Blog

Submitted by I. Fearon, VP SMU PT
Oct. 5 2026

In my mind, the mark of a useful conference is that it leaves participants both with new and useful information AND with unanswered questions to help shape future reflection, inquiry, discussion, and planning. By this measure, the recent Contract Academic Staff (CAS) conference was, indeed, very useful.

Conference sessions provided information on a variety of topics central to the work of our Local and our SMU PT Bargaining Unit. This included information about the kinds of rights and protections other CAS have won through collective bargaining, such as access to health care plans, more helpful and structured hiring practices and the right to participate in University governance bodies such as Academic Departments and Boards of Directors. Did you know, for example, that some CAS have the option of signing on to group health insurance once they reach a specified level of precedence/seniority?! Or that some get paid by their Universities for their work on behalf of their Unions? Or that some Collective Agreements say new CAS must have a meeting with a Union Rep to review their rights before signing their first contract? Other sessions shared strategies for working with our tenure-track colleagues and for supporting member development – that is, supporting members in developing their skills, confidence, and engagement in leadership with he union. Yet others provided information and discussion around the role of AI in academic work and its potential impact on the post-secondary sector.

And throughout all these activities, there was the invaluable opportunity to hear about the various ways the roles of CAS play out (or could play out) in different regions and different institutions. I am left with deep curiosity about three questions in particular: First, what do people envision as the ideal role for CAS in the context of post-secondary education? For example, should our work be “the same” as our tenured colleagues? Or should it be more complementary? Should CAS have the same qualifications as their tenure-track colleagues? Or should they have different skills and knowledge? In an ideal world, would all CAS eventually convert into full-time and/or permanent employees of their Universities?

Second, if we can come to a shared understanding of the ideal role of CAS, what do CAS need to work to the full scope of that ideal and how can collective bargaining help us create and sustain these kinds of conditions? And third, if the role of CAS were both clear and valued, and if the conditions for full professional engagement and success were present, what would the impact of this be on the quality of education our students receive, and on the quality of their future work as health care providers, leaders, parents, citizens, etc.?

Halifax, October 2–3, 2026

Submitted by Pranay Malusare, Communications Officer, CUPE Local 3912

10th October 2026

I attended the Saturday, October 3 sessions of the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ Contract Academic Staff Conference in Halifax. I am grateful for the opportunity to represent CUPE Local 3912 and to learn about approaches to organizing, member engagement, and public communications. This report focuses on Saturday’s sessions and their relevance to my work as Communications Officer.

The strongest takeaway for me was that effective union communication is about more than distributing information. It is also about building relationships: understanding members’ concerns, helping them recognize their connection to the union, and providing meaningful opportunities to participate. For a Local whose members work across different institutions, departments, and contract arrangements, this is particularly important. An email can share information, but an ongoing relationship can help turn that information into collective action.

BUILDING POWER AND CAMPAIGNING FOR FAIR EMPLOYMENT

Saturday’s opening session focused on CAUT’s Fair Employment Now! campaign and strategies for building participation and sustaining momentum. The campaign connects improvements in contract academic staff working conditions with the broader defence of high-quality, accessible public education. Its materials identify possible priorities such as greater job security, fair compensation, access to benefits, and recognition of work performed beyond classroom teaching.

One useful idea was the “ladder of engagement”: a gradual progression from raising awareness and identifying supporters, to growing participation, developing leadership, and taking collective action. Rather than expecting members to become highly involved immediately, this approach creates opportunities for people to build confidence and take on responsibilities over time.

The organizing demonstration and role-play materials made these ideas more concrete. They explored conversations with both a contract academic colleague who is uncertain about becoming involved and a regular academic staff member who supports fairness but does not yet see how contract staff issues connect to their own working conditions. The approach involved asking questions, identifying the concerns that matter to the person, discussing potential employer pushback realistically, and agreeing on a specific action and follow-up.

For me, this reinforced the importance of listening before asking for participation. A general invitation to “get involved” may be less effective than a conversation that connects someone’s experience to a clear, achievable next step.

ORGANIZING CONTRACT ACADEMIC STAFF

The session on troubleshooting organizing challenges examined barriers created by short-term employment, heavy workloads, remote work, and gaps in contact between appointments. The workshop used a fictional university to explore situations involving new hires, online instructors, members between contracts, quiet supporters, and trusted colleagues who remain skeptical of their association.

