Precarity, Solidarity, and Survival: Supporting Contract Academic Staff in 2025

A panel discussion celebrating Contract Academic Staff during Fair Employment Week, October 20 – 24, 2025

Register Here

All are welcome to join this online panel on Monday, October 20, 6:30 – 8:00 PM (AST).

This panel brings together researchers, labour leaders, and those with lived experience to examine the growing precarity faced by contract academic staff, explore trends and tactics shaping their work, highlight the power of solidarity across the labour movement, and ground these issues in real-world impacts and solutions. Although the focus is on contract academic staff, we invite all faculty association members, supporters from other unions, and colleagues, friends and family to join the panel.

Panelists:

Precarity
Dr. Karen Foster, Associate Dean of Research, Dalhousie University, will revisit her research on CAS in Nova Scotia (2016) and Canada (2018), and offer her thoughts on what has changed, tactics and trends we are seeing employers use in dealing with CAS.

Dr. Kristine Smitka, CAUT CAS Committee Chair, will highlight what has (or hasn’t) changed since the study in terms of collective agreement gains/losses, legislation, funding, labour laws, and possibly a road map of what ca be done to protect CAS going forward.

Solidarity
Danny Cavanaugh, President, Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, will speak on the value and strength gained from building solidarity across full-time/part-time divides, and reinforce that academic precarity is part of a larger systemic issue.

Surviving
To Be Confirmed – This panelist will share lived experience that grounds the research into reality, and will offer a personal perspective on the vulnerability and stress that precarious employment can bring.