Notes for remarks by Ted Montgomery
Faculty Bargaining chair
February 23, 2006
Check against delivery
I want to begin my remarks with an
observation about the recent Ontario CUPE situation. There are
differing views regarding who went how far to achieve a settlement.
What matters is that settlement was reached and both sides are
satisfied.
Well, Premier McGuinty – take the next
day or two off, then get right back to work, because there is another
major strike on the horizon and your government’s resources and
efforts are going to be called on once again if that strike is to be
avoided.
By so far exhibiting a stunning
unwillingness to negotiate any positive changes at all to the existing
workload structure, college management has brought the college system
to the brink of a strike. In over 12 months of negotiations,
management has not moved one millimeter towards improving workload.
Workload is tied directly to quality.
Former Premier Bob Rae was commissioned to study post-secondary
education across the province. After years of neglect and deliberate
policy under the regimes of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves that left the
system under-funded, under-staffed, and in disrepair and disarray, Rae
called on the government to make changes
McGuinty has stepped up and provided
$6.2 billion funding over the next five years. That is additional
funding – not part of the regular grants but additional funds aimed at
fixing the problems identified by Bob Rae.
This Monday, speaking at the annual
meeting of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology
of Ontario (ACAATO), Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities,
Chris Bentley noted once again that his government has increased
funding to the colleges by 14% in 05/06 alone – with similar increases
promised over the next four years.
Premier McGuinty made it crystal clear
on May 13 of 2005 what that additional funding is for. It is called
The Quality Improvement Fund—and I quote McGuinty : “By quality, we
mean more faculty at colleges and universities, to accommodate higher
enrolments and help students succeed, more faculty time for students,
more students completing their undergraduate programs and going on to
grad school and easier movement for students between colleges and
universities.”
College faculty share these goals with
the government. College faculty share the assessments of the college
system that led Bob Rae to call for the government to address the last
decade of quality decline and deficiency…as Rae put it in his report,
a decade in which college management has become “the poster child for
efficiency gains” at the cost of quality.
“More faculty time for students,”
McGuinty said. This is the essence and the heartbeat of the faculty
demands in this round of negotiations. This is the driving force
behind faculty’s over 80% support for a strike mandate.
It’s a plea, a demand, and if necessary
a fight for quality.
Management’s foolish proposal for
averaging that are intended, even by management’s own admission, to
increase efficiency in the re-distribution of existing workloads, is
nothing more than an effort to reduce or eliminate overtime payments.
Proposals for inane so-called pilot projects do absolutely nothing to
improve quality. Rae identified systemic problems.
Systemic solutions are needed.
The Michael Skolnik workload study of
1985 identified two of the key measures of quality – student/teacher
contact hours, and class size. The last decade has seen an
unconscionable increase in both of those measures
One of two things must happen for
quality to improve.
The workload formula factors –
established in 1985 as a result of Skolnik’s study must be increased
to provide the time needed to prepare for courses and to evaluate our
students properly – using evaluation methods determined by the teacher
in the students’ best interests.
Not evaluation formats dictated by
management in order to maximize class size. In the alternative,
measures must be put in place to control class size and to ensure that
students are not fed a full-time diet of part-time teachers.
Partial-load teaching positions must be converted into full-time
positions.
Only in those ways will the funding for
systemic improvements address the needs identified by Rae and McGuinty.
That same ACAATO to whom Minister
Bentley spoke has, for the first time ever, inserted itself into the
negotiation process. The Colleges Compensation and Appointments
Council has the legal obligation and the exclusive right to negotiate
on behalf of the colleges. ACAATO has no role whatsoever.
Nevertheless, the new head of ACAATO
has been spearheading the campaign to deny faculty bargaining
demands. Most recently, ACAATO’s head honcho created a press release
insisting that the current management offer was a good one – an offer
that garnered the 80% strike vote( 83.% at Seenca) can never form the
basis of settlement.
Who is this new head of ACAATO? He’s
Mr. David Lindsay, formerly Mike Harris’ Chief Aide – one of the
architects of the damage to Ontario’s Education sector over the last
decade.
Management claims that their salary
offer is 12.06% over the next four years. It is not. It is 12/6 % at
the end of four years. What’s the difference? By splitting and
compounding the increases, into 2% in September and 1% in April,
management claims that you have received a 3.02% increase, but you
actually receive only 2.43% more in that year. So it is in each year.
