OPSECAAT

Part-time support staff at Fanshawe College vote next week on whether they want to join Ontario's civil service.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has been trying to organize roughly 10,000 part-time support staff at Ontario's community colleges. The union says almost half of those are students who often work for less pay than full-time staff, with no benefits or job security.

"We've been fighting for years to get them unionized," said Marg Rae, president of Local 109, which represents full-time support staff.

Until last year, it was illegal for part-time support staff in Ontario to unionize. OPSEU needed 35% of part-time staff to sign cards saying they're interested in organizing. Support staff includes anyone who isn't a teacher or manager.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board has ordered a vote take place between Oct. 5 and Oct. 27 across the province.

The Woodstock campus of Fanshawe College will vote Oct. 13. The St. Thomas campus will vote Oct. 15 and the main London campus will vote Oct. 19.

Organizers of what is being called the largest union certification vote in the province's history were in Sudbury last week, urging part-time support staff workers at Cambrian and Boreal colleges to get out and vote in favour of unionization when balloting takes place this month.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union has been organizing some 10,000 parttime support staff and student workers at the province's 24 community colleges for several years.

But the campaign picked up speed after an Ontario government law preventing the parttime college workers from unionization was repealed last year.

Candy Lindsay, a part-time worker at Fleming College, said part-time support staff workers perform the same work as their full-time counterparts, but do not share in such things as job security and benefits.

"In almost every case, we have lower wages and fewer benefits than full-timers doing the same work," she said.

Right now, all aspects of the working conditions and salary for part-time support staff workers are dictated by college management, said Lindsay.

"We are sick and tired of being treated like second-class citizens for no other reason than that we happen to work 24 hours or less a week," she said during a press conference at OPSEU office in Sudbury.

The campaign to unionize about 10,000 part-time support staff workers, including about 5,000 part-time student workers, follows a vote last year by part-time faculty members on unionization.

Although the ballots have been cast in that vote, its outcome is still unknown because of a challenge to it by the Council of Regents, the governing body for Ontario Community Colleges.

The vote is based on balloting across the province, said Lindsay, so that the result will apply to all colleges.

Part-time staffers at all 24 colleges who work at more than 100 campuses are entitled to vote, she said.

Part-time college teachers' unionizing votes challenged
Sault This Week
Byline: BOB MIHELL
Source: www.saultthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1714817

“Outrageous” and “scandalous” are two words used by an Ontario Public Service Employees Union spokesperson to describe the union’s response to the continued refusal of Ontario’s 24 community colleges, including Sault College, to allow the counting of 3,600 votes by part-time and sessional instructors seeking union representation.

What was suppose to be a quick process is now bogged down in a judicial hearing before the Ontario Labour Relations Board, that Randy Robinson, a senior communications officer with OPSEU in Toronto, estimated could take close to two years to resolve with a price tag for taxpayers he estimated at up to $2 million.

Robinson laid a major part of the blame on the doorstep of the McGuinty government, comparing the situation with the campaign to unionize the college part-timers to the recent e-Health scandal that led to the resignation of top officials in that government agency.

“Every single penny of the cost is taxpayers’ money. We look at the McGuinty government and the e-Health fiasco and this beginning to look like that,” he said. “This is $2 million they could eventually spend over two years to prevent Ontario citizens from having their democratic voice heard, and it is absolutely scandalous.”

As for the colleges, Robinson said, “They should be ashamed of themselves, but instead they just keep going along.”

He added that the provincial government had changed the law to allow the employees the right to unionize in October 2008. An application was submitted to the Ontario Labour Relations Board in December who then ordered the vote.

“That vote was held,” Robinson said. “And now the colleges, who are absolutely an agency of the provincial government, are using taxpayers’ dollars to stop the vote from being counted. It’s absolutely outrageous.”

Robinson estimated that the legal fees paid to the law firm representing the colleges at the most recent meeting before the OLRB to examine 13 individual cases over nine hours at $5,000.

Robinson said that the parties have met once a month since April, a fact confirmed by Don Sinclair, executive director of the Colleges’ Compensation and Appointments Council, and OLRB spokesperson Voy Stelmaszynski. “When we did that full nine-hour day looking at individual situations, we got through 13 of them,” he said. “What that means is that the colleges are willing to spend 400 days looking at whether or not those votes that were cast in good faith by hard working Ontarians should be counted,” said Stelmaszynski.

The key issue on which all sides appear to agree is whether or not a requisite 35 per cent threshold of eligible instructors who submitted cards to join the union (an estimated 5,200 in total) was met.

Sinclair said the position of the colleges is that anyone who participated in the card signing and subsequent vote had to have a part-time or sessional instructor’s contract with a college on Dec. 4, 2008.

