CAUT president highlights threat posed by the casualization of academic work at the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education
(excerpted from CAUT News, July 13, 2009)
Around the world, more and more university and college administrations are using the economic crisis as a pretext to impose hiring freezes and lay-offs, and to increase the use of part-time and fixed-term academic staff hired at low pay, with few if any benefits and no job security.
This was the key message in a presentation by CAUT President Penni Stewart at the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in Paris.
“Higher education is quickly becoming one of the most casualized professions, perhaps second only to retail services,” said Stewart. “In many counties, fixed-term academic staff comprise the majority of those teaching in post-secondary systems.”
Stewart pointed out that in the United States, close to three-quarters of academic staff are off the tenure track, and in Central America, the number of professors employed on a casual basis has doubled in the past ten years.
In Uganda, Stewart said, the government floated a proposal a few years ago to eliminate tenure and convert all professors in the country onto fixed-term contracts.
“The conditions of work for contingent faculty are generally poor – especially in contrast with their full time peers,” she said. “Many teach multiple courses – sometimes at several institutions….contingent staff are given few opportunities to participate in governance, wages are low relative to full time academic staff, and access to research and conference funds, libraries and office space is limited.”
Stewart said the casualization of academic labour is “perhaps the most significant threat to academic freedom today.”
“Let’s be perfectly clear: staff employed on fixed-term contracts do not need to be fired if they offend powerful interests,” she said. “Instead, their contracts are simply not renewed.”
The international conference brought together over 1,000 participants from around 150 countries at UNESCO Headquarters over four days, including ministers, university rectors, faculty, students and representatives of the private sector as well as regional and multilateral institutions.