Negotiations Update – March 21, 2022
For the next three weeks, the SAFA Negotiating Team will continue to work on proposals around complex issues such as workload, contingent faculty positions, and compensation in preparation for informal facilitation on April 4-6. As well, the team will meet with SAIT to discuss other outstanding sections.
This week’s bargaining discussion:
The Reality of Precarious Employment at SAIT
The higher education environment has produced an increasing number of contract instructors working in extremelyprecarious positions. SAIT is no exception—currently 1/3 of instructors at SAIT are working under a contingent contract.
Instructors on casual and adjunct contracts find themselves vulnerable in ways that permanent instructors do not – little or no job security, no severance pay, no professional development funds, no illness benefits, no health plan benefits, no paid holidays, no annual vacation leave, and no employer-paid maternity leave. Many instructors in so-called “part-time” positions actually teach the equivalent of a full-time course load or more. They often teach the same courses, with the same students, as permanent instructors. And yet, 72% of them report never receiving a pay increase, in some cases for over a decade1. This, combined with no notice for course cancellation and unclear processes for course assignment, leads to a chronically precarious position. SAIT can, and must, do better.
This round of bargaining, a primary goal of SAFA’s Negotiating Team is addressing issues specific to adjunct faculty, such as improved pay scale, more transparent and consistent processes for hiring and performance reviews, and access to benefits. As well, the Team is working to maintain casual instructor status and add additional benefits.
What has Changed?
SAFA has been working for years to ensure that contingent faculty have the same rights as other faculty. During the last round of collective bargaining, SAIT and SAFA agreed to bring “fee for service” into the collective agreement as “adjunct instructor”– prior to that, it had been outside the terms and conditions of the collective agreement. This means that this round of bargaining is the first time that the work conditions of adjunct faculty can be improved at the bargaining table.
As well, the continuing expansion and privatization of classes at SAIT (i.e., non-grant funded education and corporate training) has resulted in a growing number of adjunct and casual faculty. SAFA is working hard to make sure these members are supported in ways that are comparable to their permanent colleagues.
Contingent Rights are Important for All Members
SAFA’s success at the bargaining table is founded on the solidarity of our faculty. Contingent faculty are our colleagues, our friends, our equals in all ways – except in the way they are treated. The current way SAIT treats contingent faculty is also a threat to permanent faculty. Pay inequality, hiring inequality, benefits inequality are all areas of concern for permanent faculty, but they are experienced most acutely by contingent faculty members. And, if unchallenged, these issues will spread across all faculty. The success of our Association requires all members to be equitably included and to share in the benefits of working at SAIT. Over the past decade, SAIT has invested heavily in infrastructure – new buildings, technology, etc. Now SAIT needs to move from investing in things back to investing in people.
Questions or comments? Adrienne Jones ([email protected]) is representing casual and adjunct faculty on the Negotiating Team. She welcomes your thoughts / suggestions regarding these topics.
In solidarity,
Sections of this article were first published as a May 2021 posting “The Reality of Adjunct Faculty Members at SAIT”