But Robinson dismissed that criteria for eligibility. “The employer said this individual had no hours assigned and was not working during the period. We responded that your payroll statistics show that they were paid,” he said. “We asked them, were you paying them for not working? We don’t know the answer; that information is at the college level.”

Robinson said that OPSEU’S position is that part-time and sessional instructors who have had a demonstrated ongoing relationship with the college should be eligible to choose union representation.

“For example, there were people who were working that semester, but whose contracts ended before Dec. 3, 2008,” Robinson said. “You will have people who have, for a number of years, worked from January to April every single year, but not the semester when the vote was held.

“If they voted, obviously they have a relationship with the college and a concern about the outcome of the vote. Those votes should be counted. This is the kind of jerking around we’re dealing with from the colleges.”

But Sinclair defended on behalf of the colleges, the colleges’ position on eligibility. He said that position was that eligible voters had to have had a contract with their respective college on Dec. 4, 2008.

Sinclair also defended the track record of community colleges as fair and equitable employers with respect to its part-time and sessional instructors, many of whom he said, were content with their part-time situations as they held other jobs.

Robinson, however, rejected that argument. “The history of the colleges over the past 15 years has been all about cost cutting, and the number one cost cutting technique they’ve used is the casualization of the work force and reducing their reliance on full-time permanent staff.”

From the perspective of the OLRB, Stelmaszynski said that the process established by the board was to expedite the vote as close to the application time as possible, “and answer the questions later”.

Asked if it would have been better to have established clear grounds rules with respect to eligibility before the vote occurred, he replied that if the vote had been delayed, they could be still caught up in the process of establishing the eligibility rules. “To establish those ground rules, it could have taken as long as it’s taking now. We are in August, and without conducting the vote when it took place, people could have changed their minds and not expressing the wishes they felt when the campaign was in full force,” he said.

He added under the Ontario Labour Relations Act, the vote had to occur within five days of an application.

But Stelmaszynki said there were no requirements under law to conclude the review now underway within a specified timeframe.

He declined to speculate how long the review process on voter eligibility would take, but suggested the process should speed up as individuals fall into certain agreed upon categories.

He said also that it was up to both parties to establish a timeframe for meetings, and noted that the OLRB also has to juggle its resources in handling cases that come before them. “We’re doing what we can,” he said.

But Robinson said OPSEU intends to increase its pressure on the government to end the stalemate.

He stressed though that OPSEU was prepared to “grind” through the process however long it takes. “We will continue the process, but we also are going to step up our political lobbying.

We just want to open the box and move on so we’ll do everything to make that happen,” he said.

Sault MPP David Orazietti, who is on record as supporting the right of part-time and sessional college employees to unionize, was unavailable for comment Monday.

Part-time college teachers' unionizing votes challenged
The Toronto Star
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Page: A09
Section: News
Byline: Louise Brown
Source: Toronto Star

What is believed to be the largest union organizing drive in Ontario history - targeting part-time community college teachers - has hit a snag over who has the right to take part, just as the ballot boxes are ready to be opened and counted.

The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU) recently held a vote among 9,000 part-time teachers at the province's 24 community colleges to see how many wish to join a union. It is the first time part-time and contract college teachers have been given the choice to unionize since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last summer they have that right and Ontario changed its laws to allow a drive.

But now a question from the colleges over who was eligible to take part in the recent three-week vote is keeping the ballot boxes sealed until the Ontario Labour Relations Board hears the dispute March 31.

"The colleges are finding whatever technicality they can to stall the democratic process," said Roger Couvrette, an English teacher, who is leading the organizing campaign for a part-timers' bargaining unit.

The community colleges are not trying to thwart the organizing process, said a spokesperson, but rather want to make sure the union had gathered signature cards from the 35 per cent of all part-time teachers needed to justify a vote.

"The issue is whether all the people who had signed cards are still employees of the colleges," said Sally Ritchie, senior communications director for Colleges Ontario.

Couvrette said OPSEU had gathered more than 5,000 signatures from teachers who said they wish to join the union, and the Jan. 19-Feb. 5 vote drew over one-third of eligible voters, which he said is "a good turnout for part-time employees."

College instructors keep up fight for union
The Hamilton Spectator
Friday, February 20, 2009
Page: A15
Section: Business
Byline: Steve Arnold
Source: The Hamilton Spectator

Part-time instructors at Ontario's community colleges will have to wait until at least the end of March to learn if they've won their effort to join a union.

The delay follows an effort by the colleges to challenge the voters' list for the union certification vote.

Leaders of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union say the delay is just another tactic in a long campaign of obstruction against the union drive.

"They have done everything they can to block part-time workers from getting a union," said union organizer Roger Couvrette. "It's been one legal technicality after another, part of a long history of placing obstructions in the way of this drive."

