Contract academic staff are swelling the ranks of the Association of University of New Brunswick Teachers following the launch of the association’s certification drive for part-time instructors and librarians on the Fredericton and Saint John campuses.

At a special session held last month, AUNBT’s membership overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments making stipend and contract academics eligible for full membership in the association.

AUNBT president Saba Mattar said the action capped a long process of preparation and planning by contract academic staff activists, CAUT staff and AUNBT’s executive committee. The AUNBT’s special meeting had been advanced a few weeks ahead of schedule in response to an announcement by the Public Service Alliance of Canada that it was seeking to represent some of those same employees.

Contested drives are not unusual, but this is the first time a CAUT local will be competing for members with PSAC, said CAUT executive director James Turk.

“The vast majority of contract academic staff bargaining units in Canadian universities are affiliated either with our local associations or with the Canadian Union of Public Employees,” Turk said.

Last spring, PSAC organized the graduate student employees on the Fredericton campus, but has yet to be recognized as their bargaining agent by New Brunswick’s labour relations board.

Mattar said his association is fully supportive of PSAC’s efforts to unionize UNB’s graduate employees.

“We recognized that PSAC had some experience with such employees and that our graduate employees would benefit from that significant community of interest within their own union,” he said.

PSAC represents graduate student employees at a number of institutions, primarily in Quebec.

“For our CAS colleagues, on the other hand, we strongly believe they should find a home with AUNBT, and hence, within CAUT, which represents the majority of all such unionized employees across the country and has already made a significant investment of time and resources into their issues,” Mattar added.

Arthur James, a part-timer who had been working with AUNBT for months on the representation front, was on hand immediately following the special meeting to be one of the first contract academic staff members of the association.

“It’s such a relief to be done with the preparation phase,” admitted James, who’s also now involved with the association’s part-timers organizing committee. “Now when my colleagues talk to me about the need for a union, I can hand them a card and show them the dotted line.”

A few days after the special meeting, the Saint John campus was rocked by news that its continued existence as part of UNB was in question.

Regena Farnsworth, AUNBT’s vice-president for Saint John, noted that “one of the most
visible champions of our campus in this latest crisis has been Elizabeth McGahan, a longtime instructor in Saint John’s history department and the first part-timer to join the association from Saint John.”

As with almost every Canadian university, UNB’s contract academics are poorly paid. Beyond the simple economics of such exploitation, however, is the threat posed to academic freedom when faculty professionals are not afforded security of employment and opportunities for professional development, said AUNBT vice-president David Bell.

“I’m appalled at the extent to which part-time faculty labour is overused, ill-used and abused within the institution,” Bell said.

Bell, a former part-timer, said he’s enthusiastic about the possibilities that will be opened up by “coordinated advocacy.”

The AUNBT launched its drive on the same day the provincial labour board issued its long-awaited decision recognizing that contract academics at Université de Moncton should be considered members of the academic staff association.

As omens go, this one seems mighty auspicious.