Remarks by
Ted Montgomery, chair,
OPSEU college faculty bargaining team
Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto,
March 16, 2006
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I want
to welcome you all. This is the largest gathering of college faculty
that’s ever been held in Ontario.
I
cannot tell you how proud I am to be among you today. Though I’m
deeply saddened that we’ve been driven to this action by a
management group committed to a shallow, dangerous, and self-serving
agenda, I’m overwhelmingly heartened by your commitment to the cause
of quality education in Ontario’s colleges. Our efforts to get the
government to listen to our calls for action on the issues of
quality have finally been heard. It remains to be seen what the
content of the discussions with the minister will be, but finally we
have someone who’s willing to listen.
This
government listened to the voices saying that there was trouble in
the post-secondary sector. The government responded by appointing
Bob Rae to verify what the college and university faculty knew all
along was happening – that there had been a decade of damage, a
decade of quality decline. This government listened to the findings
of the Rae study and it added some funding to the post-secondary
sector – $6.2 billion over five years.
But
college students have yet to see the benefits of any of those
quality improvements. None of that investment has been delivered to
the college students. We now know that the Accountability Agreements
in two colleges, claiming to be partially earmarked to hire 30 new
faculty in each college – Mohawk and Cambrian – actually resulted in
hiring only four additions to complement. The other hires
have been replacement hires – hires already funded by the existing
base funding.
In
other words, this year’s students have been denied the benefit that
should have accrued from the additional funding.
We will
not let that happen again! The message that I will deliver to
Minister Bentley on your behalf is that college students deserve the
quality that Rae said Ontario needs, that Premier McGuinty called
for in his May 13, 2005 address in announcing additional funding. He
said, and I quote: “By quality, we mean more faculty at colleges and
universities to accommodate higher enrollments and help students
succeed, more faculty time for students.”
We can
deliver that quality. It’s what we want to do. It’s why we are on
strike.
To
date, college management has stonewalled with an offer that, by
their own admission, does nothing for quality. They mounted a
campaign, spearheaded by Mike Harris’ former chief aide and his
election organizer, David Lindsay, to portray faculty as greedy and
underworked. It’s a lie. Their campaign is a miserable failure. The
media and the public, as you will hear today, and have heard
already, know what our strike is about: It’s about quality education
in Ontario.
In my
very rare moments of discouragement, I think of you all, and I am
reminded of some lyrics from the 1960s – words that actually go back
to 1945: “We shall overcome!” I’ve sung it in the shower, and I know
its certain and its fundamental truth. It was tobacco factory
workers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1945, who first sang this
song. Our struggles are quite different, but they are no less
principled. Seeing you all here today, I know that we shall
overcome.
You are
my heroes. And I want to point out 24 specific heroes:
· Kaia Beaudry, from
Confederation college, who’s leading
the strike there;
· Jim Pardy from the Sault;
· John Closs from Cambrian College;
· J.P. Belanger from Collège Boréal;
· Lad Shaba, all the way from Northern College;
· Peggy Morrison, who leads the strike at Canadore;
· Doug Brandy from Algonquin;
· Fernand Begin from La Cité;
· Graeme Aubert of St. Lawrence College;
· Bernie Belanger from Loyalist;
· Gary Bonczak from the Sir Sandford Fleming faculty
union;
· Debbie Rautins from Durham College;
· Dave Duncan from Georgian;
· and here in Toronto, Eileen Burrows from Centennial –
a long-time and fabulous
president.
· Tom Tomassi from George Brown College;
· At my own college, Seneca, Larry Olivo is leading our
strike.
· Maureen Wall from Humber;
· Doug Law from Sheridan College;
· Fred Deys from Mohawk College;
· Sherri Rosen from Niagara;
· Walter Boettger from Conestoga;
· Paddy Musson, from London, from Fanshawe College;
· Ray Wreford from Lambton;
· and at St. Clair, Bernie Nawrocki, who leads the strike
there.
They
are not at alone. Faculty at every one of the 24 colleges have
proven their courage, their dedication, and their devotion to the
principle that a college education must be a thing of value. We will
not stand by while reckless and wrong-headed managers continue to
erode quality in Ontario colleges. While those representatives of
college management have deliberately and willfully worked hard to
mislead the public about our issues, and concerns, we have not
wavered. We will not be cowed. We will not be bullied. When they lie
to the media, that this is all about salary, and about the conduct
of our negotiating team, they must live with the shame of that lie
for the rest of their careers. We, we all, each and every one of us,
will live proudly with the knowledge that we stood up for quality in
Ontario’s colleges. We took a stand for students in the face of
false and spiteful accusations.
We will
not abandon our principles. College management this week announced
their astoundingly nebulous, and decidedly nefarious, so-called
“Semester Completion Strategy.” There is no real strategy. This
scheme is really the proof of the need for our strike. It’s the
demonstration that they have no understanding of quality.
Already, several college managers are backing off this foolish plan
and saying what they really mean is that they will have plans in
place once faculty return. But not all managers are so enlightened.
There are those college presidents who are quite prepared to go
ahead with a variety of hare-brained schemes that will do enormous
damage to the value of college diplomas, certificates, and degrees
for decades. To them, the very idea of quality is a foreign concept.
We’ve heard the plans in Ottawa for managers teaching. In Toronto,
for support staff teaching. Robots teaching! Sardine-can packers
teaching! Nobody at all teaching!
You can
find these kind of places on the Internet, I looked them up.
Rochville University advertises “no studies, no attendance, no
waiting, no exams, no entry fees, just diplomas.”
Bedford
University says, and I quote: “Add Bachelor’s, Master’s, or
Doctorate degrees to your resumé in just seven days and open avenues
to promotion and better jobs.”
That’s
what they would turn us into with such hare-brained schemes.
I call
on the premier of this province and his government not to stand idly
by while college presidents turn Ontario’s colleges into diploma
mills. Ontario, and Ontarians, deserve better. They deserve real
teachers teaching real courses.
The
teachers that our students want are us. The teachers that our
students deserve are us. The quality of education they deserve can
be delivered by us. Give us the tools, give us the time, give us the
respect that we have earned, and give our students respect and give
them the quality of education that they deserve. And do it now.
Let me
close with a letter from today’s Toronto Star Metro edition.
It’s from a student. It reads:
“Meet teachers’ demands. As a student I
would like to voice my support and trust in the teachers for taking
upon themselves to fight for better conditions for their students. I
would like to encourage college managers that instead of looking for
ways to turn us against our teachers, they should find a way to meet
our teachers’ demands so this strike can end as soon as possible.”
This
student has it bang-on, succinct, to-the-point, and absolutely
accurate. It’s time for the government to act. Let’s hope this ends
soon.
With
your support and continued efforts, we are almost there. I thank you
from the bottom of my heart.