For the last five years, OPSEU has been trying to unionize the province's 9,000 part-time community college faculty. In January it announced it had obtained the required number of signed union cards to force a certification vote -- 5,000 staff signed union cards and 3,500 voted.

The colleges, through the College Compensation and Appointments Council, have challenged the vote on the grounds that not enough union cards were signed to trigger the election.

Don Sinclair, executive director of the council, said it's simply a case of ensuring the proper procedure is followed. "Our basic position is that OPSEU has to show it has the required 35 per cent support," he said. "We don't believe they have cleared that threshold."

Union leaders, however, allege the colleges have deployed a series of tools, some petty and some intimidating, to try to sway the vote.

Efforts have ranged from posting security guards outside the rooms where votes were being conducted and trying to take the names of instructors as they arrived to vote, to confining the vote to hard-to-find rooms in the depths of college buildings, they say.

Couvrette said the union will mount a campaign of media and political pressure to get the council to drop its challenges and let the votes be counted.

A special target of that campaign will be John Milloy, minister of training, colleges and universities.

"He has the authority to tell the colleges to stop wasting taxpayers' money in a battle they have already lost," he said. "We are going to pressure the colleges to respect the wishes of their workers and let these ballots be counted."

The use of part-time staff is a major economic benefit for the community colleges.

They are paid between 25 and 33 per cent of the wage of a full-time instructor, without benefits such as drug plans. They are only paid for the hours they actually spend in the classroom with students -- not for time preparing lessons or marking assignments and examinations.

Sam Maga, president of the union local at Mohawk, said as much as half of the college's curriculum is taught by part-time staff.

Colleges object to vote
The Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
Friday, February 20, 2009
Page: 3
Section: News
Byline: BY DAVID NESSETH, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER;
Dateline: CORNWALL

Colleges Ontario is being accused of using a "delaying tactic" by refusing to open and count the ballots from a recent Ontario-wide vote by part-time college staff to secure union certification.

"Where do you go and vote and not have the votes counted?" asked Roger Couvrette, president of the organization of part-time and sessional college workers. "You'd better have a damn good reason."

Signature cards were gathered over the 2008 fall-winter school session, so Ontario Colleges' objection is that only staff currently teaching in this semester are eligible to vote.

"They need to be working there now in order to vote," said Sally Ritchie, senior communications director for Colleges Ontario. "They're part-time and they don't always return."

Couvrette said staff is often lower in the winter session, which is why Ontario Colleges has issued the objection.

"When one objection doesn't apply, they try another one," Couvrette said. Ritchie said Ontario Colleges wants to make sure the union gathered signature cards from the 35 per cent of all part-time teachers needed to justify a vote. Couvrette said OPSEU had gathered more than 5,000 signatures from teachers who said they wish to join the union. He said the Jan. 19 - Feb. 5 vote drew over one-third of eligible voters. The vote objection will be addressed at the Ontario Labour Relations Board on March 31.

Part-time college teachers' unionizing votes challenged
The St. Catharines Standard and Welland Tribune
Friday, February 20, 2009
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: THE CANADIAN PRESS;
Dateline: TORONTO

What is believed to be the largest union organizing drive in Ontario history-- targeting part-time community college teachers -- has hit a snag over who has the right to take part, just as the ballot boxes are ready to be opened and counted.

The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union recently held a vote among 9,000 part-time teachers at the province's 24 community colleges to see how many wish to join a union.

It is the first time part-time and contract college teachers have been given the choice to unionize since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last summer they have that right and Ontario changed its laws to allow a drive.

Niagara College's 349 part-time and sessional teachers cast their ballots Jan. 27.

The community colleges are not trying to thwart the organizing process, said a spokeswoman, but rather want to make sure the union had gathered signature cards from the 35 per cent of all part-time teachers needed to justify a vote.

"The issue is whether all the people who had signed cards are still employees of the colleges," said Sally Ritchie, senior communications director for Colleges Ontario.

Couvrette said OPSEU had gathered more than 5,000 signatures from teachers who said they wish to join the union, and the Jan. 19-Feb. 5 vote attracted more than one-third of eligible voters, which he said is "a good turnout for part-time employees."

Niagara College spokesman Gord Hunchak said the sealing of ballot boxes is old news and questioned why it was only now coming to the fore.

Hunchak said the labour relations board decided Jan. 6 that ballot boxes would be sealed after the vote, given the concerns of colleges.

Niagara College, he added, agrees with the labour relations board's decision to seal the ballot boxes.

"It's a very important issue and it really determines a lot of issues moving forward in terms of college operations," Hunchak said. "We would want to see those questions answered before any type of result was announced. Once that's sorted out and the results announced, we're going to live with it either way. But we just want to make sure the correct information has been used to make the decision."