Two organizing tools stood out:

• Member mapping identifies informal workplace networks: whom people trust, who influences opinions, and how information travels across departments and other work groups.
• Charting systematically records outreach and engagement, including work location, employment status, members’ concerns, conversations, and participation.

Together, they can support a more consistent approach than repeatedly relying on the same small group of active members.

This connects directly with the Communications Officer’s responsibility to assist Vice-Presidents in developing departmental representative networks. It also raises an important question for our Local: how can we maintain meaningful contact with members throughout the year, including those working remotely or between contracts? Regular updates are valuable, but they work best alongside personal contact, accessible opportunities to participate, and reliable ways for members to share their concerns.

GETTING THE WORD OUT ABOUT FAIR EMPLOYMENT NOW!

The afternoon communications workshop was particularly relevant to my position. It focused on developing clear public messages about precarious academic work and the changes needed to improve working conditions.

The media-release materials emphasized an attention-grabbing headline and a short opening paragraph answering who, what, where, when, and why. Quotes should explain why the issue matters and communicate its human significance. Additional facts should support the central message rather than distract from it, and the conclusion should make clear what happens next.

For CUPE 3912, these lessons could inform newsletters, membership bulletins, website articles, and campaign materials. We need to explain members’ working conditions in language that is accessible to people outside our bargaining units, while showing how fair employment supports the education students receive. Member stories can help make that connection, provided they are shared with consent and with attention to the risks faced by precariously employed workers.

REFLECTIONS FOR CUPE 3912

Saturday’s program brought organizing and communications together in a way that was useful for thinking about my role. Public messaging can build awareness, but sustained participation depends on members feeling heard, connected, and able to influence the union’s work.

I came away with three questions for further discussion. First, are our communications reaching members whose connection to campus changes from term to term? Second, do our messages offer clear and manageable ways to participate, rather than only providing updates? Third, how can we better support trusted colleagues in connecting members across departments and bargaining units?

Overall, the conference strengthened my understanding of communications as part of ongoing organizing rather than a separate task. My main takeaway is that stronger communications should help members understand not only what the union is doing, but how they belong to it and how their participation can shape its direction.

In Solidarity,

Pranay Malusare

Communications Officer

CUPE Local 3912

By Holly Morgan

I have been a contract academic worker of various sorts at 9 universities, so when the CAUT Contract Academic Staff conference was announced as a local event and it became clear we could send a number of delegates, I knew I wanted to attend.

Many institutions have agreements and practices that CUPE 3912 could learn from, but at the conference it became very clear to me that, particularly as a result of the last year and a half, CUPE 3912 also has a lot to offer other unions. Seeing our members speak about building solidarity during the 2025/6 strikes made me proud of our local and of my roles within it (then as Dalhousie PTA steward and currently as your Recording Secretary).

Friday panels began with international speakers from the UK and Denmark. These speakers were of particular interest to me due to the international nature of my PhD program and my teaching focus on gender equity. I appreciated Janne Gleerups’s overview of gender breakdowns in Danish higher education, where women represent approximately half of the population of people earning PhDs but only about a quarter of people in permanent academic positions. Mark Pendleton shared a similarly alarming statistic about the gender-based pension gap among UK-based academics. It was saddening to know that these issues are so widespread, but good to hear that some unions and governments have brought about positive
change, too.

I also engaged in a number of conversations with members of other unions about how they are structured and funded, and it became increasingly clear to me that we must lobby our institutions for more support for the local as a union as well as for rights for our individual members. Many conference participants belonged to unions where members were compensated by their employers for union and committee service, and I would like to see us
achieve gains on this front in our next round of bargaining.

The Saturday morning sessions on mobilization gave me some tips for reaching our members and building solidarity, particularly on a Communications front. I learned of a few different tools we can use for member engagement, and repeatedly saw the value in personal connection
reaffirmed. I hope to take this knowledge forward and participate in more outreach for the Dalhousie unit (my current home unit). The final moment that stood out to me at the conference was when we looked around the room and made a note of who was not there, particularly from the Atlantic region. In some cases, we deduced that part-time academics from those institutions were not represented by a union, and in others we could not explain the absence. This moment highlighted for me the significant impact of recent efforts by a team at Dalhousie to bring representation to members of the Architecture department, and the sheer volume of work that is out there to be done by anyone
who wants to make a difference in the working conditions of contract academics in our region.

