YUFA
External
Report on CAUT Librarians’ Conference & Workshop "Negotiating for Parity: Closing the Librarian / Faculty Gap"
23-25 October 2009, Ottawa, Ontario
By Daniel Perlin, Assistant Librarian, Osgoode Hall Law School
19 Nov 09 - For many academic librarians today, academic parity is more of a myth than reality. Most still trail their faculty colleagues with regard to salary, protections for academic freedom, research and teaching opportunities. At the bi-annual CAUT Librarians’ Conference and Workshop in Ottawa, the focus this year was on finding ways to negotiate parity between faculty and librarians, thus addressing some of these issues. Speakers provided an overview on many of these topics. There were also practical workshops where delegates would attempt to negotiate and draft their own clauses. I was interested in this topic as I had been involved in labour and collective bargaining issues as an articling student. I therefore wanted to see how issues are examined and resolved in an academic setting.
The keynote address was given by Toni Samek, a professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. She spoke on the issue of academic freedom and the responsibility of librarians to protect it. It is important to ensure that academic freedom was given parity in collective agreement language for both faculty and librarians. In her view, academic freedom “is the future of law librarianship”. Her utmost concern for the future is what has been going on at the library schools. She believes that too many young librarians want to “play it safe” and not speak up with regard to academic freedom, as they are afraid of being ostracized. Another concern she has is that it is important that library councils and organizations work together to push for a statement from the Canadian Library Association on academic freedom. Currently, there is none.
The next session’s speaker was James Turk, the CAUT Executive Director, whose topic was, “Academic Librarianship Under Attack – What can we do?”. His session focused on the fact that in many cases, the positions and work of academic librarians are increasingly threatened by employer initiatives to reorganize library services. He started his discussion by looking at the history of the “Destruction of Artisanal Work” when managers would lower labour costs by employing fewer skilled workers. He then brought up the situation in academic libraries today, where library staff performs at least some of the work that was once performed by librarians. Therefore, he tied together the past with the present. Turk than cited examples of universities where librarian positions have been eliminated, such as McMaster University. In order to overcome these challenges, Turk suggested several things. One way would be to educate the faculty and the public about the important role that librarians play. Another would be to ensure that librarians unionize, and that collective agreements are enforced.
The next session involved workload. This session was unique in that not only were there two librarians from university libraries, but also one from a college library to explain the situation there. Meg Craven, from Mount Saint Vincent University, described her situation, where in many instances, librarians are eligible to take sabbaticals but some do not take them. Her reasoning was that if one is in a small library, with few library staff, there is no time to do research, and consequently many librarians do not go on sabbatical. Contrasted with her situation is that of Sylvie LaFortune, a librarian from Laurentian University, where parity between faculty and librarians does exist. For instance, everyone - including librarians - is expected to take sabbatical leaves to do research. As well, librarians serve on academic committees.
“The Salary Situation” was the next session. Here, Neil Tudiver (Assistant Executive Director, CAUT) discussed the salary discrepancy between librarians and faculty and discussed situations at campuses where progress has been made toward parity. After this discussion, a breakout session was held where delegates were divided into groups of five. Two groups would go into one room and would attempt to do a collective bargaining session aimed at resolving a salary dispute between librarians and university administration. One group played the librarians, and the other group played the administration. This part was a bit odd. No one was really sure what to do and no real guidance was given. It was interesting to see how things developed but I did not learn anything from it.
The final session dealt with how to draft clauses in collective agreements. This session was led by another Assistant Executive Director of CAUT, Peter Simpson. He believed that one of the main challenges in drafting clauses was the fear of the force of contract language. What this means is that there is a fear of inserting clauses that would upset others. However, Simpson said that people must realize that only they (the people who draft the clauses) know what it is that they do. He also commented that lawyers should not be involved in collective bargaining negotiations, which I politely disagreed with. There was also a breakout session where groups would practice looking at clauses and trying to redraft them.
Overall, it was a very good conference, and I was glad to be there. Learning about the various differences between librarians and faculty makes me more cognizant of the difficulties in collective bargaining in an academic setting. It requires patience, but also an understanding of where various groups are coming from, in order to get a workable agreement.
Other Delegates to this Conference:
Mary Kandiuk