FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
From: Eileen
E. Schell
To:
Workplace
Date: May
25, 2001
Posted: May 25, 2001
Subject: HIGHER EDUCATION COALITION
PLANS WEEK OF ACTION
Faculty activists across the US and
Canada have banded together to designate October 28 to November 3rd 2001
as Campus Equity Week. Campus Equity Week will promote campus activities
designed to highlight the poor pay and working conditions of part-time
and non-tenure track faculty. Part-time faculty account for 43% of all
faculty appointments. Graduate student assistants and full-time contingent
faculty are other growing segments of the teaching profession without adequate
compensation or academic freedom protections. Only 40% of the total faculty
now hold or are eligible for full-time tenured status.
The Campus Equity Week coalition marks
the first time faculty from all of the major faculty unions, associations
and disciplinary organizations from the US and Canada have joined forces
for an international campaign to promote faculty activism. National and
local representatives of the following organizations have formed a national
steering committee that continues to invite new participants to assist
in planning for Campus Equity Week.
Academic Senate for California Community
Colleges (ASCCC) American Association of University Professors (AAUP)American
Federation of Teachers (AFT),Canadian Association of University Teachers
(CAUT), California Part-time Faculty Association (CPFA),Concordia University
Part-time FacultyAssociation (CUPFA),Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
(COCAL),Communications Workers of America (CWA),Community College Council
of the California Federation of Teachers (CCC/CFT)Federation nationale
des enseignants et enseignantes du Quebec de la Confederation des syndicats
nationaux (FNEEQ-CSN)Massachusetts Teachers Association / NEA (MTA)National
Alliance for Fair Employment (NAFFE),National Council of Teachers of English/Conference
on College Communication and Composition (NCTE/CCCC),National Education
Association (NEA)Campus Equity Week, designed to educate the public and
policymakers, will
focus attention on issues of fairness
and quality of education.
Our message: teachers' working conditions
are students' learning conditions and equal work deserves equal pay.In
addition the week of action will promote local organizing. Local
Campus Equity Week committees are in formation and will plan events appropriate
to local campus conditions.Campus Equity Week will also take issue with
declining labor standards and increasing use of temporary and part-time
labor for all campus work. Campus
Equity Week endorses the adoption
of equitable labor policies and standards that encourage fairness and dignity
for all members of the campus community. Campus Equity Week is part of
a growing movement among working people from all walks of life seeking
to address the inequities of contingent work. Campus activism is directly
linked to that broader movement through the professional organizations,
labor unions and member organizations of the National Alliance for Fair
Employment that support Campus Equity Week and constitute its steering
committee.
For More information contact:
AAUP - Richard Moser (202)
737-5900
AFT - Susan Levy (206)
524-4326
CCA/CTA - Judith Mandel (760)
345.8694.
CWA - Stacey Burks (530) 345-3658
NAFFE - Brendan Smith (203)
453-0155
NEA - Rachel Hendrickson, (202)
822-7115
North West, U S - Sandra Schroeder
(206)-242 4777
Central West, U S - Chris Storer
(650) 949-2287
South West, U S - Donna Hurtado
(505) 265-0899 or
David Milroy, (858)569-8435
Canada (English) -Vicky Smallman
(613) 820-2270