College Union Drive Stumbles
The Peterborough Examiner
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Page: A2
Section: News
Byline: SUN MEDIA WIRE SERVICES;
Dateline: TORONTO

TORONTO --What is believed to be the largest union organizing drive in Ontario history -- targeting part-time community college teachers -- has hit a snag over who has the right to take part, just as the ballot boxes are ready to be opened and counted.

The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU) recently held a vote among 9,000 part-time teachers at the province's 24 community colleges to see how many wish to join a union.

The community colleges are not trying to thwart the organizing process, said Sally Ritchie, senior communications director for Colleges Ontario, but rather want to make sure the union had gathered signature cards from the 35 per cent of all part-time teachers needed to justify a vote.

Part-time college teachers' unionizing votes challenged
The Sudbury Star and Brockville Intelligencer
Friday, February 20, 2009
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: THE CANADIAN PRESS;
Dateline: TORONTO

What is believed to be the largest union organizing drive in Ontario history - targeting part-time community college teachers - has hit a snag over who has the right to take part even before the ballots are counted.

The Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU) recently held a vote among 9,000 part-time teachers at the province's 24 community colleges to see how many wish to join a union.

Part-time college staff voting on union organization Thursday
Daily Miner & News
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
JON THOMPSON

Sessional and part-time staff in Ontario's colleges will be voting Thursday on labour ratification under the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Should the vote be successful, the 9,000 workers across the province would join full-time faculty, who are also represented by the union.

Regionally, polls will open in Dryden, Fort Frances, and Kenora's branches of Confederation College, affecting approximately 20 people locally.

"Part-time and sessional workers have been a source of cheap and disposable labour in colleges. They get a fraction of what full-time staff are paid," said Roger Couvrette, the president of OPSEU organization of part-time and sessional college workers.

"Right now, it's a work place in which chaos prevails. Discrimination on the basis of being part-time is in place in every campus across Ontario. It really is a form of discrimination based on work status."

Couvrette pointed out the union's current membership of full-time staff initiated the drive to organize part-timers as they saw their own numbers "shrinking dramatically" in favour of those without job security, benefits or paid statutory holidays.

Rick Moore, the manager of the local Confederation College campus, said the institution's relationships with its staff and the union are strong and the potential for union organizing has not changed that climate. He encouraged local staff to participate in the vote, regardless of their position.

"It's our hope and expectation that everyone who is teaching in either capacity exercise their right to come out and vote to have their request be known," he said.

OPSEU visits Humber to recruit part-time teachers
Metroland - Toronto Division
Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) made a stop at Humber College's North Campus Monday during a province-wide drive to unionize Ontario's part-time and sessional college teachers.

Candy Lindsay, the vice president of a provincial association of part- time college faculty (OPSECATT), acknowledged that economic concerns and a lengthy strike at York University have made unions harder to sell, but said support for the union drive remains strong.

"It's a tough time but there are issues that have to be addressed," Lindsay said.

This union certification vote is Ontario's largest ever. More than 9,000 part-time and sessional college faculty from all 24 colleges in the province began voting Jan. 19. The vote will come to Humber College campuses on Feb. 2. The polls close Feb. 5.

Changes to Ontario's Colleges Collective Bargaining Act in October of last year removed legal barriers preventing part-time workers from organizing. Last December, after OPSEU passed along union membership cards from a majority of the part-time teachers, the Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered the certification vote.

Maureen Wall, a full-time teacher at Humber who is helping OPSEU with the campaign, said access to benefits, job security and a consistent, province-wide pay scale are changes a lot of part-time teachers would like to see. As it stands now, they receive no pay for work done outside the classroom, including marking tests and meeting with students, she added.

"There's not much room for negotiation," Wall said. "An individual is basically just offered a contract. There is a fear of turning a contract down."

With a province-wide union to bargain through, Wall said a more stable working environment for teachers and learning environment for students can be established.

The Director of Human Resources at Humber College, Deb McCarthy, said "all the colleges are encouraging their part-time staff to go out and vote."

"We still have a large number of people applying for jobs," McCarthy said. "The salary offered depends on the experience and education the person brings to bear on the job."

College part-timers consider union;
The Sudbury Star
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
RACHEL PUNCH

Part-time faculty and sessional employees at Cambrian College will be voting today to decide whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

OPSEU held a press conference in Sudbury on Monday to encourage part-time faculty and sessional employees at all Northern colleges to vote this week.

"We are just sending a message out to come out and vote and vote yes," said J. L. Roy, a part-time faculty member at College Boreal and OPSEU organizer.

"It's a historic moment. It's a historic vote," Roy said. "It's the biggest union drive in the history of Ontario."

More than 9,000 part-time and sessional employees working at 24 community colleges across Ontario are eligible to participate in the first union certification vote ever for this group.

For the last 35 years, part-time faculty and sessional employees have been banned from joining a union, Roy said.

