In the News: Concordia University of Edmonton Faculty Association on Strike
What led CUEFA to strike? Academic staff at Concordia University of Edmonton have one of the highest university workloads in the country, while also being among the lowest paid staff. CUEFA has been trying to address workload, compensation, and job security issues through bargaining, but the university administration refused to move despite boasting about record surpluses in the last two years. This led to a strike that began on January 4th, 2022. Updates on the strike are available at https://www.cuefa.ca/.
What does this mean for SAFA members? Folks from across the province are watching the outcome of this strike closely as this is the first public test of the perseverance and strength of an Albertan faculty association. A win for CUEFA will be a win for all faculty associations.
How can SAFA members support CUEFA? Add your voice to the hundreds of CUE students and alumni, as well as faculty association members from across Canada and members of the public, who have posted statements of support on social media under #CUEstrike. You can also sign the Students Supporting CUEFA petition or send an email.
SAFA has already joined with other faculty associations to send a formal statement of solidarity to CUEFA. If the job action is still ongoing, our SAFA president will join the picket line in Edmonton later this week.
What’s next? CUEFA might be the first faculty association in Alberta history to go on strike, but they certainly will not be the last! Provincial budget cuts, increased use of contingent faculty, increased workloads, and threatened pay rollbacks mean that many faculty associations are fighting hard at the bargaining table. Now that job action is permitted, we will see more faculty associations undertake informational pickets, letter writing campaigns, and strikes to persuade their institutions to bargain fairly. As a recent student editorial stated, “In the current climate, universities are being run by administrators, not faculty members. The right to strike is a powerful tool now at [faculty associations’] disposal and if needed, can check the power of administration — if there were ever a time it might be used, it’s now.”
Reprinted with permission from AUFA and CUEFA.