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9 The Vancouver Model of Equality for College Faculty Employment Frank Cosco In most North American advocacy forums concerned with the rights of postsecondary faculty, the disparate categories of part-time and full-time are set in solid stone with a next to impassable chasm between them. Those on the part-time side of the chasm are often not deemed to be real employees, while the full-timers are. Countless blog posts, papers, e-mail exchanges, presentations , and discussions rail against inequitable conditions regarding pay, workload , and benefits that North American part-time faculty endure. The approach for unionized faculty at Vancouver Community College (VCC) has been to build and strengthen a single career path for all faculty that minimizes the part-time/full-time distinction. With a significant measure of success, the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association (VCCFA) has established, as codified in the VCC-­ VCCFA Collective Agreement, a place of greater equity where the part-time/ full-time distinction has diminished in importance.1 Being part-time, at least at the half-time or above level, can be a career choice that brings with it most of what a full-timer has. By diminishing the importance of the full-time/parttime distinction, a workplace where faculty are treated much more equally has been established. In the Vancouver model, the part-time or full-time distinction is not the crucial one. Nor is rank the crucial distinction—there is only one rank, instructor, and all instructors are on the same eleven-step salary scale. Pay equity is absolute: 30 percent and 60 percent instructors respectively make exactly 30 percent and 60 percent of a full-time salary at the same salary step over the same period of time. The most important distinction between instructors is between term and regular status; that is, between probationary, time-limited employment and nonprobationary, continuing employment. Given that there is work available, and given a successful evaluation process , the Vancouver model provides a fair, transparent career path that most 200 often leads from probationary part-time work to regular full-time work, but only if one wishes to be full-time. There is nothing second class or contingent about remaining at half, two-thirds, or three-quarters time-status. In what follows, I describe key details of the Vancouver model and provide some statistics. I outline the development of this model over the past two decades . I further comment on how the system might handle research, tenure, and academic freedom. I touch on the relationship between the ­ VCCFA and shared governance at VCC. I conclude with thirteen goals the VCCFA would hypothetically set for itself if it found itself transposed to a nearby American community college with typically inequitable working conditions. These comments are those of the author, and are not attributable to VCC, to the VCCFA, or any organization to which the VCCFA belongs. They are not to be construed as representing the situation anywhere in British Columbia (BC) outside of the VCC workplace. Nor are they to be construed as representing the VCC workplace as a place that has achieved a steady state of satisfactory equity for all; indeed, there remains much to be done. Section 1: Description of the VCCFA and VCC The faculty union at what has become VCC was first certified as a trade union in 1951. It has undergone many transformations from its start as the union for vocational instructors at a provincial vocational institute. It remains an independently certified union with the bargaining and grievance rights for almost all instructors at VCC. There remains a group of instructors in Continuing Studies who are not covered by the VCCFA certification. The VCCFA joined the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE) of British Columbia in 1990. FPSE acts as an empowering resource to independently certified faculty unions at six regional and special purpose universities, and almost all the colleges and institutes in BC. It also includes faculty unions at five private colleges. The VCCFA is a member of the Vancouver and District Labour Council. Through FPSE, it belongs to the provincial and national labor federations: the BC Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress. VCC has over forty different departments, including four-year degree programs; academic university-transfer; health, office, and hospitality careers; applied vocational and apprenticeship training; developmental adult basic education; English as a Second Language; Adult Special Education; music; and design instruction. It uses several funding models, ranging from fullcost recovery and various levels of tuition...

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