Collective Bargaining
Q and A's
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February 8, 2010 Your questions…answered
Read the answers to some commonly-asked questions about the upcoming employer offer vote.
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Imposition of terms and conditions
Q: What determines the rules of
bargaining?
A: The Colleges Collective Bargaining Act,
CCBA (October 8, 2008).
Q: Do the Colleges have the legal right to
impose new terms and conditions of employment?
A: Yes, Section 15 (b) of the CCBA gives them
that authority.
Q: Have the legal requirements set out in
Section 15 been met?
A: Yes. In October, the Colleges demanded
that the conciliator to file his report. The report states that the parties
have not yet reached an agreement. The Minister received that report, and 16
days have passed since then. [CCBA Section 21 (1) (a), (b), and (d)]
Q: Do other employers in Ontario have this
power to impose terms and conditions?
A: Yes, it exists in the Ontario Labour
Relations Act (OLRA) and other bargaining acts.
Q: Why is it not used more often then?
A: The power to unilaterally impose terms and
conditions of employment is extremely rarely used. Employers know that it does
damage to labour relations and historically has never succeeded in resolving
problems.
Q: Why have the Colleges used the
imposition of terms and conditions this time?
A: The revised CCBA provides this new
bargaining tool in the College system. The imposition of terms and conditions is
an action designed to undermine or break a union more than to resolve a
bargaining dispute.
Q:Doesn’t the employer have to declare a
lockout before imposing terms and conditions?
A: Under the regular provisions of the OLRA
an employer must declare a lockout prior to imposing terms and conditions. That
requirement was omitted from the CCBA. If the Colleges had been required to
declare a lockout, it is unlikely that they would have unilaterally imposed
terms and conditions.
Q:What about a vote on these terms?
A: The Colleges do have a right to take a
vote on their offer. This is a new provision of the CCBA. The union invited the
Colleges to take such a vote. The Colleges refused and instead imposed their
terms and conditions with no vote.
Q: Does the Act require a vote on imposed
terms and conditions?
A: A vote is not required under the CCBA.
Provided the employer meets the requirements to impose terms and conditions,
those terms and conditions can stay in place until the employer changes them.
Q: What has to happen before there is a
strike?
A: Section 17 of the CCBA covers strikes. In
addition to the requirements regarding the conciliator, the union must also get
a vote in favour of a strike mandate from the membership and give 5 days notice
to the Colleges.
Q: Is everyone on strike then if the union
calls a strike?
A: The union does not and cannot demand that
members perform strike duties. No person shall act as a professional strike
breaker. [Section 50 (1)].
Q: If a college votes not to go on strike
can they still be on strike?
A: Yes, the vote is a province-wide vote, in
keeping with the province-wide contract and legislation.
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Theoretical Costs v Actual Costs
Q: How can the costing figures of the
union and the colleges be so far apart?
A: The Colleges have included actual and the
maximum possible theoretical costs of union proposals. The union has costed
proposals on actual costs only.
Three examples of some soft costs included by
the Colleges:
1. The Colleges advised on July 15th
that they were costing Family Day at $3.4 million. The Colleges based their
costing on, “not getting any value for the day.” There are no actual
costs. There is not even a loss of productivity as faculty make up the
work.
2. The union proposed that Colleges
make all “reasonable efforts” to have full-time students taught by full-time
teachers. (This reduced a proposal to have 75% of credit courses taught by
full-time teachers.) The Colleges replied that they costed this at $317
million because it would “require them to convert every part-time,
partial-load, and sessional teacher to full-time.” While it may be
theoretically possible to incur such costs, it is equally possible and far
more likley to incur no costs. The union proposal – on the reasonable
assumption that excessive costs would be a key consideration in any standard
of reasonableness – could be virtually cost-free. The union later withdrew
this proposal completely so it is no longer included in costs. It is a good
illustration of the Colleges’ costing principles and model.
3. When costing workload, the Colleges
assume the maximum theoretical impact not the actual impact. Colleges base
their costing assumptions as though every teacher was assigned at maximum.
Actual total workloads average is 41.2 not 44. No costs are incurred until
overtime is reached. The union's proposed 20% increase to evaluation has an
actual impact of 1.66 workload hours per week. Again, theoretical costs
inflate actual costs significantly.
First year actual costs of the Union salary
demands, are as follows:
Annual faculty salaries for the college
system were $620 million [Council figures]
The union is proposing a 2.5% increase
which costs $15.5 million. [2.5% x $620 million]
The union proposed an allowance for
faculty who’ve been at Step 21 for a year – $500.
The number of faculty at Step 21 is
approximately 2450 currently.
The cost of that proposal is therefore
$1.225 million. [$500 x 2450]
Total first year cost of the salary
increase is $16.725 million. [15.5 + 1.225 million]
That is a 2.6% increase to college faculty
salary budget in 2009, and a .059% increase to the total system budget.