In sum, it was a productive and valuable conference, and I encourage members passionate about Contract Academic working conditions to try to attend next time!

Neil Balan, 3912 SMU PTA Steward, PTA member at SMU, Dal U, and MSVU

https://www.caut.ca/events-conferences/contract-academic-staff-conference-materials/contract-academic-staff-conference-agenda/

Note: I drafted the items below in the spirit of a “lessons learned” analysis following from my review of the notes I compiled and consolidated during and after the conference. These bullets represent specific insights and important ideas.

S1_ Roundtable: International dimensions of precarious academic work

• Compelling analysis of Denmark in terms of the public funding model and interactions with private sector capital; the Danish Association of Masters/PhDs is different representational engine in a context of publicly-funded PSE where enrollment growth, revenues, cost-containment, and tuition fees are not as substantial political economic forces.
• The UCUUK share more of the structural and political economy context of PSE with CUPE 3912 and Canadian CAS/CTF/PTA unions. 
• Bigger and unified closed shops across the sector are a key to leverage collective power and exert our collective interests as academic workers (right to strike and member power wrt Section 107 in C-39 Build Canada Act).
• Casualization and precarity are not inevitable but are rather structural fixes to cheapen our labour and extract more work from is in ways that require and normalize structural inequality.
• Have to focus on intersectional dimensions of our work force and work place; our unions are affected by multiple axes/structural forces (cold spots).
• There ARE structural forces and institutional actors who are hostile to us.
• We have to navigate contradictions and antagonisms within our units and across faculty unions and associations; need unity without uniformity.

S2_ Making gains for contract academic staff at the bargaining table

“Panelists from associations that have recently made gains or are actively bargaining will share strategies, challenges, and lessons learned.”

• Importance of lining up units and other locals or unions to coordinate with each other but also be mindful of constraints or precedents; kick wins and victories to others so they can bargain and consolidate and kick it back your way.
• Wage suppression and reduce the steps and the step height (one stipend); the wins will be uneven inside a unit, but we have to act in solidarity and unity to support other locals and units.
• Wages, pay, and indexation: this may be important because bargaining wages is so fraught and difficult.
• A strike is not a loss; we have a limited window to go on strike, and we have to use it.
• LMC as a space and venue to politicize issues and keep things on the front burner.
• Cannot view things through the lens of one round or bargaining or bargaining cycle
• Robert at CUPA: be at all tables and build our own tables (EDIA, inter-union council)
• Important to balance normative gains versus monetary gains (read the wider material context) in CAs and bargaining. 
• Job security and academic freedom go hand in hand.

S3_ Combating precarity in the age of AI

“Discussion of strategies to close loopholes in collective agreement language related to job security and to protect CAS rights in the context of technological change, including generative artificial intelligence.”

• Understanding AI and work as replacement v. displacement and as a process of fragmentation of work that attempts to “Taylorize” our teaching as a practice and breakdown the holistic work we do.
• How does if further cheapen our labour? Is a structural adjustment to nudge us out of access to work?
• The narrow parameters of AI (LLMs) as a productivity tool and the effects of non-competent use of AI (it could serve intersectional and access-based needs)
• AI discourse consumes resources and creates work (the amount of AI discourse)
• We need to get out front and be proactive, not reactive…
• But don’t miss the big picture: techno-capitalist universities in a wider techno-capitalist social context [automation, datafication, and financialization]
• The call to “build the case for human value (what value do I add)”: I understand the premise, but the situation for CAS is that the “value” they /we add is added because we are pools of disposable just-in-time cheap labour (until we’re not!)…we’re once again in a position where we’re pleading for ‘recognition’?!
• Defend professional autonomy and use our collective intelligence to counter the equivocations and alibis about—and application and implementation—of artificial intelligence, LLM, and automation
• What kind of use and normalization is “useful” in the narrow sense, and what will we accept? We have to understand this trend in terms of platform capitalism, spatial fixes for private wealth, and datafication-financialization.

S4_ Building solidarity for contract academic staff

“Chronic underfunding has led to program cuts, job losses, rising tuition fees, and reduced student support. In this context, building strong, cross-campus coalitions is more important than ever. This workshop will explore strategies for bringing together workers across bargaining units and students to sustain collective action in defence of high-quality education and to advance fair working conditions for contract academic staff.”

