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October 2, 2009
 

Part-time support staff make history as union vote begins

Polling stations are open Oct. 5 – 27
 

On Monday morning, Oct. 5, a part-time support staff worker at an Ontario college will cast the first ballot in an historic union vote.

The purpose of the vote, ordered by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), is to find out if thousands of part-timers want to join the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and change their lives at work through collective bargaining.

Officers of the OLRB will visit all 24 community colleges in the province on specific dates from Oct. 5 to Oct. 27.

“Part-time support staff have worked so hard and waited so long to get to this vote that it’s hard to believe it’s really happening,” says Candy Lindsay, an 11-year part-timer at Fleming College who has campaigned tirelessly for part-timer rights since 2006. “This is a big opportunity for all of us part-timers to stand up and be counted.

“I’m calling on all my part-time support staff colleagues to get out and vote, and when you do vote, vote YES!”

Right now, all decisions about wages and working conditions of part-time staff are made by college management, Lindsay says.

“Right now we don’t have any say in how we are treated, and quite frankly I think we’re all sick and tired of being treated like second-class citizens for no other reason than that we happen to work 24 hours or less per week,” she says. “By getting a union we’ll have a strong voice in dealing with the colleges, and by taking part in collective bargaining we’ll have a process in which the colleges will be required by law to sit down with us and negotiate in good faith.

“I think it’s the only way things are ever going to get better for part-time support staff.”

Without a union, the concerns of part-time support staff are not being addressed, says Lindsay.

“In almost every case we have lower wages and fewer benefits than full-timers doing the same work,” she says. “We have no job security from semester to semester or from year to year. We get no recognition for our service to the college if we want to move to a better job. We have no complaints process if we feel we are being treated unfairly by our boss.

“The colleges would be perfectly happy to let this situation continue until we’re all dead and buried,” Lindsay says. “The only way this is ever going to change is if we change it, and that’s why we have to vote YES.”

Part-time support staff may vote at any vote location in Ontario. Support staff who work at more than one college may vote only once. For full information on the vote, visit the OPSEU web site at www.collegeworkers.org  and click on “FAQ.”

Who can vote?

The Oct. 5 - 27 representation vote is a vote of part-time college support staff. Under the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act, this means every support staff worker who works at a college for 24 hours or less per week. It does not include any faculty (professors, instructors, counsellors or librarians).

Full-timers to show support for part-timers to mark World Day for Decent Work

Full-time support staff at Ontario’s 24 community colleges will show their support for their part-time co-workers to mark the World Day for Decent Work on Oct. 7.

WDDW is a project of the International Trade Union Confederation. Its aim is to coordinate actions by workplace activists around the world in support of good jobs for all.

“Full-time college workers like me have used collective bargaining to build decent jobs for ourselves and our families,” says Betty Cree, chair of the College Support Division of OPSEU. “We want our part-time sisters and brothers to have the same opportunities we do, and we will do anything in our power to help them get them.”

“The problems of college part-timers are the problems faced by so-called ‘precarious’ workers in every country on this planet,” Cree says. “The World Day for Decent Work is a chance for workers everywhere to stick our heads up from our day-to-day work and see how we are all in this together.”

Hundreds of events are planned worldwide. Unionists in Colombia are holding a public debate about young workers in precarious jobs. Dutch unionists are cycling around the country’s biggest lake to raise money for union projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In Bangladesh they’re rallying for decent jobs and an end to precarious work.

“Here at home, we’re wearing buttons and handing out Rosie the Riveter fridge magnets and e-mailing encouragement to our part-time friends,” says Betty Cree. “Everything we can do to help win union rights for college part-timers is a positive step for workers and their families everywhere.

“I really want to stress to our part-time co-workers that the College Support Division is eager to welcome you into our union,” says Cree. “We’re experienced, we’re friendly, and we’re democratic. Full-timers support the dreams of part-timers, and that’s a fact.”

To learn more World Day for Decent Work activities, explore the web site at www.wddw.org.

Listening to student workers

When college students complete their studies – and often, their college jobs – the world that awaits them can be a pretty scary place.

“For a lot of students, the work world that we’re coming into is not the future we were promised,” says OPSEU student organizer Kiera Chion. “Even if you do everything you’re supposed to do, and rack up big debts to get an education, way too many jobs out there are part-time, temporary, casual, non-union jobs. What that means is that more and more young people are living at home and relying on their parents, if their parents can afford it, instead of living the life they imagined they would have.

“The students I’ve been talking to aren’t blowing their wages on going to movies and getting the new iPhone, they’re buying food and pitching in to their family’s income in a lot of cases. Young people are struggling. Their families are struggling.

“We’ve been working towards independence all our lives, but it just isn’t there if you don’t have a good job. That’s what this vote is all about. Our future needs good jobs.”

Tuition fee facts: a correction

An OPSEU news release dated Sept. 28 stated that Ontario has the second-highest college tuition fees in Canada. This is incorrect. As reported by Statistics Canada a year ago (see http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/081009/dq081009-eng.pdf ), Ontario has the second-highest university tuition fees of any province.

The union regrets the error. The OPSEU website at www.collegeworkers.org  is being updated accordingly. A tuition-fee comparison sent to OPSEU by the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities is available online at http://www.opseu.org/caat/parttime/pdf/collegetuitionfees.pdf.

The Ministry figures show that, despite ranking seventh out of ten provinces in college tuition fees, Ontario’s fees are the fastest-growing in the country, on a percentage basis. Basic Ontario college tuition fees have gone up five per cent each year since the McGuinty government deregulated fees in 2006.

But Ontario’s real shame is per-student funding. According to Colleges Ontario ( http://www.collegesontario.org/policy-positions/budget-submissions.html  ), Ontario’s colleges receive the second-lowest funding per student from their provincial government. (Only Prince Edward Island is worse.) And when tuition fees and government funding are added together, colleges in Ontario receive less overall funding per student than any other province.

Be informed!

The union vote this month is an exciting opportunity for part-time support staff at Ontario’s colleges. We know people will have a lot of questions about voting yes, joining OPSEU, and how collective bargaining works.

Full details on these and other issues are available in our Q&A document available online at www.collegeworkers.org . And don’t miss our YouTube videos about the campaign!

To receive the Part-Time Times by e-mail, please call OPSEUdirect at 1-800-268-7376 or send an e-mail to jevans@opseu.org .

Find us on Facebook

To join the conversation about the vote campaign on Facebook, search for “Our Future Needs Good Jobs.”

Vote times and locations

For a complete listing of vote times and locations across the province, click here.   

The Part-Time Times is authorized for distribution by Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president, Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

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