View the PDF version here

Improvements to staffing language:
A top priority in upcoming bargaining.

The union recognizes that full-time positions are essential to quality education.

Improvements to staffing language are one of the top priorities for upcoming bargaining. The union will be tabling proposals to strengthen language to create full-time positions and to prevent contracting out of faculty work.

When alumni are asked what they remember best about their college experience, most often it is a connection made with a full-time teacher in their program. It is someone who they were able to sit down and chat with, who meant a lot to their learning and provided insight into their career.

Students need full-time teachers; colleges need full-time faculty. Part-time and partial-load faculty have competence and skill to be part of the academic staff but the colleges do not hire them to deliver the full spectrum of academic services, and they are not compensated for that work.

The work that goes into helping keep students on track and programs current is being done by fewer and fewer full-time teachers. This increases the burden on full time teachers and decreases the time available for program planning, curriculum development, professional development and other academic work that makes our programs outstanding.

The work of full-time faculty exists at the colleges, but the will to hire full-time faculty does not. There are more grievances in the college system over creating full-time faculty positions than any other issue. This underlines the struggle to improve fulltime faculty levels.

Where is the money going?

Colleges in 2010-11 spent less than one quarter of their budgets on full-time faculty.

Increasingly, college funding dollars are directed away from the classroom: Systemwide, 35-40% of tuition and grant revenue goes to college administrative overhead.

The colleges have diverted funding to increased management ranks and other non-academic activities instead of providing students with high-quality education.

Your bargaining team

• Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair)
• Ted Montgomery,
  Seneca College (Co-Chair)
• Rod Bain, Algonquin College
• Gary Bonczak,
  Fleming College
• Benoît Dupuis,
  La Cité collégiale
• Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College
• JP Hornick, George Brown College

Contact your team: negotiations2012@gmail.com

Download the PDF version here.

Delegates from Ontario's 24 colleges attended a final demand-setting meeting March 31 - April 1.

The first step in collective bargaining is the setting of demands by members at each college. All of those demands are then sent to the provincial demand setting meeting.

On March 31 and April 1, delegates from every college met in Toronto to establish the bargaining demands and priorities for the next round of collective bargaining. There was a strong consensus that demands need to be reasonable and focused in order to optimize success at the bargaining table. Over the two days of discussion it became clear that quality education was at the very top of everyone’s agenda.

The first priority is to strengthen the language around the faculty member’s control over the selection of materials, evaluation methods, and teaching methodology. It will be the task of the bargaining team to negotiate in good faith to achieve this and other priorities.

The next priority is to improve the rights of our partial-load members. Although all delegates to the demand-setting meeting were full time faculty, they voted to make the right of partial-load teachers to maintain their employment one of the top two priorities in the upcoming round of negotiations.

The third priority is to address the issues of on-line and hybrid teaching and learning in all of its various forms.

Smokey delivers the opening address at the meeting.

In all, the delegates voted to take only 28 demands to the bargaining table. The academic rights of faculty, the additional specific needs of partial-load teachers, fair compensation for college faculty in relation to university and high school teachers, job security and staffing, and some reasonable improvements to benefits are all included in the demand package.

The union will give notice to bargain June 4, the earliest possible date under the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act. Meeting dates have already been established throughout the summer, and the union has every intention of negotiating an on-time settlement.

Faculty will learn in June whether or not the colleges also intend to negotiate in good faith to an on-time agreement. Faculty are seeking reasonable and needed improvements to their contract. Settlement will be attainable if the colleges proceed in the same vein.

Delegates to the demand-setting meeting also got to explore and discuss some of the new communications tools and strategies that can help keep members informed about and in touch with bargaining as it unfolds.

Blogger, Jonathan Singer – Collegeprof.ca – presented an insightful look into the dos, don’ts, strengths and weaknesses of blogging, and other social-media based communications and community building. The bargaining team will utilize Facebook, Twitter and blogs throughout the negotiations process.

Eric O’Brien, OPSEU General Counsel, took the delegates through a comprehensive presentation on the details and implications of the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act, 2008 [CCBA]. Delegates gained a good understanding of how college academic negotiations must be leaner and faster than in years past. Members must be informed and ready to act swiftly to bargaining developments now possible under the revised CCBA.

