FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2006
Geneva-based Labour body slams Ontario
government: McGuinty must act 'rapidly' to allow part-time
Ontario college staff to bargain collectively
TORONTO – The Ontario Public
Service Employees Union (OPSEU) welcomed an International
Labour Organization (ILO) ruling today blasting the Ontario
government for excluding 16,000 part-time Ontario college
employees from collective bargaining.
The Geneva-based ILO ruled in
response to a request from the National Union of Public and
General Employees (NUPGE), OPSEU’s federal affiliate. NUPGE
called on the ILO to investigate Ontario’s Colleges
Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA), which denies most
part-time staff employed by the 24 Ontario colleges the
right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining.
OPSEU President Leah Casselman
called on Premier Dalton McGuinty to immediately right this
historic wrong. “The Ontario government’s position is
indefensible, they know it and it’s time for the government
to finally do the right thing.”
“I strongly urge McGuinty to
heed the ILO, and immediately introduce amendments to the
Colleges Collective Bargaining Act to ensure part-time
college employees may join a union like all other workers.”
The ILO decision read, in part:
"...the Committee fails to see any reason why the principles
on the basic rights of association and collective bargaining
afforded to all workers should not also apply to part-time
employees.”
It said that "...all workers,
without distinction whatsoever, whether they are employed on
a permanent basis, for a fixed-term or as contract
employees, should have the right to establish and join
organizations of their own choosing," and requested that
"the Government rapidly take legislative measures, in
consultation with the social partners, to ensure that
academic and part-time support staff in applied arts and
technology fully enjoy the rights to organize and bargain
collectively, as any other workers."
Ontario is the only province
that bars most part-time including sessional staff in
colleges from joining a union. Part-time workers in Ontario
universities enjoy collective bargaining rights.
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For information please
contact:
David Cox OPSEU
Communications 1-800-268-7376 x 8314
Complete
text of the ruling