• Biggest risk today and the common enemy is outsourced governance models to third-party consultants; export management from the managers and away from and shreds of collegial self-government to ‘nearshore’ sites and vendors.
• Beyond austerity and beyond cuts to knowing our enemies in techno-capitalist universities
• Be wary of the efforts to continually de-professionalize and erosion of collegial self government.
• Make this frame visible: NOUS, analytics, and decision making [“A notorious consulting firm is selling austerity. Canada’s universities are buying” (16 Jul 2026) https://breachmedia.ca/a-notorious-consulting-firm-is-selling-austerity-canadas-universities-are-buying/] 
• Sit with the contradictions; socialize the struggle across students, staff, and faculty
• What are low-risk collective actions that translate to wins for us on this front as a sector?
• Hit these universities where they live wrt external reputation and targets
• Need unity across CAS + FT faculty, support staff, students, and facilities/custodial staff.

S5_ Building power: campaigning for fair employment

• Totality of influence; the wider context of academic work in terms of how/where people understand the issue.
• Baseline: organizing and educating members all the time; campaigns should be connected to longer term strategic aims/goals (wins), which means that the tactics we develop and use should teach and build to toward mobilizing tangible actions that we can measure.
• Structured, regular, and ongoing: this is crucial.
• Break down silos across the membership, across the unions, across the student/union divide, and across the university/PSE-social threshold
• Need to rethink how we organize to get there because it has to be more than ongoing influence/information operations (i.e., we can just send out information; need to design small tangible actions).
• Mapping existing and informal networks that we can integrate and tap to build power.
• Need measurable structure tests (we’re continually testing the viability of our structures and our collective power); we do want to institutionalize things insofar as we want to generate predictable effects with our members, so we know they are active and engaged! Aside: in a more Maoist register, we [vanguard] have to identify our decentralized cadres and work with them to socialize our material analysis wrt to the party form; the people/members are everything [operational design; “investigate”] [ambient/acute, direct and indirect]
• Charting is not mapping, but charting is important in terms of collecting data
• Agitate, Educate, Inoculate, Organize, unionize [AEIOU]. 
• We need unity-struggle-unity In our union spaces and not a “go-along to get-along”; antagonisms, structural forces, primary contradictions are productive, and we need them.
• Structure tests also identify how we’re accountable in terms of follow-through and capacity.
• Safety and security are important to build power; people have to trust they have the
• back-up, and members need to know what/which actions they can/should take so that we can level-up commitments.
• We don’t have to be nice with our adversaries or win the self-righteous game in some moral economy; we have academic and intellectual capabilities, but we should start with the direct materials issues we experience (i.e., start as workers!).

S6_ Workshop: Troubleshooting the challenges of organizing contract academic staff

• Organizing means embodying action; it’s more than what we think, and we have to close the gap between our analysis and our actions, we have to avoid the alibis and the
• disavowal even as we sit with the structural inequality of a two/three-tiered teaching system that cheapens our labour.
• In some settings, polite forms of institutional recognition work as methods of pacification and integration that domesticate our efforts.
• CAS/FT = 30/70 complement; 50+/50- teaching allocation
• What we’re able to do in terms of advocating and undertaking tangible actions “tells the truth” about how we can deliver on commitments re: structure tests across leadership and members.
• All labour in capitalism (whether in a public or private setting) is cheapened labour; the surplus or profit is always derived from unpaid labour
• Flexible, JIT, TBA: this is de-professionalization, churn effects
• Multiple axes of injustice and of access and structural effects: intersectionality beyond EDIA as way to identify barriers and generate action; structural barriers are chokepoints 100%.
• Active and engaged members = great to enable; newly activated and engaged members have more room to grow, and the ceiling is higher in terms of tasking and engagement.
• With engaged and more seasoned members, affirm and animate their ongoing commitments.

S7_ Workshop: Getting the word out about Fair Employment Now!

• Incubate ‘cadres’ aka our informal networks and leaders; aim for primary and secondary target and hook; audience perspective/position/location.
• Emotional appeals and education; anticipate logical and illogical arguments
• Discourse/frame; tone and rhetorical methods to make our case about our value as workers and the role we play in the sector.
• An ask: what do we want people to do?

