CAUT member associations held a coordinated campaign this year to advance a decade of grassroots organizing around Fair Employment Week to highlight and counter the overuse and exploitation of contract academic staff.

Associations’ advocacy-related activities flourished throughout the country during the last week of October, with everything from a postcard and poster campaign at UBC, to a screening of Ira Basen’s documentary Class Struggle at Windsor, to an open forum organized by Halifax-area associations.

Dozens of academic staff associations printed campaign materials and used websites, blogs, newsletters, op-eds, and social media to cultivate public awareness. Others passed motions endorsing the national campaign and released informational materials.

“As a result of these efforts, Fair Employment Week was a resounding success,” said CAUT president Robin Vose.

He credits an “active and engaged membership” with generating a significant amount of discussion over social media and referring traffic to CAUT’s campaign website.

“Hundreds of members and supporters signed our letter demanding fair compensation and job security for all academic staff,” Vose said, “and endorsed our petitions that the federal government repeal recent changes to Employment Insurance regulations that punish contract academic staff and other precarious workers.”