"By voting yes we'll have the right to take part in collective bargaining to try and improve our wages and working conditions," said Roger Couvrette, president of the provincial organization of college part-timers and sessionals. "We'll be able to create a more organized, stable work environment for part-timers at colleges and build a better quality of education for the students we teach."

Cambrian's vote will be today from 11:30 a. m. to 2 p. m. and 5:30 p. m. to 7:30 p. m. at the Barrydowne Campus. Boreal's vote will take place Wednesday from noon to 2 p. m. and 6:30 p. m. to 7:30 p. m.

Part-time and sessional faculty members from St. Clair College campuses in Windsor, Wallaceburg and Chatham will be voting on whether to join Ontario Public Service Employees Union next Monday.

It will be the largest union vote in Ontario history with more than 9,000 part-time and sessional employees from 24 community colleges across the province participating.

It’s the first union certification vote for this group.

The vote will take place on particular dates between Jan. 19 and Feb. 5, at each of the 24 college campuses.

After OPSEU presented thousands of union membership application cards to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the OLRB ordered that a vote would be held.

The part-time and sessional employees with the OPSEU campaigned for four years to get the vote.

These teachers make a fraction of what their full-time counterparts do yet they do the same work, said Roger Couvrette, a part-time college teacher at Mohawk College in Hamilton and president of OPSEU’s organization of part-time and sessional college workers.

They also do not receive benefits, vacation pay, nor are they paid for statutory holidays. There is also very little job security, and no grievance procedures for the group, he said.

He said this vote is important to the group to give them some equality.

“This vote means that finally part-time and sessional teachers will no longer be a source of cheap and disposable labour for the colleges,” he said.

OPSEU heads up largest union drive in Ontario history

Tiffany Mayer, Standard
January 23, 2009
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1400445

No vacation pay, no benefits, no job security.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is saying no more of this for part-time and sessional faculty at Niagara College.

OPSEU is heading up the largest union drive in the province’s history, which could see part-time and sessional teachers at colleges from Cornwall to Dryden organize.

“Our slogan is ‘It’s time,’” said union organizer Roger Couvrette. “They’re saying, ‘No, no. It’s about time.’”

Part-time and sessional faculty have been excluded from bargaining since 1972 under the province’s Colleges Collective Bargaining Act. But amendments to the Act last June did away with the provision that prohibited them from unionizing.

Couvrette received hints of the possibility in 2007, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unionizing is a constitutional right.

As soon as the high court decision was made, Couvrette, a part-time teacher at Mohawk College, and his OPSEU colleagues handed out membership cards. Last month, the Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered a certification vote after thousands of the cards were signed.

He’s confident that as votes take place over the next two and half weeks at Ontario’s 24 community colleges, the 9,000 part-time and sessional teachers — 349 at Niagara College — will choose to organize. After that, they can bargain for wages, benefits and job security.

The result will be a more stable work environment, said Couvrette, who was at Niagara College in Niagara-on-the-Lake Thursday to meet with media.

“What (current conditions) create is a turnstile effect with part-time workers coming and going because it becomes very discouraging. We think this is going to have an enormous impact on the quality of education for students,” Couvrette said. “The colleges have resisted us every step of the way and I truly fail to understand why.”

Gord Hunchak, Niagara College’s communications director, said the school respects the right of staff to organize.

“That’s always been a long-standing view,” Hunchak said.

He wouldn’t speculate about the potential financial impact on the college or students, should employees support unionization. The college already faces funding pressures he said, but hoped any additional issues would be addressed by the province.

Hunchak disagreed with Couvrette’s opinion about the effect organization will have on education.

“We don’t see it as a quality issue,” he said. “The college will work with employees to ensure the best possible education.”

The college’s part-time and sessional teachers cast their ballots Jan. 27.

College part-time employees take union vote
Fri, 2009-01-23 15:25.
By Meghan Balogh. Online Pioneer
http://www.thepioneer.com/?q=node/3480

