AUNBT Hosts Forum for Part-Timers
In preparation for the approaching negotiation of a first contract for part-time teachers and librarians, AUNBT is hosting a series of forums on the two campuses in order to gauge bargaining priorities. Read more in announcements.
UNB Part-timers Win Union Rights!
On 20 February 2008 New Brunswick's Labour and Employment Board issued a certification order designating AUNBT as the bargaining agent for UNB's part-time teachers and librarians working at or out of the Fredericton and Saint John campuses. Read more in current news.
CAUT Motion
CAUT has unanimously passed a motion, communicated to Shawn Graham, to preserve UNB and U de M campuses and to affirm the importance of academic senate governance. Read more in current news.
Bulletin 6: Bargaining Survey
Support for AUNBT's campaign continues to build and we now have signed membership cards from a majority of all the part-timers we have identified as working at UNB. As you can read in our Bulletin, AUNBT has not limited itself to the Fredericton campus or to a narrow definition of teaching. Consequently, the bargaining unit proposed by AUNBT is more than twice the size of the one proposed by PSAC. In preparing for the eventuality of collective bargaining, we are distributing an initial bargaining survey to assess the importance of a range of employment-related issues to UNB's part-timers. The survey is part of our latest Bulletin which may be downloaded in pdf format here.
Stronger together:
AUNBT and Contract Academic Staff
At its special meeting of September 6th the AUNBT membership voted by a better than 11 to 1 margin to accept the constitutional amendments needed to admit UNB's stipend and contract academics as full members to the association. Once a sufficient number of part-timers have joined the Association, AUNBT can certify a second bargaining unit for these employees.
The Part-Timers Organizing Committee of the AUNBT urges all of UNB's 'Contract Academic Staff' (CAS) to seriously the options and choices now open to them. As a member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, AUNBT is an integral part of the national organization dedicated to the defense of our profession and the protection of academic values. The CAUT and its locals elsewhere are markedly improving the conditions of employment for contract academic staff at twenty-five of Canada's other universities, including those and l'Université de Moncton who were recognized by New Brunswick's labour board on September 7th, 2007.
A pdf comparison of contract academic staff collective agreements across the country is available for download from the CAUT website.
The next step is up to you...
In weighing the options for unionization, we urge our colleagues to consider the following:
- AUNBT has been bargaining contracts at UNB for nearly three decades and has a wealth of local experience with respect to negotiations and grievance resolution.
- AUNBT has significant financial reserves which ensure its ability to pursue employment related issues as far as is necessary to secure the rights of its members.
- AUNBT has successfully bargained many of the issues that are of concern to part-time academics. Negotiating parallel language for a part-timers' unit should be facilitated by the work that the Association has already done on a wide range of issues.
- AUNBT is a member of CAUT which is exclusively concerned with higher education. All of its political, financial, and intellectual efforts are directed towards improving Canada's universities and the lives of the academics who make them work.
- CAUT locals already represent the majority of Canada's unionized contract academic staff and so UNB's part-timers can be assured of CAUT's continued commitment to this constituency, to events like its Contract Academic Staff conference, and to the ongoing work of its national Contract Academic Staff committee.
- As an active member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, AUNBT is engaged in the national conversation on academic practices and standards. Part-timers in an AUNBT bargaining unit would become participants in CAUT's policy work.
Part-time faculty or librarians who want to join AUNBT or are interested in receiving more information should contact the organizing committee at cas.unb@gmail.com.