Including an increased allowance in the
second and third years, the average annual total salary increase is still less
than 3% per year, just over $ 19 million per year.
Q: Do the union proposals require the
colleges to spend what they are asserting?
A: Absolutely not. The inclusion of
theoretical costs inflates the numbers enormously. The actual hard costs are
far less.
Download this FAQ
Individual Grievances
Q: Does a faculty member who has a
grievance have limited access to grievance processes, up to and including a
board of arbitration?
A: Management has removed the Grievance
Scheduling Committee.
They have relegated arbitration to a
local matter.
This removes the impartiality of the
Committee.
It increases the likelihood for local
pressure from managers on individual faculty concerning their grievances.
It goes against the trend in most
workplaces that have established grievance systems.
They are essentially asking faculty to
trust the human resources manager to ensure impartiality.
Union Grievances
Q: Will union grievances continue to
be processed up to a board of arbitration?
A: No, by imposition, the union will not
be allowed to grieve on behalf of its members.
Policy violations cannot be grieved.
The union will not be allowed to grieve
violations of the terms and conditions of employment.
Management has the freedom to make any
policy changes they want, at any time under imposed terms and conditions.
Time Limits
Q: Do the new terms eliminate the
right of arbitrators to waive time limits on grievances?
A: The Colleges Collective Bargaining
Act, 2008 gives arbitrators the authority to waive time limits in grievance
matters, unless modified by a collective agreement. Management’s imposed
terms and conditions have removed this newly acquired right and inserted
language to restrict arbitrators.
Arbitrators should have the discretion to
waive the time limits if warranted and fair.
Arbitrators List
Q: Is it true that the colleges
unilaterally added five new persons solely of their choosing to the list of
arbitrators?
A: Yes, four new arbitrators were agreed
to, 2 from each side. The colleges added another five. The balance of the
previous agreed to list has been altered significantly.
Download this FAQ
Q: What does the “imposition of terms and conditions” mean?
A: The Colleges have a right under the
revised Colleges Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA) to impose unilateral terms and
conditions of employment rather than negotiate a settlement.
Q: Does that mean they have imposed a new
contract?
A: No: absolutely not. There is no contract
at all. A contract is a signed agreement between two parties, which binds both
to the agreements made. Once the Colleges imposed terms and conditions, the old
contract was null and void.
Q: What employment rights do faculty now
have?
A: None, other than what the CCBA grants,
which is the right to a union, and the minimums of the Employment Standards
Act. All other rights are gone. The terms and conditions are binding on you but
not the Colleges. The employer can change any condition of employment at any
time. Until there is a signed contract, regular and partial-load faculty have
the same rights as part-time faculty.
Q: Does this include salary, job security,
benefits?
A: Yes. Any term can be changed at any
time. For now, the Colleges have decided on a salary increase and to leave
benefits unchanged. But, there is nothing without a contract in place to
prevent them from changing salary in the future or curtailing benefits. The
imposed terms already cut off the joint appeal process for denied benefits, and
increase the cost of the benefit package negotiated for retirees.
Q: Is there no requirement for a vote on
imposition?
A: No: the imposition requires no vote. It is
unilateral. The Colleges now have the power under the revised CCBA to take a
vote on their offer. The union invited the Colleges to do that rather than
impose their terms and conditions. The Colleges refused
Q: Can the union take a vote?
A: The union can take a strike vote and is
doing so. The union can also take a ratification vote and will do so when there
is a settlement at the negotiating table. The employer has the right to take a
vote. The union will take a vote when it is recommending acceptance.
Q: How long will the imposed terms and
conditions remain in place?
A: There are no time limits on any terms. The
duration of any or all of the imposed terms and conditions is open to change by
management at any time.
Q: Can the employer change anything now
that the terms and conditions have been published?
A: Yes. In fact, the terms announced and
published on November 18 were already different from what the Colleges said on
November 12.
Q: Are there Concessions?
A: Yes, there certainly are.
You can go to
www.opseu.org/caat/caat_ac/2009Bargaining/concessions%20letter.pdf to
see the details of the takeaways or read the FAQ on concessions.
Q: How do we restore a contract?
A: There are only two ways to end this
imposition:
a negotiated settlement, or the employer
takes a vote on the terms and conditions and over 50% of the faculty accept
Q: How does a strike vote help?
A: A strike vote puts a great deal of
pressure on both sides to reach a settlement. It is very common to have
agreements once a strike mandate is in place and a strike date is set.
Q: Must there be a strike?
A: Absolutely not. There have been a dozen
strike votes in college faculty negotiations in the past and only three of those
resulted in a strike. The other 9 strike votes produced a negotiated
settlement.
Q: Must the imposed terms and conditions
be the same at every college?
A: No. The imposed terms and conditions can
be different at different colleges. The imposed terms already allow colleges to
handle grievances and benefits claims differently.
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CAAT (A)