If one compares management’s offer to
the settlements made in Ontario Universities in the last two years and
extrapolates that over the 4 years management is demanding, the
compounded university increase is 15.92%.
High Schools? When one includes the
additional .5% that is a part of the high school teacher contract,
management’s offer to college faculty falls below the high school
increases as well which are over 13%.
The only group we keep pace with, as
management newsletters constantly point out, are college support staff
– a group that is not one of our comparator groups Those groups were
identified and agreed-to by the parties via the Wages and Benefits
Task Force established following the 1989 faculty strike.
Our salary demands are not out-of –line
with our comparator groups. They are perfectly in line with where we
should be moving in relation to those groups. It is management’s
offer that is out-of-step. They know that and that is why they
constantly and consistently misrepresent it.
Consider these facts:
· In the last 2 years of reports
(03&04) college presidents’ salaries rose by 20.62%. That’s 2 years,
not 4.
· Bentley identified the increase
to college funding this year at 14%.
· The colleges unsuccessfully
lobbied for an additional 1.5% increase to pension contributions –
that’s 1.5% we would put in and 1.5% they would put in. The claim
that there is no money for further faculty salary increases is belied
by their willingness, eagerness even, to spend an additional 1.5% of
payroll on pension contribution.
So it has come to this. Management has
sent a team of negotiators with no experience. Just last Thursday,
their chair said to one of our team members in a chance breakfast
conversation … about negotiations: “It’s only a game.” It is not a
game. It is extremely serious.
The workload and quality issues are
serious – serious to faculty, and serious to students. There are
systemic solutions possible to systemic problems.
Rae and McGuinty have done their part
so far in identifying the problems and addressing the necessary
funding. The Workload Task Force – the joint study that came out of
the last round of negotiations – heard the consistent message at every
college – loudly, clearly, and passionately from Seneca faculty in
2005. “Fix the workload loopholes and weaknesses. Restore quality.”
Rae’s indictment was that the colleges were not providing “the
educational services that Ontario and Ontarians badly need.”
A student’s editorial from the Sheridan
College student newspaper might have put it best. If I may paraphrase:
“As students, we know from our experience that our teachers care and
want us to get the best they can give. Why would this vote for a
strike be any different? Faculty’s fight is for their students.”
Decision makers at the highest levels
have the authority and the ability to prevent a strike. We want a
settlement. But it must be one that is fair and it must be one that
ensures that quality/workload issues are addressed. We want a
settlement but we will not abandon our obligation to our principles.
We will not be cowed or dissuaded by the efforts of one of Mike
Harris’ teacher-bashing disciples.
Now you are the negotiators. Each and
every faculty member is now in negotiations with the college
presidents, with the members of the Legislative Assembly, with the
Minister, and with the McGuinty Government. You must ensure that your
voice is heard. You must ensure that the principles that faculty stand
behind – principles of quality, principles of fairness, principles
that educators, teachers, counselors and librarians hold dear and hold
high are not forgotten, misunderstood, or trampled.
Between now and March 7 contact your
MPP and keep her or him informed and involved. Contact local media so
the public knows where college faculty stand. Inform your students
tomorrow and on March 6th, if there is not settlement, what they can
do to help improve quality in the colleges – in the Premier’s words –
“more faculty time for students.” Faculty want smaller classes so
that they can have more time for each student.
If the colleges force us out on March
7, it is to their shame. We are preparing and we are ready. In 1984,
a faculty strike produced a formula that resulted in the hiring of
1000 more faculty members. The quality improvements were immediately
felt as faculty who were there can attest.
In the last decade, without the
safeguards on class size and total teacher/student contact hours, the
decline has been steady and unrelenting. Rae has given us the research
and investigative support, and McGuinty has provided the financial
support.
It is now up to us to deliver.
I remain hopeful that, as in 2004, our
demonstration of commitment and resolve will be enough. If it takes
more, I know college faculty from every college in Ontario are ready.
Your bargaining team will return to the table on March 2 and work
tirelessly for a deal.
If we do not succeed on those days, I
know that we will not long thereafter.
It will be up to the government, it is
now clear, to persuade college management, by whatever means at the
government’s disposal to address the systemic issues in a responsible
way.
That persuasion can come before a
strike begins or it can come afterwards. Your support could be the
key which unlocks the intransigence we have seen for over a year now.
I want to thank you now for your
efforts and support so far and to thank you in advance for what I know
will be your continued support throughout this difficult struggle.