S8_ Regional roundtable discussions

• The current set of political economic conditions are not inevitable; let’s not naturalize or normalize them anymore than university administrators and provincial politicians and minsters who kick the same can down the road [quiet cuts, contract reductions, cost-containment: enrollment-based course offerings and revenue-positive profit-mode assessment + ‘we need to open the international student tap’ aka exploit insourced revenue tranches]/
• Re-politicize that which is depoliticized, normalized, and naturalized.
• Any member engagement is and should be mobilization and education.
• Cross-regional coordination to line-up bargaining; fight to win but need to be organized
• Where to direct our lobby efforts and extra-institutional efforts: BOG businesses and MLAs.
• Consider CAUT organizing school and Organizing 4 Power.

By Kim Robinson

I attended the CAUT conference on October 2–3 at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax, where contract academics gathered to discuss current challenges and emerging priorities in Canadian higher education. It was really great to see full-time faculty as well showing their interest and
solidarity with contract academics. I learned that full-time profs are concerned about their education of their students overall, and this includes contract academics who teach them.

Over two days, we participated in sessions focused on academic freedom (or lack thereof), the international stage for contract academic, the impact of AI and the evolving landscape of post-secondary work. It was really helpful to listen to other universities and how they have been progressive and successful in their advancement of the collective agreements and their work on the part of contract academics. It was helpful to get these “how to” models presented so that others can accomplish the same. Some suggest the term contract academic over part-time faculty because of the misrepresentations that can occur as a results (e.g., many PT faculty carry a full load).

The conference gave me the chance to hear directly from colleagues across the country, compare institutional experiences, and reflect on how national trends are shaping local realities. We participated in panel discussions, presentations from across the globe, and our own local role-play and problem solving activities which really brought the issues at hand home. One particular presentation went into great detail about the importance of mapping the membership and also to be sure that all members have the information they need to participate in their union.

I left with an understanding that contract academics are increasing in Canada overall. They face pressures as do also the universities they work for. Practical ideas for strengthening faculty advocacy were discussed and I think a lot of members gained a renewed sense of connection from this meeting.

Report by Jenna MacPhee, VP Teaching Assistants (Sexton Campus)

I had the privilege of going to the Canadian Association of Union Teachers (CAUT) Contract Academics Staff Conference hosted in Halifax, Nova Scotia on October 2nd-3rd, 2026. There were contract staff members from across Canada in the room which allowed for a diverse conversation on the struggles and big gains that contract academics have and continue to face at various institutions. The two-day conference was split into two sections. Day one consisted of
roundtable discussions and panelists speaking on issues they have faced and obstacles that they have overcome as contract academics and unionists. Day two consisted of workshops and discussing things in small groups amongst peers and drawing on people’s experiences to work through different situations. It also allowed us to choose a workshop which consisted of writing op-d’s, social media posts, an email to your union members or a press release.

Day one of the conference began with three panelists. The discussion was around international dimension of precarious academic work. Two of the panelists were from Europe, Janne Gleerup from Denmark and Mark Pendleton from the United Kingdom (UK). Both Gleerup and Pendleton discussed how contract hours work in their respected countries. Gleerup noted that temporary and contract work in Denmark is common for PhD’s when they finish, some stay and
some leave. Gleerup noted that for a PhD graduate after 6 years, they are still in contract or temporary work terms hoping for more but with little to no progress. Funding has shifted in Denmark, as core funding fell and grant funding took over. Gleerup stated that private funding has increased but public funding has stayed the same while the government and public have little to no desire or care for the conditions of precarious workers. Institutions in Denmark are also unwillingly to hire on a long-term contract because of unknowns funding. This is relatable within our local as much of the public does not understand when we strike, what we are striking for. This last round of bargaining for all the CUPE 3912 units does seem to have changed that. In the
UK the Labour government is attempting to help contract worker but it is not enough. Pendleton notes that there are two types of fixed term staff, teaching and research. Precarity is a concern for many in the UK as tenure contracts do not exist in the UK as they do in Canada. Pendleton mentions that bargaining in the national framework does not get workers many gains but bargaining at the local level gets more including enhanced job security and health benefits. These two perspectives were interesting as it shows that public funding has not increased and that this issue is not isolated to Canada.

