Concordia, contracts and conciliation

>> University and its part-time profs get down
to brass tacks over collective agreements

PART-TIME PICKETERS: strikes outside Con U

by SAMER ELATRASH

Concordia’s part-time faculty hardly started its strike Monday, March 31, before the university showed signs that it wanted to quickly settle.

After rounds of fruitless negotiations, leaving the faculty without a collective agreement since 2002, members of the part-time faculty union seemed wary but hopeful after Concordia hastily scheduled two meetings this week to negotiate. Part-time professors held rotating strike days this week as a pressure tactic to force the administration to come up with a new collective agreement.

The administration, which has garnered a reputation of stubbornness when dealing with labour disputes, appeared inordinately conciliatory after the strike was announced last week. Concordia’s negotiators “are rolling up their sleeves to get this done,” says Concordia spokeswoman Chris Mota. “It’s gone on too long.”

For those who picketed on Monday, the university couldn’t settle too soon. “We’ve been patient,” says David Leahy, an English literature professor. “We didn’t want to affect our students adversely. We’re on strike because of the university’s intransigence.”

Leahy is one of 900 part-time professors at Concordia, who teach roughly 40 per cent of classes but are underpaid and denied benefits, according to the union. The union says its members, some of whom have taught at Concordia since its founding, make 17 cents for every dollar full-time faculty makes, and earn below the provincial average for part-time professors.

The Concordia Part Time Faculty Association (CUPFA) garnered the support of most staff and faculty unions and the Concordia Student Union (CSU) when it announced rotating strikes. “It’s important for us because their work conditions reflect the quality of education we receive,” says CSU president Angelica Novoa. She says the CSU will undertake an education campaign on the professors’ strike. “In general, students don’t like strikes, but students have been understanding.”

School’s out, school’s in

The university says it’s the responsibility of students to attend classes, although some striking professors have been e-mailing their students to notify them of class cancellations.

On Monday morning, a few students joined the professors picketing before a building in Concordia’s downtown campus. “We’re in this together,” says Alex Winterhalt, an economics student. “They’ve been without a contract for six years, it’s ridiculous.”

Peter Stoett, chair of Concordia’s political science department, says his department has not taken a formal position on the strike, but he hopes the university will quickly reach a deal with the part-time professors. “In terms of morale [among part-timers], some progress has to be made” in that the strikers may finally see a contract after six years, he says. “We’re highly reliant on part-time professors, and we certainly make the effort to treat them as they should be treated, as respected scholars.”

Respect, however, is something the union says has been lacking from Concordia’s administration over the past few years. CUPFA points to an agreement it signed with the administration in 2001, guaranteeing pay equity per course between part-time faculty and full-time professors who took on additional courses. “The ink had no sooner dried on the agreement than they broke it,” says Leahy. A labour arbitrator sided with the union, but the university contested in court and won.

An appeal court overturned the decision, siding with the arbitrator, leading Concordia to file for an appeal before the Supreme Court, which turned down Concordia’s request late last year. Concordia has to now agree with CUPFA on compensation for the pay disparity.

“They use the court system to bring things to brinkmanship,” says CUPFA president Maria Peluso. “It seems they bring everything to the point of brinkmanship, with no dialogue.”

Concordia says it was honouring a collective agreement, reached in 2003, with full-time professors on increased pay and that it is offering CUPFA compensation.

Analog teaching

Professors have also protested the increasing use of online courses that are taking the place of introductory courses usually taught be part-timers. “They didn’t even talk to us about it,” says economics professor June Riley, who says evening sessions for introductory classes in her department have been placed online. “We’re already cheap as faculty resources. How much cheaper do we have to go?”

The online courses, which are offered by the private company eConcordia in coordination with the university, have left some professors worried that courses traditionally taught by part-timers would be taught online as the university tries to cut costs.

Marcel Danis, a former Concordia vice-rector who oversaw the start of eConcordia, says the project’s size and scope has been exaggerated. “It’s much smaller than people realize,” he says. But lack of awareness of the project, among both faculty and students, seems to have helped in raising concerns.

“It’s a black hole for us,” says CSU president Novoa. “We don’t know much about it.”