Two of the major steps in the bargaining process have been completed. The bargaining team will now draft contract language to propose to the Council when face-to-face negotiations get underway. It is essential in the new bargaining environment that members stay in touch to keep informed of the negotiations as they proceed from now to June and especially from June through to September.

Enter the Quality Education Video Contest

Delegates at the demand-setting meeting were excited to learn that OPSEU is sponsoring a video contest for college faculty and our students. The best under-5-minute video that showcases quality education at Ontario Colleges will receive a $1000 prize from OPSEU! The contest is open to full-time and partial-load teachers, counsellors, and librarians at Ontario’s colleges.

Look for details on the OPSEU website www.opseu.org and from your Local President. The contest submission deadline is Sunday, May 13, 2012. Put your YouTube skills to work!

Symposium on Academic Freedom and Quality Education

On Friday June 1, in Toronto, OPSEU and CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) are co-hosting a symposium – Quality Education and Academic Freedom in Ontario Colleges. This symposium will feature a panel of academic experts who will examine the state of basic academic freedom – the rights of faculty to determine their teaching and related work – in Ontario Colleges.

The symposium will be of interest to current college faculty members, college students, persons studying college systems, and all those considering a college career. Space will be limited so look for the detailed announcement soon. Although there are space limitations, OPSEU hopes to live-stream the symposium.

Discussion and findings will be made available to all college faculty members as soon as possible after the symposium. Watch for further details.

Your bargaining team

• Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair)
• Ted Montgomery, Seneca College (Co-Chair)
• Rod Bain, Algonquin College
• Gary Bonczak, Fleming College
• Benoît Dupuis, La Cité collégiale
• Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College
• JP Hornick, George Brown College

Contact your team: negotiations2012@gmail.com

   Download the PDF version here.

Our current collective agreement uses approximately 50 words to describe the role, responsibilities, and limitations of coordinators (Article 14.03 A 3). Beyond teaching, coordinators “… are required to provide academic leadership in the coordination of courses and/or programs. Coordinators report to the academic manager who assigns their specific duties. It is understood that coordinators do not have responsibility for the disciplining of teachers in the bargaining unit. It is not the intention of the Colleges to require employees to accept the designation of coordinator against their wishes.”

However, we are becoming increasingly aware of coordinators being asked to or asking to take on responsibilities that might well be considered beyond the scope of the collective agreement’s definition. For example, at one college, some coordinators are requesting access to their program teachers’ Blackboard/ WebCT platform. This access could potentially provide these coordinators entry into the faculties’ gradebooks, student assignments with faculty comments and feedback, as well as all other course material.

Providing coordinators ongoing and unlimited access to information between a faculty and his or her students could very well violate privacy laws. Presumably, coordinators managed to do their jobs effectively for some 40 years, without having access to faculties offices, day books, grading sheets and stacks of marking. Why is it then, that simply because this information is now available virtually, some claim they can’t do their jobs effectively without it?

Grievance and Arbitration Awards

Over the 40 year history of the colleges system, individual college unions have had some tremendous successes in grievance and arbitration awards. Unfortunately, many of the details of these awards, including their background, the arguments, and the outcome are housed in the memories of union stewards and faculty members who fought them. When these members retire, much of that collective memory will be lost. We’d like your ideas on how we can capture the history and the details of these settlement awards. They are invaluable to new stewards and faculty, and their loss would be immense. Can you help us? Has your local designed an efficient way to capture this information for the next generation? Could you share your ideas with the rest of CAAT-A? Your DIVEX would more than willingly be the repository of this information.

Online learning

Like so many new ideas, online learning was seen as the shiny toy that was going to revolutionize student learning. However, after a decade since its early beginnings, we’re hearing very different stories from our students. Prior to taking an online course, students will often express their delight at the prospect: no set scheduled classes; being able to work at the material when one feels like it; studying in the comfort of one’s pajamas, etc.

However, a majority of these same students tell a very different story after completing an online course. At one college, three studies taken over five years and involving over 1000 students who had completed at least one online course returned the same results: given the choice, 75% of these students would prefer to take their courses face-to-face. TELUQ a branch of L ‘Université du Québec à Montréal, a forerunner in the delivery of online courses, with over 25 years of experience, has a graduation rate of less than 10% from its online programs. A recent report states that about half of the students who sign up for a course do not complete it.

Perhaps the shiny new toy has begun to tarnish.

