Another academic year is starting, and I hope it will be a happy and fruitful one for each and every one of you, as well as for CAUT as a whole!

I also want to congratulate our Bishop’s University colleagues for standing firm this summer against an intransigent employer (ominously named “the Corporation”), reaching an agreement after six weeks of both a strike and lockout over various bargaining issues, but especially against drastic planned job cuts. As I walked the picket lines on the first day of the strike in June, I was impressed by our colleagues’ enthusiasm, determination and level of organization. Once again, bravo to all involved: solidarity works!

I’d like to continue here my series “What a Difference 12 Years Make” on the changes we have witnessed since the opening of our previous headquarters in late 1994. The inauguration of our new office building in February this year was the pretext for looking back at our recent evolution as an organization, with much progress to report on the collective bargaining front, in academic freedom cases, and on the level of advocacy, organizing and education exercises — witness our many new training workshops and timely and well-attended conferences. I’d like to focus here on CAUT’s growing involvement on the international scene.

In July, I was privileged to participate, along with CAUT’s associate executive director David Robinson and fellow executive member Cindy Oliver, in Education International’s fifth world congress in Berlin, where we were successful in getting passed CAUT’s resolution on fixed-term higher education teaching personnel. But more on the Berlin congress in my October column as I want to devote this one to more general background on our international presence.

I would surmise that, although an object of interest, the international dimension was probably not a high priority during the first 30 years of CAUT’s existence.

That changed in the 1990s when CAUT and its former executive director, Donald Savage, were instrumental in crafting and getting passed UNESCO’s 1997 Recommendation on the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, a landmark document on the status and rights of post-secondary education workers. CAUT was also involved with the now defunct International Confederation of University Teacher Organizations.

Since then, CAUT has been even more active on the international stage. We take a leadership role in North American coalitions such as the Tri-National Coalition for the Defence of Public Education, and the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labour, which last met in August 2006 in Vancouver and where I gave an opening presentation on the Canadian situation.

CAUT is also involved in the Network for Education and Academic Rights, an information-sharing group funded by UNESCO that fights abuses of education and academic rights. In addition, we have established reciprocal agreements with counterpart organizations in eight countries allowing CAUT members appointed to visiting positions in those jurisdictions to enjoy the same benefits and services as the members of the host organization. Of course the same applies to academics from those countries working temporarily in institutions in Canada. Discussions are underway with sister organizations in other countries to introduce additional reciprocal agreements. (See the CAUT web site for the list of current reciprocal agreements.)

Last but not least, CAUT has developed a strong presence in Education International, a federation of organizations representing 30 million teachers and other education workers worldwide, through 390 member organizations. Of course, the vast majority of members teach at the elementary and secondary level: those of us involved at the post-secondary level only represent a small fraction of the total membership, but virtually all the national federations of university and college teachers from around the world are members of EI.

In recent years CAUT staff, and especially David Robinson, have been instrumental in developing key policies for EI in opposing the inclusion of educational services in renegotiation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services. We know countries like the United States and Australia are aggressively pushing GATS to cover educational services, which would pose very serious threats to the Canadian post-secondary system as we know it. So far, Canada has resisted this push, but we have to remain vigilant because you never know what might happen when these topics are discussed in secret multilateral talks, which have been going on in the last year or so. Also at stake is the allegiance of developing countries on this issue: many are on our side, but some may be tempted by pressures being applied by the US. We’ll see how this plays out in the coming months. And don’t forget, more on EI’s Berlin congress in my next column. Please stay tuned!