Labour Day 2016
As students, instructors, and education professionals and technologists prepare to head back to class, Labour Day is a very appropriate moment to recognize what being members of the union movement has meant for BCIT faculty and staff and their students.
When BCIT faculty and staff were first allowed to unionize in 1974, they seized the opportunity immediately. For ten years they had endured frustrating and fruitless appeals to the government for better wages and working conditions to better meet the needs of their students. They learned very clearly that they could better defend and advance their own and their students’ interests by having the means to hold their employer accountable through grievance and arbitration processes and through collective bargaining.
Together as a union we have fought for quality post-secondary education by guaranteeing professional development funding and opportunities, protecting academic freedom and tenure, enshrining collegial governance and departmental decision making processes, managing workloads, and advocating for our members and our students. BCIT is an outstanding institution because faculty and staff came together at its outset to assert their authority over their programs. The labour movement has provided an effective way of harnessing our professional impetus to provide high quality technology education and applied research.
One of the guiding principles of the labour movement is, ‘What we ask for ourselves, we wish for all.’ The BCIT FSA continues to push for equitable pay and working conditions for Part-Time Studies Instructors. We are joining CAUT to draw on the strengths of our colleagues nationally and to contribute to raising the standards for post-secondary employment across the country. We are reaching out to other unions in education, public service, and beyond to share and consolidate the gains we have made and to learn how we can contribute to outstanding careers for our members and their students.
The labour movement and union principles have been instrumental in creating many of the conditions that make BCIT a great institution. The BCIT Faculty and Staff Association continues to act on those principles and stand in solidarity with the union movement to advance the interests of our members and the students and industries that they serve.
