MPP
David Orazietti has an interesting way
of portraying history, while at the same
time remaining silent on his own
government's injustices.
In a reply to Bud Wildman,
Orazietti stated that the NDP government of the 1990s was guilty of
ripping up the collective agreements of public sector workers. He is
probably referring to the social contract. He should remember that
while the social contract deprived workers of days of pay, it did
not remove other fundamental rights. Bad as this was, it is a
serious exaggeration to suggest it was the end of collective
agreements.
But Orazietti's current
government has allowed community college management to launch a
direct attack on fundamental collective bargaining rights. With the
consent of Orazietti's Liberals, college management has imposed
terms and conditions of employment on faculty, has refused to
negotiate in good faith, has deprived faculty in insurance disputes
of the ability to resolve those disputes, and has removed the right
to grieve violations of the contract (akin to denying any citizen
the right to take legal action in the face of an injustice).
In doing this, college management
has made it possible to impose unrestricted changes to working
conditions, thus denying the basic Canadian right of collective
bargaining. This not only threatens the notion of collective
bargaining, but also threatens the integrity of the college system.
These actions have been rightfully condemned by the Ontario
Federation of Labour, the Canadian Association of University
Teachers, and by organizations and individuals across the province
and across the country.
I say to Orazietti, please don't
waste your energy rewriting history and ignoring the present. Use
your influence and tell college negotiators to negotiate in good
faith and stop this unwarranted assault on the rights of college
faculty, and unionized workers everywhere.
Jeff Arbus, Vice-chair, College
Faculty Negotiating Team (OPSEU)
The union representing
full-time academic staff at Ontario's 24
community colleges will resume
negotiations with college management
tomorrow, says provincial bargaining
team member Jeff Arbus.
"It looks like management has decided to
accept our longstanding invitation to
return to the bargaining table," Arbus
tells SooToday.com. "But only for
Monday."
Arbus is hopeful the two sides can get
back to ongoing good-faith bargaining
soon.
But in the meantime the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is
seeking a strike vote as soon as
possible.
The union says its members need an
opportunity to make a statement of
solidarity since talks broke down on
November 12 and members have been
working without a contract for almost
six months.
Arbus said management then enforced an
imposed labour agreement that OPSEU
members feel will undermine quality of
education.
"It's not about wages this time," Arbus
said. "It hasn't been about wages at
all. In fact it is very much about
workload."
Arbus said the union is asking for
contract language that would implement
recommendations proposed by a joint
workload task force that examined
workload, academic freedom and quality
of education in the colleges.
Arbitrator William Kaplan ordered the
task force be set up and charged with
its mandate after a three-week strike by
Ontario college faculty was settled in
March, 2006.
The set of recommendations was released
in March, 2009.
The College Appointments and
Compensation Council supported and
endorsed those recommendations when they
were released but has since left them
sitting on the table when it walked away
from negotiations, Arbus said.
The bulk of the current labour
disagreement, Arbus says, centres around
the council's refusal to honour those
recommendations.
"When you get down to the essence of it,
the report says you treat college
students more like university students
by treating college faculty more like
university faculty," Arbus said. "A good
part of that would be to grant college
professors academic independence and to
recognize and deal with the workload
issues they face."
After last week's Sault College board of
governors meeting, President Dr. Ron
Common commented on the situation with
college faculty.
Common said he's not part of the
negotiating team himself but heard that
talks broke off because the agreement
proposed by OPSEU was simply not
affordable.
Common said he understood negotiations
would resume when OPSEU brought a more
affordable agreement to the table.
