Fair Employment Week 2026, October 19 – 23

How Much More Can We Afford to Lose?

A message to CCFA Members

Hi Members!

It’s Fair Employment Week, and normally, this is when I write to the Camosun College Board of Governors to remind them that fair employment matters. Over the years, the CCFA has raised concerns about our employer’s treatment of our Term faculty, including late contracts, inequitable workloads, barriers to regularization, and the uncertainty of trying to build a career in post-secondary education without secure employment.

In the past, I’ve asked the Board to recognize the consequences of precarious academic work and to take responsibility for improving the conditions under which our members teach – or at least direct their employee, our president, to do so. Yet, year after year, those letters have gone unanswered, or our concerns have been rejected because of the Board’s narrow interpretation of its mandate.

So this year, we’re trying something new with our campaign. I’m writing to members directly. Because the situation has changed, we need to change how we respond. Every department has felt the sting of cuts and layoffs of faculty or staff, so much so that we can’t even run our Coffee Card Nomination program this year because of dwindling services across all our campuses.

Instead, we are inviting new Continuing and Term instructors to join us at one of our regularly scheduled pub nights throughout the year, and we’ll buy you dinner! Invites will be going out to these new employees soon, along with the yearly pub schedule – so if you are a new CCFA Term or continuing member this fall, watch your email! Or, you can just drop in at our next one at the Canadian Brewpub (Uptown) on October 20 for Bowling @ 5 PM, with dinner to follow.

Some of you are wondering how we can afford to do this. The sad truth is, there aren’t that many Term Faculty members left, and fewer and fewer new continuing members are hired or regularized every year. So, we need to ask ourselves:

Where have all the faculty gone?

Over the past two years, we’ve watched academic employment disappear across British Columbia. Course sections have been cut, Term contracts have vanished, programs have been suspended, and experienced educators have been pushed out of the sector.

The changes to federal international student visas and post-graduation work permits have devastated the revenue models of public colleges. But those changes exposed a problem that governments and institutions have allowed to develop over decades: our public post-secondary system has become dangerously dependent on unstable sources of revenue because provincial funding has failed to keep pace with the actual cost of delivering education.

And when that revenue disappeared, our most precariously employed faculty were among the first to pay the price. We’ve called these “Shadow Layoffs” because our administrators don’t even have to report this as the human cost for what they call “budget savings.” For years, we’ve fought to improve the working conditions of Term faculty. Now we’re fighting to preserve the work itself.

Think about how many familiar faces are missing from our departments. How many people who taught alongside us last year no longer have contracts? How many students have fewer options because the sections they needed aren’t being offered? How many talented educators have simply left because they cannot afford to wait for the work to return?

These aren’t abstract budget numbers. They’re people, careers, relationships, and educational opportunities. And for those of us still here, the work hasn’t necessarily become easier. Fewer faculty, fewer sections, and fewer supports mean increased pressure to accommodate students, accept additional workload, and somehow maintain the quality of education with diminishing resources.

We cannot keep doing more with less until there’s nothing left.

If the Board won’t hear us, we need to make ourselves heard elsewhere.

The CCFA has repeatedly brought concerns about fair employment, academic working conditions, and the consequences of institutional decisions to the Board of Governors. We’ve been told, directly or indirectly, that many of these matters fall outside the Board’s mandate or belong to operational management. But the Board is responsible for the governance of this public institution. Decisions about budgets, institutional priorities, and financial sustainability have direct consequences for academic employment, student access, and the quality of education.

We cannot accept a version of governance where the Board oversees financial decisions but distances itself from their human consequences. Nor can we continue to rely on letters alone. With the provincial review of post-secondary education underway, the decisions being contemplated could reshape our institutions, our working conditions, and the future of collective bargaining. We have already lost significant academic capacity. We cannot afford to be passive while decisions about the future of our sector are made without us.

This Fair Employment Week, I’m asking you to act.

First, talk about what we’ve lost. Talk to your department members, your students, your neighbours, and your families. Tell the stories behind the disappearing contracts and cancelled classes. We need people to understand that cuts to academic employment are cuts to public education.

Second, make post-secondary education an election issue. With British Columbians heading to the polls this Saturday, October 24, ask the candidates what they intend to do about our funding crisis. The future of public post-secondary education must be an election issue. Will they restore stable public investment? Will they protect local access to education? Will they defend academic employment, collective bargaining rights, and the independence of our public institutions? Don’t settle for vague promises about workforce development or economic growth. Ask how they intend to pay for the education our communities actually need. We need whoever forms the next government to understand that funding colleges is an investment in people, communities, and the public good.

Third, get involved with your Union. Attend meetings, participate in campaigns, share your experiences, and support members whose employment has been affected. If you’ve lost work, experienced an increased workload, or seen educational opportunities disappear in your department, tell us. We need to document what’s happening and make those losses visible.

And finally, show up for public post-secondary education. Whether that’s attending a Board meeting, speaking with an MLA or candidate, supporting another local facing cuts, or participating in an FPSE campaign, our collective presence matters. We cannot rebuild our post-secondary system without the educators who make it possible.

You don’t need to do everything. But we do need everyone to do something.

Fair employment is about more than the jobs we have left.

For years, Fair Employment Week has been focused on improving the conditions of precarious academic work. That fight remains essential. But in 2026, we’re facing something bigger. We’re watching the erosion of the public education system that created those jobs in the first place. When an experienced Term (or continuing) faculty member loses their work, the loss isn’t theirs alone. Students lose an educator. Departments lose expertise. Communities lose opportunities. And our public institutions lose the capacity to deliver on their educational mandate.

We should all be deeply concerned about what happens when that becomes normal.

The CCFA cannot reverse decades of underfunding on its own. But we can refuse to accept that dismantling public post-secondary education is inevitable. We can demand accountability from institutional leaders and elected representatives. And we can stand together to protect the work, the people, and the public purpose of our colleges.

Camosun works because we do.

You’ve heard me say that our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions many times, but it goes beyond that. This Fair Employment Week, let’s make sure the people making decisions about our future understand exactly what that means.

Good work requires fair work. And fair work requires a stably funded post-secondary sector. We need #FairEmploymentNow. #MakeItFair #FairEmploymentWeek #FundPublicEducation #FEW2026

In solidarity,

Lynelle Yutani
President, Camosun College Faculty Association