Bargaining

As you’ve likely been reading, our new bargaining team has been active in keeping the members up to date on their activities. The negotiating team and the DivEx are working closely, to ensure consistency, continuity and understanding of the issues. The next step is the provincial demand setting meeting in Toronto, March 31 – April 1.

We are working to make this round of bargaining a success.

Change on the DIVEX

Benoit, Jacques, Rod, and Leslie express their appreciation for the many contributions of Suzanne Hooke, Fleming College, whose team development and newsletter leadership were great assets to our CAAT-A DIVEX. We bid Suzanne au revoir but not goodbye. Fleming is lucky to have Suzanne’s questioning activism, and we know she’ll be a positive force for CAAT-A in the busy months and years ahead.

Stepping up from first alternate is brother Jack Wilson, Algonquin College. He is First V.P. at Local 415 after serving many years as secretary and editor of the local newsletter. Jack twigged to the need for union activism when he was laid off six months into his probation in 1983; he became a steward after he finished probation. He teaches Communications in the Police and Public Safety Institute. A hearty welcome, Jack.

•  Rod Bain @ rodbainlocal415@gmail.com
• Jacques O’Sullivan @ jacquesosullivan@gmail.com
• Benoit Dupuis, Chair @ bdupuic620@rogers.com
• Jack Wilson @ wilsonjohns@rogers.com
• Leslie Millson-Taylor @ millson-taylor@bell.net

 Download the PDF version here.

The Collective Agreement between the colleges and faculty stipulates that the colleges are to give preference to the creation of full-time positions rather than partial-load positions. Giving “preference” to full-time positions means hiring full-time faculty unless it can be established that the course necessitates otherwise.

Both the colleges and the faculty agree that colleges need to be staffed primarily with a full-time body of teachers if they are to fulfill their mandates as deliverers of post-secondary education, training, upgrading, and apprenticeships. They need a significant and meaningful proportion of the academic body to be regular, full-time employees, committed to a career in post-secondary education. Such a regular, full-time body of academics is essential to the success of post-secondary learning.

Partial-load positions are restricted to particular teaching circumstances

1. where there is a need for only 7 to 12 total teaching hours of a particular subject,
2. where a subject with 7 to 12 total teaching hours requires a teacher with particular credentials.

In the past, one college argued at an arbitration hearing that it could use budgetary constraints to justify the hiring of partial-load rather than full-time teachers. The Board of Arbitration ruled emphatically that fiscal or budgetary reasons could not be used to justify partial-load positions.

[Board chaired R. Howe, OPSEU Local 562 v Humber College]

The best candidates to fill full-time positions are those partial-load teachers who have proven that they have been doing the job and who have shown that they have the competence and experience as college teachers. Partial-load teachers already have the right to be interviewed as internal candidates for new full-time postings. That right needs to be expanded so that current partial-load teachers who are seeking full-time positions are given a clear pathway to full-time college appointments.

Furthermore, when a course which must be delivered by a partial-load teacher is re-offered, first opportunity to teach that course should be given to the partial-load teacher who has taught or is teaching that course.

Partial-load employees are members of the academic bargaining unit. Their employment rights and conditions must be improved in the next Collective Agreement.

Your bargaining team

• Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair)
• Ted Montgomery, Seneca College (Co-Chair)
• Rod Bain, Algonquin College
• Gary Bonczak, Fleming College
• Benoît Dupuis, La Cité collégiale
• Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College
• JP Hornick, George Brown College

Contact your team: negotiations2012@gmail.com

Download the PDF version here

Negotiating salary is always difficult in collective bargaining for college faculty. Bargaining does not deal with the pay of one person. It addresses a system-wide set of guides that places academic salaries within an appropriate range. This range focuses primarily on a comparison of colleges to Ontario high schools and universities.

The comparative placement of faculty salary between these two groups was first established in 1972 by a board of arbitration, chaired by Justice J.C. Anderson. The 1991 Joint Union-Management Task Force, chaired by Dr. William Marcotte, re-examined and reaffirmed Anderson’s assessment. Through extensive research and deliberations, the task force reinforced and added detail to this comparator group relationship.

The Marcotte Task Force defined parameters and indicators for the negotiation of college academic bargaining unit compensation.

Compensation is defined more broadly than simply salary. It includes consideration of initial step placement, qualifications frameworks, and benefits.