Another panel later in the day discussed making gains for contract academic/academic staff at the bargaining table. Theses panelists offered key gains made during their recent rounds of bargaining. Katerina Allan, our own CUPE 3912 VP for MSVU, offered her insight into bargaining and how it was to be at the table with the employer. Several gains were made during bargaining for MSVU last fall, including the removal of the bottom pay scale which the employer had been exploiting. This made it so that two pay scales instead of three were in the new collective agreement. Hinderance’s to their bargaining included the faculty association bargaining first which led to a lag in CUPE 3912 MSVU bargaining. Something similar occurred at Dalhousie, where Dalhousie’s CUPE 3912 unit was in bargaining and had met a few times before the Dalhousie Faculty Association’s (DFA) contract was up in the summer of 2025. Once the DFA’s contract was up, the employer immediately switched to concentrate on them and pushed contract negotiations with CUPE 3912 to the side and refused to meet with CUPE until the DFA’s contract was finally negotiated after the administration locked them out.

This seems to be a tactic used by various employers across the country, but some institutions, associations and unions are trying to get similar gains that can be continuously built upon. Dwayne Meisner, from the University of Regina, talked about those that are at the college and those at the university. Each time the college or university associations bargain, they add to was what was existing before and looking at other collective agreement on the campus. For instance, there was a lack of a teaching performance review, Meisner has been a sessional instructor under the University of Regina Faculty Association (URFA) since 2015, his first performance review was on September 29th, 2026. The process now is that sessional instructors need to be reviewed
every 3 years according to the CA. The sessional review process for Luther College (on the University of Regina’s campus) is similar, but they took it a step further and put in their CA that a negative review gives the sessional instructors a chance to still improve, it does not mean automatic removal from the priority list. Thus, allowing for each new CA to help each other build on what was existing before, if one union or association can get it from the employer, it
makes it possible for the other union or association to get it as well. This seems as though it is something that we could strive to do within our institutions.

I gained a wealth of information from the conference and knowing that others from various institutions are feeling the same is both validating and scary. Precarity is not for the faint of heart, but we do it because we love what we do and we love teaching our students. The conference gave me a chance to speak with other members of associations and unions, allowing me to improve on my knowledge in the hopes I will be able to better support our members generally, support members against our employer and gain insights into important protections that will be useful in our next round of bargaining.

By Dr. Isabel Fearon, Vice-President, SMU Part-Time Faculty

October 2026 marked the one-year anniversary of a significant turning point. The strike of contract academics in 2025 was a first: a first for Saint Mary’s University, for our Local, and for me and many of the people I stood with on the picket line. During the whirlwind three weeks of picketing, I learned new skills, met new colleagues, made new friends, and started thinking about some things in a very different way. It was alternately exhausting, exhilarating, awkward, confounding, frustrating, chaotic, and inspiring.

Before that experience, answering “yes” on a strike vote did not come easy for me. There were many conflicting values, loyalties, and priorities to weigh. I didn’t see myself as a “union person.” I felt guilty about the potential impact on students and colleagues. I second-guessed — and triple-guessed — my answer on an almost daily basis.

Since that experience, I have not regretted my vote or my time on the picket line even once. As a result of that strike, we saw the university agree to meaningful changes to our Collective Agreement that they would not have agreed to otherwise: significant wage increases, more protection from unfair dismissal, better support for our ongoing professional development, and an agreement from the University to discuss timelines for posting jobs and issuing contracts.

So, no, I haven’t changed my mind about the strike. I have, however, learned a lot of things I didn’t know when we left the picket line and went back to the classroom. The most important of these is that getting a new Collective Agreement is the start of the work, not its culmination.

You may now be thinking: Wait, what? I thought once the strike was over, we could all just celebrate and relax for a couple of years! Certainly, this is what I was hoping in November 2025. But it has become increasingly obvious to me that a Collective Agreement does not magically turn into action and cooperation on the part of the University. It takes vigilance, advocacy, action, and teamwork to turn the words on the page into actual change.

For example, over this past year at SMU:

• More than 15% of jobs posted for the fall term contravened the Collective Agreement in some way. The University had no plan to address this pattern until the Union collected the information, presented it to the Administration, and filed grievances on the basis of that information.
• The University made no progress on its written promise to our members to discuss the timing of job postings and contracts until the Union moved the issue forward.
• The instructors for roughly 25% of courses received their contracts after September 1, the start of the contractual period, and many received them less than 24 hours before the official start of term. This, in turn, meant we were left dealing with delayed pay, personal upheaval, problems getting parking passes, and lack of access to necessary tools like Banner, Brightspace, and CrowdMark.

