15 and 20-year mark. Those individuals did not attend the dinner, but their names and years of service were listed on a display board. I venture to guess why. Being recognized for your long-term service to an institution who doesn’t invest back into you was a sharp pill to swallow. As your Non-Regular uUnion rRep, I pushed for non-regular inclusion at this dinner both to recognize the service of our non-regular members, but to also shine a public light on how many members have worked here long term with no job security, no health benefits, no sabbaticals, no life insurance, no health benefits account, no long term or short term disability insurance – none of the benefits that their colleagues have as part of their regular employment.
As long as I serve as your Non-Reg rep, I will always push for health benefits for all, fair and livable wages, job security, the elimination of secondary scales, and lastly, and most importantly in my eyes, regularization. We are starting to make some steps toward these goals and there is more work to be done. Regularization is a path that leads to all the benefits and fair wages that non-regulars deserve. I ask all faculty, including B faculty, to start or continue to have the regularization conversation at your faculty meetings and with your deans. I am also happy to join and do a small presentation on this topic, please reach out if this is something in which you are interested.
Currently, a sessional at UFV, teaching a full course load of seven sections, makes approximately $57,000 a year—an unlivable wage that does not increase based on years of teaching experience. An LTA with a one-year contract and a service requirement makes approximately $77,000 per year and will also never advance on the scale. Their B faculty colleagues at top of scale make approximately $112,000 plus benefits that are estimated at $20,000 annually.
Above are the working conditions of all of our contract faculty. And there are MANY of us. At last count, 57% of faculty were non-regulars. As workers around the world, in many different industries, continue to strike and fight for fair wages and improved working conditions, I cannot help but to think about what it will take to achieve pay equity and basic working conditions like healthcare and job security at UFV — perhaps it will take the threat of a strike.
As contract faculty, I encourage you to connect with other contract faculty to commiserate and find ways to have your voices heard while feeling safe in the workplace. As permanent faculty, I encourage you to use your secure voice to advocate for your colleagues who do much of the same work as you (teaching for sessionals, and teaching and service for LTAs) and get paid half of what you do, many of whom need multiple jobs to piece together a living. Remember that sessionals don’t have health benefits that many of their students do have. They have no job security, despite committing themselves to this university for sometimes a decade or longer. When permanent positions become available, talk as a department about how you can advocate for your contract colleagues and bring them into the fold of benefits that you enjoy from the employer.
We are in a worldwide worker action movement and we need to seize this collective energy for positive changes for our lowest paid faculty. Stand in solidarity and let your voices be heard.
If you’d like to read more about the experiences of sessionals, come by the FSA offices to borrow a copy of Terra Poirier’s book Non-Regular. And please join us at an FSA forum for non-regular faculty and staff by zoom on Wednesday, October 23 from 12-1pm
While Fair Employment Week was created for non-regular faculty, it is also important to recognize that we also have non-regular staff at UFV. While the collective agreement grants non-regular staff a path to regularization, my door is always open to any non-reg staff issues.
I stand in solidarity with all non-regulars at UFV and I will continue to advocate on your behalf.
Sincerely,
Toni Latour (she/her)
Your Non-Regular Union Rep
