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Its not easy, but sometimes fat cats can be shamed into doing the right thing. To some extent, thats how CUPE Local 3912 finally won a first contract for part-timers and teaching assistants at three Halifax universities.
Dalhousie, Saint Marys and Mount St. Vincent had no qualms about paying part-timers and TAs such paltry wages that some of them had to resort to food banks to survive. And Dal, the biggest and most elite of the three, was the most shameless.
It took nearly five years, including a public relations campaign that held Dal up to public ridicule as an academic sweat shop, before it finally relented in March and signed an agreement.
Barbara Moore, the president of Local 3912, said it was a long and difficult struggle but, in the end, significant gains were made. Pay for part-timers will rise from about $5,000 per course to more than $6,700 over the life of the agreement.
Mike Earle, the locals secretary-treasurer, said Dal remained small-minded right to the end, forcing the union to accept rates marginally lower than the other two universities because this had always been a tradition.
Imagine, Earl said. They were hanging onto this inequity as though it were some kind of a virtue to be preserved. Thats what we were up against.