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Contingent labor meets

By VINNIE TIRELLI Brooklyn College

         Having been to all five conferences of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL), I found COCAL V to be the most exciting and promising of them all. COCAL V, held October 4 - 6 in Montreal, was the best attended by far. The 225 participants included academic labor activists from as far as Alaska, from all across Canada and the U.S., as well as Mexico. The growth in part-time, adjunct instructional staff at CUNY is part of an expansion of contingent academic labor throughout North America. Looking around the conference hall, it was clear that our local labor organizing is part of an international social movement.

         A COCAL first was the multi-campus protest march in which we all took part, with local activists giving rousing speeches and with entertainment at each stop. Carrying signs and chanting in French and in English, we went from Concordia University to the Science Center of the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) to CEGEP du Vieux- Montreal (a two-year college), where a rally featured music, balloons, and circus performers. The march ended at UQAM's other campus, campus, where a reception welcomed us to town.

         This was also the first multilingual COCAL; our hosts provided us with translation through wireless headphones so we could all follow the proceedings. It was inspiring to witness the level of organization among our Canadian colleagues. The contacts and relationships between between the French- and English-speaking Canadians were not as strong as I had assumed, but one of COCAL V's major accomplishments was to bring them closer together, with new contacts and friendships laying the basis for a stronger alliance in the future. And for the first time we had representatives from Mexico's Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universitad Autonoma de Mexico (STUNAM), who discussed our common problems and pledged to be actively involved in future COCAL meetings.

        

         Linda Sperling, of British Columbia's College Institute Educators Association, set the tone early in the conference when she noted that it is easier to be against something than to be for something. But to have a lasting impact, she said, we need to articulate a positive social vision along with our particular demands.

         Rich Moser of the AAUP proposed that what contingent faculty are fighting for is academic citizenship, freedom and democracy. In a plenary on academic freedom, Alissa Messer of the California Federation of Teachers Community College College Council pointed out how these issues are related. Without job security for part-time faculty, she argued, there is no academic freedom. Messer said there is a "chilling" effect on scholarship and learning when adjunct faculty find it necessary to "stop and think twice" when engaged in any kind of public speaking, or even when deciding what books to place on a reading list.

         Academic freedom plays an important role in protecting open debate in the larger society, Messer said. But with half the faculty in North America in part-time positions, she told the conference, our lack of job security weakens democracy outside the campus as well.

         The conference adopted a trilingual statement, the "Montreal Declaration," on the need to end "the exploitation generated by contingency." It expressed our commitment to organize for "the recognition of our contribution to quality education, and to improve our working conditions." There was broad agreement that COCAL should remain, for now, a loosely structured grassroots movement with a global perspective.

         CHICAGO NEXT TIME

         We made plans to follow up on last year's successful Campus Equity Week with another coordinated effort in the Spring of 2003. Finally, we decided to hold COCAL VI in Chicago in approximately 18 months. A key reason for choosing Chicago is that Midwestern academic unions have had more difficulty in organizing part-time faculty than their sisters and brothers on the West Coast and in the Northeast, and COCAL VI can help to shine a light on these campaigns. There was also interest in holding a COCAL conference in Mexico in the near future. There was such a good feeling to the entire weekend: three days of working in solidarity with activists and teachers from across the continent left me feeling stronger. One participant described what we were doing by turning the name of our coalition into a verb: "We must continue COCAL-ing." Everyone seemed to agree.

 

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