So, what have I learned since the strike? Winning new language in our Collective Agreement is hugely important and worth striking for, if it can make meaningful change in people’s lives. But it is not enough. Equally important is the work we do together, between contract negotiations, to hold the University accountable to its promises.

Sometimes this means the legalistic work of filing grievances and formal contract negotiations. But it also involves more mundane and equally crucial tasks: tracking data on job postings and contracts; keeping members connected and informed about what’s going on; supporting fellow members in speaking up for themselves and in reaching out for help when needed; listening to others about what is important to them; and ongoing advocacy on behalf of our members with the Employer and with other unions.

I see my current role as VP as involving aspects of all these tasks. But I also know the work requires a TEAM, not just one individual. The Steward, Executive, and Union Officers all play crucial roles, but there is no doubt that the most important part of our team is our members — including you.

Our members support each other, and the Union, by keeping their Union reps informed of what is happening in their departments and faculties; by participating in Union meetings; by staying informed themselves and making their votes meaningful; by helping organize events; by sharing their thoughts and ideas in newsletters like this one; by sharing their concerns and perspectives with elected officials; and in so many other ways, big and small.

Which brings me full circle to the lesson I first really understood on the picket line a year ago: we are all the Union, and together we are stronger.

Dr. Fearon teaches in the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary’s University and serves as CUPE 3912’s VP representing Part-Time Faculty at SMU.

2026 CUPE NS Convention
Lachlan Sheldrick

SECTOR COUNCIL DISCUSSIONS

There was a scheduled meeting to discuss the creation of a CUPE NS sector council for post-secondary education. There has been discussion of forming such a council with local 4491 (SMU tradespeople), local 3131 (CBU support staff), and local 4198 (Acadia tradespeople). Currently, the primary obstacle is that these locals are not affiliated with CUPE NS. However, discussions are ongoing about forming greater relationships across the sector in Nova Scotia.

 RESOLUTIONS

Local 3912 had a resolution on the floor of convention to expand the eligibility of the strike fund. This is not something that is within CUPE NS’s power, and so the motion simply required that CUPE NS support efforts at national convention to make changes to the definition of a strike, including the requirement for lost wages during the time of the strike. The need for these changes comes from the precarious and seasonal nature of our work, where many members do not have an active contract at the time of a strike, and so cannot receive strike pay, even when serving on an executive or strike committee.

Ultimately this resolution did not pass, however productive conversations were had with Candace Rennick, the national secretary treasurer, about how best to pursue these initiatives at the national level.

ELECTIONS

During the course of convention, executive board elections were all uncontested and resulted in acclimation of the current executives to continue serving in their positions.

Committee elections proceeded and resulted in multiple 3912 members getting elected to committee positions. Delegates Holly Hanes and Tian Liao were both elected to committee positions. Delegate MJ Jackson expressed interest in applying for the open position on the CUPE Atlantic Maritime Region Indigenous Council.

Congratulations to all of our 3912 delegates for their elections and their involvement in the broader work of the union!

 LONG TERM CARE

The then-ongoing long term care strike overshadowed much of convention. The number of delegates were significantly reduced due to many of the usual candidates being out on the picket line instead. Donations to the long term care committee and support fund were made.

Delegates participated in a rally at the Halifax Convention Centre. The rally was well attended and showed immense solidarity with the striking LTC workers. The rally disrupted Premier Tim Houston’s state of the province address, a goal that was accomplished through chanting and loud music, and which was successful. Later that day, a cabinet shuffle was announced.

The last day of convention was punctuated by the announcement that the province had returned to the bargaining table and that the LTC bargaining committee would be returning to negotiations.

 ADVOCACY

Throughout the convention, I worked on strengthening our connections to and building solidarity with other sectors and locals within CUPE. On this front I was broadly successful, particularly with the education sector. Discussions about how to build solidarity, and discussions about the need to support expanding the strike fund’s eligibility were had, and there is definitely support for the initiative in this sector. Furthermore, conversations about how 3912 can best support education workers in k-12 as they move into bargaining in the near future were productive.