The most appropriate benchmark indicator is halfway between the maximums of the two key comparator groups: the highest Ontario high school maximum and the lowest Ontario university full-professor maximum. Negotiators should also be mindful of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Table 1 shows the rate of inflation in Ontario and the increases of college faculty and comparator groups since 2006.

Table 1 – Comparator group compensation changes 2006-2011 [Ministry of Labour]

A fair salary, relative to the comparator groups, allows the colleges to attract and retain faculty with the knowledge, skills, and ability to meet the educational needs of college students. Collective agreements must continue to reflect the Marcotte recommendations.

The question of salary should not simply be of personal gain or sacrifice but of maintaining a well-considered compensation package for Ontario college faculty.

Your bargaining team

•                 Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair)
•                 Ted Montgomery, Seneca College (Co-Chair)
•                 Rod Bain, Algonquin College
•                 Gary Bonczak, Fleming College
•                 Benoît Dupuis, La Cité collégiale
•                 Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College
•                 JP Hornick, George Brown College

Contact your team: negotiations2012@gmail.com

Will be held on February 17th - from 5:30 PM – 8:00 p.m. at 31 Wellesley Street.

Space is limited. Please RSVP by Monday, February 13th to either: Peter Thompson at:  peter.thompson@mpac.ca orElizabeth Ha at:  elizabethhaha@yahoo.com

They are featuring guest speakers:

• Tiki Mercury-Clarke
  A Canadian-born singer-pianist, storyteller, lyricist, composer and cultural historian.
  She has become a keeper of Afrikan ancestral wisdom, and, in harmony with tradition, a vessel for the often hard to find, authentic, African North American musical expression called jazz.
• Organizers from Justicia
  A volunteer run political non-profit collective comprised of activists from diverse walks of life (including labour activists, educators, researchers, students and youth of colour) based in Toronto, Ontario and Vancuover, B. C.
  They strive to promote the rights of migrant farmworkers (participating in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program and the Low Skilled Workers Program) and farmworkers without status.

“Academic freedom means that academic staff play the predominant role in determining curriculum, assessment standards, and other academic matters.”

– Canadian Association of University Teachers Policy Statement

Academic freedom is a broad-ranging issue that extends throughout the work done by college faculty members. It affects teaching, research, professional development, course materials, teaching style, delivery modes, and evaluation methods.

More and more, academic decisions are made in accordance with management’s nonacademic priorities. This includes not only the major college-wide issues, but also the everyday decisions about what is happening in the classroom.

One of top three issues at pre-bargaining conference

Academic freedom ranked among the top three issues at the October college faculty prebargaining conference. This issue has been steadily gaining momentum with college faculty as they recognize the need for contract language to protect the academic process.

The 2008 Workload Taskforce concluded its formal recommendations with this:

“Given the rise of applied degrees, college/university partnerships, and collaborative programs, Ontario’s Colleges are clearly expanding and developing as complex institutions of higher education. We recommend, therefore, that the parties consider mechanisms that will enhance collegiality, professional development, and academic freedom.”

Protecting academic process

Increasingly, the colleges’ decisions on curriculum, new programs, resource allocations, delivery mode, etc., run contrary to this recommendation. There is less and less input from faculty, if any.

Ontario colleges have matured over the past 45 years, but they have failed to incorporate collegial decision-making practices.

Even as colleges develop degree programs, articulation agreements with university partners, and change their names and mandates, the collective agreement between the colleges and faculty still lacks academic freedom protection.

“Most important, the academic freedom of the faculty and instructional staff serves students well—in fact, it is the hallmark of excellence in education… Professionalism and free exchange are at the heart of education, and academic freedom is the mechanism that allows them to flourish.”

- The American Federation of Teachers Policy Statement

Your Bargaining Team

• Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair
• Ted Montgomery, Seneca College (Co-Chair)
• Rod Bain, Algonquin College
• Gary Bonczak, Fleming College
• Benoit Dupuis, La Cité collégiale
• Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College
• JP Hornick, George Brown College

Contact your team: negotiations2012@gmail.com

Download the PDF file here

• on Thursday, February 9 from 5 to 7 p.m.
• in the ASHTONBEE AUDITORIUM
• Light refreshments will be served

This is an excellent opportunity to have your ideas heard, share ideas with colleagues and speak directly to the bargaining team.

You can also share your views when you participate in our online Pre-Bargaining Survey. Follow this link for the survey.

