CAUT grew a little bigger last month when council delegates voted to accept the Carleton University Postdoctoral Association into membership. CUPA, with 70–80 postdoctoral fellows, is CAUT’s 74th member local.
“Postdocs are academic staff to whom we extend a warm welcome,” said CAUT executive director James Turk. “They face many challenges, especially very low pay, given their education and responsibilities.”
While CUPA is the first organization of postdoc fellows to apply for membership in CAUT, Turk said he hopes there will be many more as CAUT “works to improve the working conditions for these important members of the academic community.”
CUPA members earlier this year voted unanimously in favour of joining CAUT.
“With a group that has relatively little power we do appreciate having the solidarity of CAUT,” Kevin Abbott, acting president of CUPA and a postdoc in Carleton’s biology department, told delegates to CAUT’s council meeting in Ottawa Nov. 23. “Thank you for welcoming us in your organization.”
CUPA is the second academic staff association to become part of the CAUT network in 2012 and joins other recent new members such as Osgoode Hall Faculty Association, the Syndicat des professeurs et professeures de l’Université Laval and the University of King’s College Teachers’ Association.