Part-timers meet Nov. 17-19 to launch provincial association

College part-timers from across Ontario are heading to Toronto in November with one main goal: to create a provincial association of college part-timers.

“Part of the problem with part-timers in the colleges today is that we’re very isolated from each other,” says Roger Couvrette, a part-time faculty member at Algonquin College in Ottawa. “We need to form an association to work with each other collectively and then deal with college management from a position of strength.”

Couvrette was one of 13 mobilizers hired by OPSEU this summer to campaign in their communities about the rights of part-time college workers. Creating an association is a key first step towards the long-term goal of union representation, he says.

“Of course the law will have to change in order for that to occur, but once you have an association that is up and running, it’s going to walk like a duck and talk like a duck and perform a lot of the functions that a union would perform.

“The history of the labour movement is such that you didn’t ask permission to form a union,” Couvrette says.
“You’ve got to stand up at some point. There’s just no alternative to that.”
OPSEU Senior Campaigns Officer Barbara Linds is working with college part-timers and OPSEU college locals to select delegates for the meeting set for Nov. 17-19. The meeting will have one part-time support staff member and one part-time faculty member from each of Ontario’s 24 community colleges.

“If we were doing an event like this involving OPSEU members, the delegates would all be democratically elected,” she said. “But in this case, there is no membership to elect the delegates until the association actually exists. So we’re looking for keen, committed people who are willing to devote a lot of their free time to fighting for their rights at work.”

To be considered for delegate status, please contact Ms. Linds at collegeworkers@opseu.org.

Bentley mum on part-time rights – even face to face

The Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities was late for a meeting last Friday to talk about rights for college part-timers, but it didn’t matter – he didn’t say anything anyway.

After months of trying, three part-timers from Fanshawe College in London finally landed a meeting with Chris Bentley. While Bentley did ask questions, he offered no comments or commitments of any kind that might help improve the working lives of college part-timers.

After 20 minutes, the visitors presented Bentley with an “I believe in FAIRNESS” coffee mug.
He won’t be able to use it.

Windsor workers to keep jobs but lose union rights on Oct. 6

About 125 part-time workers at the Cleary International Centre in Windsor are about to find out what it’s like to work for a community college.

Ownership of the splashy theatre and convention centre will transfer from the City of Windsor to St. Clair College on Oct. 6.

The workers, who belong to UNITE/HERE Local 75, have all been offered their jobs at current wage rates, but the College has refused to recognize their collective agreement. That means seniority will no longer decide the scheduling of shifts – the key factor in workers’ incomes – and workers will lose their grievance procedure.

“Most of us are pretty much anxious,” says Joan Brown, a UNITE/HERE steward. “We’re not quite sure what’s going to happen.”

The top wage rate for Cleary Centre staff who have worked at least 100 shifts is $11.95 an hour.
OPSEU hired Brown and co-worker Michael Adedoyin for a few weeks this fall to get the word out about the plight of the Cleary Centre workers.

“We found out about the loss of union rights in late July,” said Brown. “We started working with OPSEU and we just started to spread the word.”

Brown and Adedoyin have done numerous media interviews and met with the Windsor and District Labour Council, Windsor City Council, Windsor West NDP MP Brian Masse, and Liberal MPPs Bruce Crozier and Pat Hoy.

Most politicans are taken aback that college part-timers do not have the right to unionize, said Brown.
“No one was aware of this,” she said, referring to the ban on unions for college part-timers. “They just figure colleges are the same as universities.”

Windsor is represented in the Legislature by two powerful cabinet ministers, Sandra Pupatello and Dwight Duncan. Pupatello has not agreed to meet with the Cleary Centre workers, but they expect a meeting with Duncan soon.

The solution to the part-timers plight is obvious, said Brown.
“The solution really is for the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act to be changed.”
OPSEU locals 137 and 138, representing full-time support staff and faculty at St. Clair College, have also spoken out publicly on behalf of the Cleary Centre workers.

“It is fundamentally wrong for these workers to be stripped of their union rights,” says Florry Lang, president of Local 137. “What is just as wrong is that they are joining a group of 16,000 others who never had union rights to begin with.

“We’re not going to stop talking about this until we get the law changed.”

UN body to consider Ontario college part-timers’ issue in Geneva

The International Labour Organization (ILO) of the United Nations will consider the situation of Ontario college part-timers at its next meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in November.