Loyalist College’s part-time and sessional faculty voted last Tuesday on whether or not to unionize.
The outcome from last week’s vote will be added to province-wide results and released some time in March.
The 233 teachers eligible to vote at Belleville and Bancroft Loyalist campuses are among over 9,000 across Ontario who teach at the province’s 24 community colleges.
If the outcome is in favour of a union, the teachers will join with full-time staff as members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, or OPSEU, which will give them the opportunity to collectively bargain for better work conditions.
Roger Couvrette is the president of OPSECAAT, the Organization of Part-Time and Sessional Employees of the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology.
“I believe this is going to be a ‘win-win-win’ situation – for teachers, students, and the colleges,” says Couvrette. He says unionization will ensure better education for students, better treatment of teachers, and as a result, teachers who are more committed to their part-time jobs at Ontario colleges.
Part-time employees across Ontario have been campaigning for close to four years for their right to unionize. Collective bargaining for part-time teachers was illegal until that Ontario law was reversed in 2007.
Jennifer Bryan, a part-time faculty member at Loyalist, has been working towards this vote for two years.
“We have lobbied the government to get us collective bargaining rights,” says Bryan. “So this vote is essentially the culmination of years of work for us.”
Ron Sayeau works part-time teaching in the continuing education department, and questions how much the union will really do for him as a teacher of adults taking courses out of self-interest.
“I’m of two minds,” says Sayeau. “I’m not all that confident that the union will be able to represent me or our type of staff that much. But for the people that are part-time staff, it’s a great thing. I’m a very strong union person in favour of it.”
Voting took place on Jan. 20 from 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m., and according to Bryan, many teachers showed up to cast a ballot.
“We had a really high turnout for the vote,” she told the Pioneer. “I can’t give any numbers, however, our turnout percentage-wise was the highest so far (among Ontario colleges).”
Karen Cullen is the executive director of human resource services and organizational development at Loyalist College.
“Loyalist, like other community colleges, supports our part-time folks’ rights to associate,” she said, when asked about the school’s opinion on the vote. “We encouraged people to get out and vote, and they did that.”
Cullen said the school has a good relationship with all of its part-time faculty and does not see unionization impacting that relationship one way or the other.
Teachers classified as sessional work more than 12 hours per week for 12 out of 24 months, and part-time teach six hours or less.
Voting at colleges across Ontario will end on Feb. 5 and results will not be released until March.

Part-time Mohawk staff vote on union
The Hamilton Spectator
Thursday, January 22, 2009

A five-year battle for the hearts, and dues, of Ontario's part-time college teachers comes to a head in Hamilton today.

Throughout the day the 500 part-time staff at Mohawk College will be voting on whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. It's one of the latest moves in what's being described as the largest union organizing drive in Ontario history.

At Mohawk, where part-time instructors outnumber full-time faculty, voting will be carried out at all facilities throughout the day.

OPSEU organizers say the campaign is about getting respect for an exploited group of workers.

"The colleges see these people as nothing more than a source of cheap, disposable labour," said organizer Roger Couvrette. "We want to help them get more security and a stable and orderly working environment."

Across Ontario's 24 community colleges, more than 9,000 part-time and sessional instructors are being lobbied to let the union bargain a better deal for them.

The colleges are represented by the Colleges Compensation and Appointments Council.

Council executive director Don Sinclair said the colleges want staff to vote so that the final result is clear.

In a letter to staff this month he urged instructors to remember Ontario college teachers are the best paid in Canada even though Ontario's system is the most poorly funded in the country. That fact, he said, will make it hard for the union to deliver on promises of better pay.

"Nothing the government has said to date makes us optimistic that colleges will obtain improved funding in the near future," he wrote.

Couvrette explained the OPSEU campaign started in 2005 and kicked into high gear last year with a change in provincial legislation allowing the part-time instructors to join a union.

At Mohawk College, there are 486 full-time faculty and 500 part-time staff paid between 25 and 33 per cent of the full-time wage. They are paid only for the time they spend in the classroom, not for preparing lessons, marking papers or advising students.

Sam Maga, president of the union local at Mohawk, said as much as half of the college's curriculum is being taught by part-time staff and working conditions are eroding the quality of education.

"The part-time staff end up volunteering their time to provide quality education for the students and that's not fair. They should be compensated for their entire workload."

Sinclair said he "can't see" how not paying teachers to mark assignments hurts the quality of teaching.

Big vote comes to Georgian;
The Owen Sound Sun Times
Thursday, January 22, 2009

Ontario's part-time college teachers in Owen Sound and across the province's 24 colleges are voting whether to join a union to reach parity of pay and working conditions with their full-time colleagues.

"People come in enthusiastic and optimistic and then discover they're not being well done by and they leave," said Ontario Public Service Employees Union organizer Roger Couvrette. It's having an "enormous" impact on the quality of education, he said.

Voting began Jan. 19 and will conclude Feb. 5. Results won't be known immediately thereafter because issues of who's eligible to vote will then be worked out at the labour board before votes are counted. That could take until April.

There are 20 full-time and 56 part-time teachers at the Owen Sound campus of Georgian College. All affected Georgian staff were to vote Wednesday.

Couvrette said part-time teachers feel taken advantage of because they met the same qualifications as corresponding full-time teachers to do their jobs, but they receive no benefits, no holiday pay and lack a grievance procedure. Working conditions lack stability, he added.

Part-timers are paid for time spent in class only, not for time spent preparing for class, marking and time spent helping students, said Couvrette, himself a part-time parliamentary procedure teacher at Mohawk College. He's also president of the organizing committee.

