"WE STAND WITH THE SPUL"
CAUT and FQPPU Support the Université Laval Teaching Faculty's Demands

Defending working conditions for teaching faculty is a national concern. As such, the unions and associations assembled under the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université (FQPPU) are declaring their unmitigated support for their colleagues in the Syndicat des professeurs et professeures de l'Université Laval (SPUL) as the SPUL's strike enters its second week. In the words of CAUT President Peter McInnis and FQPPU President Michel Lacroix, "Your fight is our fight."

The SPUL's primary demands which have as yet failed to receive a satisfactory response from Université Laval administration in ongoing bargaining sessions address issues and shortcomings with which teaching faculty in universities across Quebec, and indeed across the country, are familiar:

• Overwork due to a sharp increase in student registrations for graduate programs that went unmet by a comparable increase in the number of teaching faculty, intensifying pressure to publish and obtain grants, and a dizzying proliferation of bureaucratic limitations, all of which negatively impact teaching faculty's working conditions, regardless of the institution with which they are associated;
• A loss of collegiality in the wake of a management style that takes its cues from the private sector and centralizes power within upper management, which affects all teaching faculty and runs counter to universities' primary academic mission of developing knowledge amidst a community of peers;
• Increases in the cost of living, which affect all workers, including university teaching faculty.

In light of these facts, the CAUT and FQPPU are calling on Université Laval's administration to find concrete solutions to reduce their colleagues' untenable workloads, offer competitive salaries, reinforce protections for academic freedom, and foster transparent and collegial institutional management, in addition to providing more protections for vulnerable colleagues.