The discussion arises from a complaint filed by the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), with which OPSEU is affiliated. NUPGE complained to the ILO that Ontario is violating international labour standards because its laws ban community college part-timers from unionizing.

ILO rulings are not binding on governments, but they can be politically embarrassing to violators.

Summer campaign reaches beyond colleges

Not all part-timers got to forget about college for the summer.
In July and August, OPSEU paid 13 college part-timers to work as campaign mobilizers at community events across the province. Armed with the “I believe in FAIRNESS” display and a big pile of postcards, mobilizers from St. Clair (Windsor) to Confederation (Thunder Bay) to La cité collégiale (Ottawa) went public. They were at community fairs and festivals. They were lobbying MPPs. They marched in Labour Day parades.

“Most people have a viewpoint of unions that they’re either with them or against them, but if you give them an issue of fairness, they’ll talk to you,” said Craig Stephenson, who worked as a mobilizer in the Hamilton and Niagara areas. “Most people were at least open to hearing about our issue.”

The response from MPPs was enlightening, Stephenson said. New Democrat MPP Andrea Horwath (Hamilton East) was interested and supportive. Progressive Conservative MPP Tim Hudak (Erie-Lincoln) was polite but non-committal. Liberal MPPs were… unavailable.

“With the Liberal MPPs, scheduling seemed to be a problem,” said Stephenson. “There were a couple of MPPs where the responses didn’t really come, then they started putting conditions on meetings, and then they were being told that they were not allowed to discuss the issue with us, they could only listen.”

Stephenson’s lobbying experience mirrored that of mobilizers across the province. With a few exceptions, it is now clear that the Liberals intend to dodge the issues of college part-timers for as long as possible.

“The surprise that I got with the MPP meetings was that they were very realistic in terms of politics,” said Stephenson. “They didn’t talk about the principle we were standing up for, they said, ‘You’ve got to make the government realize that there is a cost to not dealing with this issue.’ That’s what pleased me most.”

In Hamilton, the highlight of the summer was the Labour Day parade.
“We had a really strong OPSEU presence at the Labour Day parade,” said Stephenson. “We had our signs, and we were giving out the Frisbees and the hats, and it was nice to see the support.

“Suddenly this fall I’m starting to see the signs of progress sprouting up on campus,” he said. “I really think that we are going to get an association going this fall, and I think that when the people who work part-time suddenly see that there is someone who is willing to stand up for them, I think we’re going to see a groundswell of support.

“There’s power in numbers.”

Call our Campaign Hotline!

Interested in getting involved in the campaign for union rights for college part-timers? Call our Campaign Hotline at 1-866-811-7274 or (416) 448-7443. We can provide information, send you materials, and hook you up with the campaign at your college.

Get answers on the web!

Many of your campaign questions may also be answered on the web at www.collegeworkers.org.

Send us an e-mail!

We do e-mail, too. Our e-mail address is collegeworkers@opseu.org.

Tell your story!

Ontario’s community colleges have devised a wide variety of ways to make life hard for part-time employees. The web site at www.collegeworkers.org keeps a running log of part-timers’ stories. Send us your name, college, and contact information, and we’ll post your story – anonymously – on the web. It doesn’t have to be long – it can be one sentence if you like. Just tell other part-timers what has happened to you. It doesn’t even have to be a “story.” Just tell us how you feel.Send your story to collegeworkers@opseu.org or call our hotline at 1-866-811-7274 or (416) 448-7433.

This is my story...

I teach part time at a Toronto college. This past summer, I was offered a full-time job elsewhere. I talked it over with my boss at the college, and he promised to give me enough work to make it worth my while to stay at the college. We even had a detailed discussion about what amount of work I would require in order not to leave. We worked out a schedule for the summer term that had me earning close to what I would have in the full-time job (although still without benefits).

Based on this, I turned down the full-time work. (You can probably see where this is going.)
My boss called me the night before the first 8:00 a.m. class to tell me that the course had been cancelled due to low enrollment. It turned out he had known that the class would be cancelled at least one week before he contacted me, but he waited until the last minute – even until after I had done the prep work for the first week – to tell me. He called back the next day to say that the rest of my classes had been cancelled as well.

