College part-timers: Don’t count them out
February 18, 2009
Some 3,500 college part-time employees from across the
province braved some of the worst winter weather to cast ballots on whether
they wanted OPSEU to represent them.
It was a historic vote for people who had only recently won
the right to form a union.
Their 30-year battle for union rights was taken up by the
International Labour Organization. It was eventually decided by the Supreme
Court in a decision that now guarantees union rights.
But, unfortunately, their struggle it isn’t over.
College part-timers cast ballots, but college management
doesn’t want their votes counted.
The colleges have gone so far as to ask the Ontario Labour
Relations Board to destroy the ballots -- destroy the evidence -- as if the
vote had never happened. College lawyers are using every technical argument
available to thwart the democratic wishes of these workers.
How can this be? Part of the reason is the provincial labour
board is still hampered by rules enacted by the Mike Harris regime that make
it very difficult to certify a union in Ontario. These anti-union rules were
not repealed by the McGuinty Liberals: In fact, they carried them into the
new Colleges Collective Bargaining Act.
Even more sinister, managers of the 24 colleges have always
abused part-time employees and they want to continue their regime of no job
security, low wages and terrible working conditions.
For people who are supposedly committed to progressive
education for Ontarians, college administrators show a truly regressive
attitude toward basic democratic rights.
Just what are they afraid of?
OPSEU is willing to accept the democratic verdict. Why
aren’t the colleges?
Just count the ballots.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President