Likewise, connections and solidarity with acute care and healthcare sector workers were built. This initiative to build broader solidarity is ongoing.

In Solidarity,

Lachlan Sheldrick

President, Local 3912

2026 CUPE NS Convention 
MJ Jackson

I attended the CUPE Nova Scotia Convention held at the Westin Nova Scotian from May 24-27, 2026, as a delegate representing CUPE Local 3912. The convention brought together many CUPE members from across Nova Scotia, to discuss resolutions, elect positions, and hear from a variety of inspiring and influential speakers. I believe that our local was greatly successful in strengthening relations with other locals from around the province, and building solidarity through the opportunity for discussion that the convention provided.

At the time of the convention, long-term care workers were on strike, advocating for a living wage and better working conditions. Delegates participated in a rally on Argyle Street in support of these workers, which had an excellent turnout and demonstrated the strength of solidarity within our union.

CUPE 3912 also brought forth a resolution calling on CUPE National to expand the scope of the strike fund. Due to the fact that many contracts within our sector are seasonal, many members who perform strike duties are often not compensated for their time and commitment. Although our resolution did not pass, our delegates had a productive discussion on the issue with National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick.

Attending the convention gave me the opportunity to meet many wonderful union members from across Nova Scotia, and hear inspiring stories about the work being done in their locals. These conversations strengthened my belief in the necessity of the labour movement and solidarity as a whole. Overall, I found the convention to be productive and rewarding for my personal growth, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to represent my local.

In Solidarity,

MJ Jackson

SMU TA Interim Steward, CUPE 3912

2026 CUPE NS Convention Report 
Tian Liao

To begin with, I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to attend CUPE Nova Scotia’s 2026 Convention with delegates from my Local 3912. I am one of the over 5000 precariously employed academic workers across five universities in Nova Scotia, represented by our Local. While I am familiar with the work and concerns of my Local, I hoped to gain a better understanding of the issues affecting CUPE members across the province, how priorities are established, how resolutions are debated and adopted, and how members from different locals work together to advocate for change. As a delegate representing Local 3912, I also attended to share the experiences of academic workers with members in different sectors and to become more engaged with the broader CUPE community.

Main Focuses of the 2026 Convention

One of the strongest themes throughout the convention was solidarity. Delegates demonstrated solidarity with long-term care workers who were in their seventh week of strike, and it is important that we support workers across sectors. Other important focuses included support for new Canadian members through education on immigration laws, mobility and challenges faced by Indigenous and racialized workers, climate change and pollution, the privatization of health care, and the rising cost of living.

Outside the formal sessions, I spoke with delegates and guest speakers from different sectors. I shared some of the challenges faced by members of my Local, CUPE 3912, particularly precarious employment and the difficulty of maintaining member engagement because many positions are contract-based. These conversations also gave me the opportunity to hear how other locals have addressed similar issues through organizing, advocacy, and member outreach. Although our workplaces differ, many of the concerns we discussed were shared across sectors.

I want to highlight two presentations from this year’s Convention. The first was by Tracy Pinder, CUPE Atlantic Regional Director, who spoke about the importance of being proactive and how we can interpret the changing world order. With a rapidly shifting world order as the backdrop, we need to think about what these changes mean. We need to think about what world we want, and we can decide what happens next. The second presentation was by Stacey Gomez, Co-founder and Executive Director of The Centre for Migrant Worker Rights Nova Scotia, who spoke about the experiences of Temporary Foreign Workers in Nova Scotia. This presentation explained the difficulties faced by Temporary Foreign Workers and the importance of advancing the rights, equality, and well-being of migrant workers.

This year’s Convention broadened my understanding of the challenges experienced by workers across Nova Scotia. It also reminded me that many of these issues are connected. The Convention gave me a broader perspective on the successes CUPE members have achieved, the challenges that still need attention, and advice on how to strengthen member engagement and solidarity.

After this year’s Convention adjourned, I reflected on what I learned from the Convention with delegates from my Local. I also met with members in my Local to share what I learned at the Convention. Through this report, I want to acknowledge the dedication and hard work of CUPE Nova Scotia members, and I hope my report helps raise awareness of the issues that members are actively working to address. I hope this report encourages further discussion, and I believe that meaningful change happens when members listen to one another, learn from different experiences, and work together.

In Solidarity,

Tian Liao

CUPE Local 3912