After making a deal with me to turn down other work, he went back on his word and gave me no work at all for this semester. I still don’t know whether this was just the usual terrible treatment, or whether it was done on purpose to punish me for considering other work!

I returned to Canada five years ago after more than 20 years abroad. I thought I was lucky finding a job right away at a community college. I didn’t know, until more than half way through the year, that my job was only temporary and that there was no one to turn to for information or support except other what are euphemistically called “part-timers.”

I have been an English as a Second Language teacher for 25 years. I love my work and I have no desire to do anything else.

My situation is complicated by the fact that we have a diabetic teenager. Diabetes supplies (insulin, needles and test strips) cost over $200 a month. As a college part-timer, I receive no benefits and no sick leave or vacation days – not to mention the ridiculous rule that part-timers can only work for 10 1/2 months out of 22. This puts a tremendous strain on the family finances. I never know if and when I will be working or how many hours I will receive.

My husband is an independent small businessman. Sometimes he has enough work to support the family, but sometimes he does not. You can imagine the difficulties. In fact at the beginning of July, we were hard pressed to put food on the table because neither of us had money.

Politicians like to tell us that Canada is lucky that there are so many immigrants. The English teacher is often the first Canadian to spend time with the immigrants. Our job is important , we are told by those wanting to be re-elected. Well, if my job is so important, why can’t I keep it? Why do I have to prostitute myself begging for employment every few months, wondering why I can’t get extra health care, lose money for every civic holiday and every time I am not at work? I feel I am entitled to be treated with respect and dignity, but with no respect from the college, where is my dignity if I have to look for work so often?

This is why I want to get involved in this movement- so that I and my colleagues can have decent working conditions just like the full-time workers in the colleges across Ontario.

Some of us work part time by choice - to care for small children, very sick children, very sick spouses, ill parents, etc. To have been full time and making a certain wage and then go part time and be earning 50 per cent less for the exact same work is so unfair and demeaning. Often you are at a low point anyhow, surrounded by very tough circumstances but still trying to be a valuable worker and put bread on the table and keep up your skills. Why can’t the government get this?

I feel lucky. I was able to get a full-time faculty position at my college, but it took a bit of a showdown. I started teaching part-time and sessional in 1999 to supplement my income as an IT contractor and also because I liked teaching. The teaching income was not enough to support myself so I continued my contract work. The dual responsibilities to both students and clients were difficult to juggle — it’s awkward to tell a client, “I’m sorry your web server crashed – I’ll look at it after my class which starts in twenty minutes.” Eventually I decided that I would prefer full-time teaching, but there were never any positions available. After a couple of years of asking, I finally presented my manager with an ultimatum: I accept a full time offer from a company in Toronto unless a full-time position opens up that I’m qualified for. My manager offered me a deal: Stick it out one more school year, and a position will open. He kept his promise and I was hired the next year.

Now from my position as a full-timer, I see that I am one of the few for whom that showdown worked. We constantly lose talented and knowledgeable teachers who accept full-time work elsewhere. There is a clear impact on students: a constant stream of inexperienced teachers. They know their subject material, but it takes experience to become an effective teacher. As a result, there no continuity with subject material, and an additional load on full-time faculty to support part-timers with learning materials and coaching. There is also a lot of complementary work that doesn’t get done because it would have to be done by part-timers on a volunteer basis.

Please remove my e-mail address from your lists. I will no longer work part-time for any college because I’m tired of working for significantly less than minimum wage. The courses I taught were primarily in the computer field. Since this is a dynamic field, much time and effort is required to keep up with the technological advances. The college does not pay for this and I WON’T DO IT FOR FREE ANYMORE.

Get your posters, postcards, lobby kits and coffee mugs!

You can still get lobby kits, postcards, posters, and coffee mugs that feature the new “I believe in FAIRNESS” logo.
To order materials, contact collegeworkers@opseu.org or call our Campaign Hotline at 1-866-811-7274 or (416) 448-7443. The mugs cost $2 each. OPSEU locals can order them (and pay for them through a deduction from their quarterly rebate) by completing the form at http://www.opseu.org/caat/parttime/caatmugorderform.pdf and fax it in to Mary-Anne Di Adamo at (416) 443-1762.

To pick up “I believe in FAIRNESS” fridge magnets – they’re free – visit your nearest OPSEU regional office.

 

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