The short answer is that they come from the faculty members – professors, instructors, counsellors and librarians.

Here’s how it works:

Before the contract expires, the union asks members what they would like to see changed in the next contract.

The Local Demand-set Meeting

To gather member responses, each college union local has a meeting where any member can move almost any change to the contract. (Pensions and changes to legislation are not negotiable, but everything else is.)

A member can propose changes to basics such as workload, salary, benefits, and working conditions; more limited items such as moving allowance or grievance rights; or areas not yet covered in the contract. Members at the local meeting vote on the proposals brought forward by their colleagues.

Demands that receive majority support are forwarded to the provincial demand setting meeting.

The Provincial Demand-set Meeting

At the provincial meeting, delegates from every college can propose only demands that passed at a local meeting; no new demands are permitted. Provincial delegates vote on proposals that are properly moved and seconded. Only those demands receiving majority support at the provincial meeting can be included in the union’s demands in negotiations. Neither the union centrally nor the bargaining team is permitted to introduce demands of their own.

The role of the bargaining team

The role and responsibility of the bargaining team – the seven faculty members elected by their colleagues – is to advance the demands they have been given and try to achieve them.

While not all demands will be successfully met in the course of bargaining, the team works to ensure identified priorities are addressed.

Ratification vote

The final say belongs to the members; just as they began the bargaining process, they also end it. A contract becomes final only when members have voted to accept it.

For more information on when your Local Demand-set meeting will be held, contact us.

The Provincial Demand-set meeting will be held from March 31st to April 1st, 2012.

For more information please visit www.opseu.org.

Your bargaining team

• Carolyn Gaunt, Cambrian College (Co-Chair) : cbgaunt@eastlink.ca

• Ted Montgomery, Seneca College (Co-Chair) : ted@opseu560.org

• Rod Bain, Algonquin College : rodbainlocal415@gmail.com

• Gary Bonczak, Fleming College : gbonczak@cogeco.ca

• Benoit Dupuis, Collége La Cité : bdupuic620@rogers.com

• Lynn Dee Eason, Sault College : ldeason@shaw.ca

• JP Hornick, George Brown College : jphornick@gmail.com

Preparations begin!

Our current collective agreement will expire in August 31, 2012.

CAAT-A Bargaining Team

Bargaining a new contract may seem like a distant event displaced by current concerns around marking, teaching, counselling students, providing library services, adjusting to new technology, and other issues familiar to faculty. However, preparations for negotiating the next collective agreement are underway.

New Bargaining Team

Our newly elected bargaining team is in place and the process of establishing demand priorities is rolling out across Ontario.

Representing the priorities of the membership is a fundamental responsibility of the bargaining team and the team takes this to heart. Team members will be visiting each college over the next few months, responding to member questions, discussing the bargaining process, and providing support for each Local’s demand-setting.

Revised Approach

This revised approach – an outcome of recommendations from the last round of bargaining – strengthens the connection between members and the bargaining team.

It helps build a better understanding of demands and collective agreement negotiations across the membership.

Establishing Demands

Establishing demands for bargaining is a three-step process. First is the pre-bargaining conference at which the bargaining team is elected. Local demand-setting is the second step of this process. Successful bargaining relies partly on having practical, realistic, and focused demands.

The final step is the provincial demand-setting meeting at the end of March. After that meeting, the bargaining team puts the demands into contract language proposals. The priorities established at the provincial demand-setting meeting guide the team.

From March through May 2012, the team’s priority will be to build strong arguments, with appropriate documentation to support our position at the bargaining table.

Communication

There will be regular communication from the bargaining team exploring key themes, which arose from the pre-bargaining conference in October. Locals at the pre-bargaining conference identified more immediate communication as a priority. Anticipate the integration of new communication tools to provide members with timely information.

Team members will be visiting Locals to listen to concerns and answer questions. The team looks forward to seeing you in person in the near future.

 Key Dates

November 2011 – February 2012

• Team members visit Locals to listen to concerns, answer questions, and assist with the demand-setting process.

March 31 2012 – April 1

• Provincial Demand-Setting Meeting

April 2012 – May 2012

• Team meets to put demands into contract language, set bargaining agenda and strategy

June 2012 – August 2012

• June 3 is the earliest possible date to give notice to bargain.

• Contract expires August 31 at midnight