Card-signing drive under way in all 24 colleges
The excitement is
building in the colleges as part-time workers are signing
membership cards to belong to their new association,
OPSECAAT.
The
Organization of Part-time and Sessional Employees of
Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology
is working to represent all 17,000 (note the new number)
part-time faculty and support staff.
How can I sign?
Cards will be
available for part-time and sessional workers to sign in
each of the 24 colleges. A committee in each college has
been set up to sign up part-time workers.
To find out who to
contact in your college to sign a card, please call the
mobilizing office hotline at 416 448-7433 or 1-866
811-7274—or by e-mail at
collegeworkers@opseu.org.
Confidential
Every card is
confidential. Your employer will NOT know you have signed an
OPSECAAT card.
Fax, phone, e-mail the government now!
It’s not enough to
just sign a card. We also have to work to have the
Colleges Collective
Bargaining Act changed so the colleges have to
bargain with part-time workers.
Now is the time to
lobby the Liberal government to change the law banning
part-timers from union activity.
There is one easy
thing everyone can do. Visit www.collegeworkers.org and
click on “Have Your Say.” This section provides detailed
instructions you can use to contact the Minister of
Colleges, the Minister of Labour and the Premier.
Use the texts, or
put it in your own words.
Jan. 30 — Lobby day
On Jan. 30,
representatives from OPSEU and OPSECAAT will be at Queen’s
Park for a news conference and to meet with provincial MPPs
and critics. We’ll ask them why one group of
workers—college part-time workers, is treated differently
from all other education workers in the province.
Remember, this
government will be asking for your vote in 2007.
Now more than ever: 17,000 workers
It is always hard to
determine just how many part-time workers there are in the
24 colleges.
Last year, we
estimated there were about 16, 000 part-time and sessional workers excluded from the college bargaining
units.
At last count, there
are now 17,000 individuals employed as part-time and
sessional workers in the colleges. This far exceeds the
15,000 members in the faculty and support staff (full-time)
bargaining units.
What does this mean?
It means that now more than ever, the colleges are
exploiting the part-timers’ status as a source of cheap
labour, undermining the bargaining units.
It means that the
colleges are less concerned about delivering quality
education to their students. It means they are even more
concerned about cramming as many students as they can into
classrooms, and getting work from employees they don’t have
to treat fairly.
It also means that
the strength of this association will be even greater.
Toronto storefront opening
Everyone is invited to the
grand opening of OPSECAAT’s two Toronto
organizing offices.
Drop in at the
downtown office storefront at 31 Wellesley Street East Jan.
30 between 4:00 pm. and 7:00 pm. OPSEU’s North York
mobilizing office at 100 Lesmill (Don Mills area) will
officially open Feb. 6. Drop in 4:00 pm. to 7:00 pm.
Call for artists for Mayworks festival
Are you a professional
artist working at a college part-time? The colleges are
filled with creative people who also have active careers in
the arts. We want to showcase and celebrate your work at a
cabaret during the Mayworks Festival of Working People and
the Arts this coming May.
Will you give a
short reading, perform a short dance piece, play a song,
screen an animation, display a photograph, etc.?
Participating
artists will be paid professional rates. The cabaret will be
May 2 (date to be confirmed) in downtown Toronto, part of
the 21st annual Mayworks Festival. For
information about the festival, go to www.mayworks.ca; if
you want to participate in the OPSECAAT Cabaret, contact
Maureen Wall at: mbwall@sympatico.ca
or 416-333-2217.