"If a person were a woman or a new Canadian getting paid much less than the person sitting beside him or her, that would be against the charter of rights," Couvrette said, so discrimination by job status shouldn't be legal either, he said.

Full-time teachers earn between $50,000 and $90,000, depending on seniority, qualifications and experience. Part-time teachers earn, on average, $45 per hour. That's $1,500 per course per term, $3,000 for their maximum two-course limit, Couvrette said.

Georgian College spokeswoman Cheryl Simpson said it hasn't been her experience that part-time staff feel discouraged and are leaving, but that may be true for some.

There are about 8,000 full-time college teachers about 10,000 part-timers across Ontario.

A full-time teacher is considered to have a full load of classes when they spend 12 hours in the classroom per week. A part-time teacher may spend three in-class hours per course per week, so it could take four part-time teachers to teach the same number of hours. She pointed out that helps explain why part-time numbers are higher.

Some teachers like the flexibility that working part-time affords, particularly for those who also work full-time elsewhere, she said. The college likes employing teachers part-time to add flexibility too, by hiring contract workers when needed and hiring fewer as enrollment drops, she said.

"I think that's a reality for most businesses and it certainly is for us as well," Simpson said.

Couvrette said OPSEU will target 8,500 part-time college support staff in February and the application for union certification for them should be ready next fall.

Jay McQueen AM900 CHML Hamilton
Wednesday, January 21, 2009

http://www.900chml.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocalGeneral/Story.aspx?ID=1055614

Part time and sessional faculty at Mohawk College are about to take part in the largest union vote in Ontario history.

Some 500 plus faculty members will be voting tomorrow to decide whether to join OPSEU.

President of the provincial Organization of College Part timers and Sessionals Roger Couvrette says part time and sessional teachers in Ontario have been treated as a source of cheap and disposable labour by the colleges.

OPSEU Local 240 President Sam Maga says part time faculty have an opportunity to join full timers with regards to union representation.

Couvrette believes that a strong majority of the nearly 10,000 voters province-wide will be in support of OPSEU representation.

He adds that bargaining team would be going after a number of things including greater job security, wage parity with full timers and benefits.

Union vote today at Georgian;
The Barrie Examiner
Wednesday, January 21, 2009

(STAFF) -- Hundreds of Georgian College faculty workers could be voting to unionize today.

About 450 part-time and sessional employees work at the four campuses of Georgian College -- in Barrie, Orillia, Midland and Owen Sound -- and they are being courted by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

"Part-timers work up to six hours a week teaching one of two classes and sessionals work over 12 hours a week in about five courses," said Roger Courvette, president of OPSEU's part-time and sessional college workers organizations.

Both teach core courses in basic programs, said Courvette, adding "there are more part-timers than full-timers.

"The reason we outnumber full-timers is because we're a source of cheap labour."

More than 9,000 similar employees who work at Ontario's 24 community colleges are eligible to take part in the group's first union certification.

"By voting yes (to join OPSEU), we'll have the right to take part in collective bargaining to try to improve our wages and working conditions, " said Courvette.

"We'll be able to create a more organized, stable work environment for part-timers at colleges, and build a better quality education for the students we teach," he said.

"We want some rules," he said, adding there are class-size limits for full-time teachers, but not for part-time teachers.

Ontario is ranked 10th in the country in funding per full-time college students, Courvette said.

The vote, which runs until Feb. 5, is being supervised by officers of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

"The voting results won't be released until after the board has decided they have dealt with all the outstanding issues," said Courvette, adding he is confident OPSEU will prevail "hands down."

College staff in big union vote;
The Owen Sound Sun Times
Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Georgian College part-time and sessional faculty members will vote today on whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

More than 9,000 part-time and sessional employees from 24 Ontario colleges will vote on different days from Jan. 19 to Feb. 5. It is the largest union vote in Ontario history.

The province's Labour Relations Board ordered the vote after OPSEU presented thousands of union membership application cards to the board last December, a Georgian news release said.

"By voting yes, we'll have the right to take part in collective bargaining to try and improve our wages and working conditions," Roger Couvrette, president of the provincial organization of college part-timers and sessionals, said in the news release.

Eligible voters can vote at their own campus. OPSEU currently represents more than 16,000 full-time support and academic staff at Ontario's colleges.

Part-time, sessional Loyalist faculty to vote on unionization;
The Belleville Intelligencer
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Byline: HENRY BURY, THE INTELLIGENCER;

Jennifer Bryan and her peers at Loyalist College are participating in a historic vote today (Tuesday) to become unionized.

Part-time and sessional faculty at its campuses in Belleville and Bancroft are deciding whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

The union said there are 223 eligible voters at Loyalist who can cast ballots at the main Wallbridge-Loyalist campus between 4:30 and 6:30 p. m. and at the Bancroft campus from 4:30 to 7 p. m.

