Part-timers file complaint against Dal

CUPE 3912, a union representing teaching assistants and part-time faculty at Dalhousie, St. Mary’s and Mount Allison, filed a complaint against Dalhousie University for bargaining in bad faith.

The Feb. 17 complaint is the result of CUPE 3912 wanting to include part-timers at Dal’s Truro agricultural campus as part of the union.

However, Dal doesn’t want to do this while acknowledging that the union has the right to organize Truro’s part-timers.

“There’s no reason to exclude those members [Truro part-timers],” CUPE 3912 president Steve Cloutier said.

Dal has halted negotiations for CUPE 3912’s collective agreement due to the issue of inclusion of Truro part-timers into the union. Cloutier said the union received legal counsel, and the lawyer said that the university cannot halt negotiations for this reason.

“The university wants to ensure fairness for its part-time faculty and teaching assistants (TAs) regardless of the faculty in which they teach,” Dalhousie Director of Communications Brian Leadbetter said via email.

CUPE 3912 has now put in a complaint to the Nova Scotia Labour Board against Dal for bargaining in bad faith. CUPE 3912 and Dal are scheduled to meet with the labour board in May.

Cloutier understands why the university wouldn’t want to force union membership upon Truro part-timers. CUPE 3912’s collective agreement enforces salaries, which would mean that the university may have to factor in pay increases for Truro part-time faculty and TAs.

When Dal started saying that the Truro part-timers needn’t be a part of the union, Cloutier said he wanted to take the problem to the labour board.

“If the Nova Scotia Labour Board tells me they’re not our members, I’m happy to comply with that, and organize them as law dictates,” he said. “But until an external body tells me, I don’t feel I can negotiate away rights from members.”

With the recent strikes by the part-time faculty and TA unions at the University of Toronto and York University, universities across the country are seeing more tension between themselves and part-timers. CUPE 3912 stands in solidarity with the Toronto unions.

Cloutier has been a part-time English instructor at St. Mary’s for 15 years. He said that universities are used to seeing part-timers as transitory, staying for only a year or two. However, this is no longer the case as full-time positions become more and more rare.

Part-timers don’t have representation on Senate, and Cloutier said they often aren’t consulted about courses they teach.

“There has to be a change in attitude: the attitude that we’re temporary,” Cloutier said. “Part-time faculty as temporary is no longer the case.”