Newsletter
August 1, 2006
Summer events get great response
Part-timers’ concerns ring a
bell with workers far beyond the college system
Maybe you’ve seen them at the
Riverdale Farmers’ Market in Toronto. Or the Blueberry Festival in
Sudbury. Or the Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia.
Maybe you’re planning to stop by
the Guelph Farmers’ Market this Sunday. Or the Lakefield Fair this
weekend. Or the Super-Ex in Ottawa Aug. 7-17.
If you attend any cultural events
at all in Ontario this summer, there’s a good chance you’ll bump
into one of 13 college part-timers who are working as full-time
mobilizers for the “I believe in FAIRNESS” in support of part-time
college workers. They’re staffing display booths, hosting
letter-writing picnics, asking people to sign postcards, and
lobbying local MPPs.
Feedback from the public has been
very positive, says Candy Lindsay, the mobilizer in Peterborough.
“Public response is really good,”
Lindsay said. “I was at a small festival last weekend and I had a
lot of people coming to me and supporting us, including people from
other unions.
“I’m getting a lot of people
talking about part-time workers in general. They’re interested
because of what they’re going through themselves, having to work two
or three jobs, so their family is being affected, and their health
care is being affected because they have no benefits.”
Women seem keenest to talk about
part-time work, she said.
“A lot of women are affected by
the whole issue of part-time work. This is a big women’s issue.”
To contact the mobilizer in
your area, please e-mail
blinds@opseu.org.
Bentley still doesn’t care
No plans to let part-timers
unionize, Minister says
Why vote Liberal?
It’s a question on
the minds of many college part-timers as the McGuinty government
continues to assert that part-timers don’t deserve the legal right
to join a union.
It doesn’t matter
that college part-timers in every other province in Canada can
unionize.
It doesn’t matter
that school board and education workers in Ontario can unionize.
It doesn’t matter
that college part-timers are being mistreated and exploited on a
daily basis.
“The Ministry of
Training, Colleges and Universities has no plan to review the
Colleges Collective Bargaining Act at this time,” minister Chris
Bentley said in a recent letter to a Scarborough resident.
The letter (see page
3 for the full text) reveals a Minister who believes college
part-timers are simply too thick to understand the noble purpose
behind their second-class status.
He shouldn’t be
surprised if 16,000 part-timers also have trouble understanding why
they should vote Liberal in 2007.
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 will
keep 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’m so glad you
are asking for, and publishing, our part-timer stories. I have
taught at an Ontario college for four years (in addition to teaching
for a public school board and working as a restaurant server to
supplement my wages while still accommodating the college’s
schedule). I have a B.A., a B.Ed., and an M.A., and all my
end-of-term course evaluations have been excellent. I routinely get
rave reviews and sincere thank-yous from my students, because like
so many others I am a committed, enthusiastic, damned good teacher
whose professional pride will not let her limit her working hours to
her paid hours. You could apply most of the stories I’ve already
read on your web site to my experience. If I told you one or two
incidents in my college part-time experience, I would only be
revealing the tip of the iceberg, so instead of sharing my many
horror stories, I will tell you how I feel.
I feel alienated. I
feel professionally isolated. I feel repeatedly taken advantage of.
I feel powerless. I feel very sorry for the students who really are
cheated by the colleges’ hiring practices. I feel extremely angry. I
feel cynical. I am ready to leave the teaching profession, despite
my conviction (shared by my friends, family, and colleagues) that I
am meant to be a teacher.
Compare these
feelings to how I felt when I graduated from my teaching degree:
proud, optimistic, motivated, committed to my students and
colleagues, a potential part of a team with a great deal to
contribute to my society. I was ready to lend my considerable talent
and brains to make a difference in this world.
The current system is
not the only reason I have changed, but it is certainly a major
reason. Good work, Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and
Universities – you’ve really transformed my future, and the futures
of all my potential students who will now never know me, since I am
leaving.
Get your posters,
postcards, lobby kits and coffee mugs!
New lobby kits,
postcards, posters, and coffee mugs this summer feature the new “I
believe in FAIRNESS” logo.
To get
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.
Why second-class
status is good enough for part-timers
by Chris Bentley,
Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities
May 15, 2006
Dear (name withheld):
Mary Anne Chambers,
MPP for Scarborough East, has forwarded to me your letter about the
possibility of amending the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act to
permit college part-time and sessional instructors to unionize. I am
pleased to reply.
I note that an
understanding of the complex and diverse role of Ontario’s 24 active
colleges of applied arts and technology is crucial to placing into
context the exclusion of certain part-time academic and support
staff from the bargaining regimes under the Colleges Collective
Bargaining Act and the Labour Relations Act.
The Ontario Colleges
of Applied arts and Technology Act, 2002 (the OCAAT Act), the
legislation governing the colleges, provides that:
The objects of the
colleges are to offer a comprehensive program of career-oriented,
post-secondary education and training to assist individuals in
finding and keeping employment, to meet the needs of employers and
the changing work environment and to support the economic and social
development of their local and diverse communities. [s.2(2)]
Accordingly, the
colleges offer a broad range of degree, diploma, and certificate
postsecondary education programs that are directed at providing
state-of-the-art knowledge and skills, enabling graduates to be
employed in increasingly complex and rapidly changing workplaces.
Additionally, they enter into partnerships with business, industry,
and other educational institutions, provide adult vocational
education and training, basic skills and literacy training,
apprenticeship in-school training and applied research [s.2(3) of
the OCAAT Act]. Programs are offered on a full-time and part-time
basis. As well, adult continuing education is a significant and
vital element of college services to their communities.
I appreciate your
concern about this issue; however, the Ministry of Training,
Colleges and Universities has no plan to review the Colleges
Collective Bargaining Act at this time.
Thank you for
bringing forward your thoughts on this issue.
Sincerely,
Christopher Bentley
Minister
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