They are among the more than 9,000 part-time and sessional faculty working at 24 Ontario community colleges who are eligible to participate in the first union certification vote ever for this group.

The colleges' part-time support staff, however, will participate in a similar vote to join OPSEU later this winter.

Bryan said her group is looking forward "to the day they have rights in the workplace."

Bryan, who teaches computers one hour a day in the College Preparation Program, said becoming unionized will make her group feel like equals in the college system.

"The same rights and privileges of full-time staff will be extended to us," she said.

Part-time faculty teach six hours or less a week while sessional teachers teach more than 12 hours a week but only for 12 of the 24 months. Part-time support staff work up to 24 hours per week.

The Ontario Labour Relations ordered Tuesday's vote be held after OPSEU presented thousands of union membership application cards to the board last December.

The union drive began in the fall of 2007 after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled collective bargaining is a protected right under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Ontario had long barred college part-timers from unionizing, but has since changed that law.

"This is the vote that we've been waiting for," said Roger Couvrette, president of the organization of part-time and sessional college workers (OPSECAAT). "By voting yes, we'll have the right to take part in collective bargaining to try and improve our wages and working conditions."

He said the vote is the result of nearly four years of campaigning by part-timers and sessionals in cooperation with OPSEU.

Gord Wright, president of OPSEU Local 421 representing full-time support staff at Loyalist, said his local has been asked by his regional executive to assist with today's vote.

"The labour relations board is conducting the vote and will take the ballots with them and I don't expect any results will be released Tuesday evening," he said.

Wright said the vote has been a long time coming for part-time and sessional faculty.

"I'm sorry it's taken so long for them to have the right to organize but a wrong has been righted," he said. "OPSEU makes the most sense because we already represent the colleges."

"You bargain as a whole college system rather than an individual college so it's better for everyone because there is strength in numbers."

Part-time and sessional faculty members at Fleming College's Peterborough, Lindsay and Haliburton campuses will vote today on whether to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

They're part of more than 9,000 part-time and sessional employees working at 24 community colleges across Ontario who are eligible to participate in their first union certification vote, a release from OPSEU stated yesterday.

COLLEGE VOTE: THE LARGEST UNION VOTE IN ONTARIO HISTORY IS UNDERWAY FOR PART-TIME WORKERS AT THE PROVINCE'S 24 COMMUNITY COLLEGES

THE LARGEST UNION VOTE IN ONTARIO HISTORY IS UNDERWAY FOR PART-TIME WORKERS AT THE PROVINCE'S 24 COMMUNITY COLLEGES.VO THAT INCLUDES PART-TIME WORKERS AT ST. LAWRENCE COLLEGE IN KINGSTON.

THE ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION IS HOPING TO CERTIFY 9-THOUSAND PART-TIME COLLEGE WORKERS.

IF THE UNION DRIVE IS SUCCESSFUL, OPSEU WILL BEGIN CONTRACT TALKS TO TRY A ND GIVE THE PART-TIMERS BETTER PAY, BENEFITS AND JOB SECURITY.

TERRY DAY HAS BEEN A PART-TIME TEACHER IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT FOR 3-YEARS.

VOTING WILL CONTINUE UNTIL EARLY NEXT MONTH.... TO DETERMINE WHETHER OPSEU CAN REPRESENT PART-TIME COLLEGE STAFF.

Part-time and sessional faculty at Algonquin College and the province's 23 other colleges will vote today on whether to join OPSEU.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered the vote after the Ontario Public Service Employees Union presented thousands of union membership application cards to the board last December.

About 9,000 part-time and contract instructors at 24 community colleges across Ontario are to vote starting Monday on whether to join a union.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered and will be supervising the votes at 60 locations between Jan. 19 and Feb. 5. The result will determine whether the part-time and sessional faculty will join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said a news release from the union Monday.

Voting began Monday morning at Algonquin College campuses in Ottawa, Pembroke and Perth, and at St. Lawrence College campuses in Brockville, Cornwall and Kingston.

It will take place Tuesday at Loyalist College campuses in Belleville and Bancroft, La Cité Collégiale in Ottawa and Sir Sanford Fleming College in Cobourg.

OPSEU already represents 16,000 full-time support and academic staff at the colleges.

According to Roger Couvrette, president of the organization of part-time and sessional college workers (OPSECAAT), the union has been campaigning with the workers for more than four years.

The labour relations board ordered the vote after the union presented it with thousands of union membership application cards in December, the union release said.

Couvrette said he believes unionization would create "more organized, stable work environment" for the workers and improve the quality of education for students.

OPSEU in the News

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COLLEGE VOTE: THE LARGEST UNION VOTE IN ONTARIO HISTORY IS UNDERWAY FOR PART-TIME WORKERS AT THE PROVINCE'S 24 COMMUNITY COLLEGES