Wednesday was a tough day. Wasn’t it?
With one week of picketing under our belts, we showed up for our shifts on Monday and Tuesday with the glow of experience. We finally had striking to a science.
Then, Wednesday rolled around. The weather was not our friend. Days of walking from one side of a driveway to another, moving pylons and speaking to the same support staff, students, and managers, and delivering the same messages took its toll. With no end in sight for our strike and no negotiations to give us hope, the signs we wear around our necks weighed just a little bit more.
Wednesday was a slump day. Then Thursday rolled around.
In lieu of picketing, many strikers took the opportunity to attend a screening of “Contract Faculty: Injustice in the University,” a documentary produced by Dr. G. Potter and Stephen Svenson of Wilfrid Laurier University. The film speaks about the precarious working conditions experienced by contract faculty in universities across Canada and the United States. It highlights the ridiculous fact that adjunct/sessional university professors who are at the pinnacle of their academic fields—having earned PhDs and published research—must reapply for their job every term, must conduct research on their own time with no pay, and must seek other sources of revenue to make ends meet. One professor interviewed admits he used the food bank several times, as he had the choice between groceries or rent. Another professor states that she can't afford to pay for her own children to attend the university where she teaches. Another said she cannot ethically recommend that her students seek an academic career, when she is living just above the poverty line. The stories in the film are so sad, but so relatable.
Watching the film, and more importantly, listening to the speakers, who included the filmmakers; Local 237 President, Lana-Lee Hardacre; and Michele Kramer, President of the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association, drove home the point that the issues we are striking for are so much bigger than any one of us. They are bigger than the 24 colleges on strike.
We are walking the line with the hopes that each step will improve the situation of one contract worker at Conestoga, at Mohawk, at Humber…but also at universities, schools, factories, and other businesses. Hearing Kramer tearfully thank us for bringing to the forefront the plight of the precarious working conditions of contract faculty, made Thursday a great day. It gave Friday an even greater meaning.