OPSEU Local 560

Early in the morning of October 5, Support Staff negotiators reached a settlement with Council of Regents representatives.  The memorandum of settlement will be put to a support staff membership vote around the end of October.

This round, support staff elected a new bargaining team and gave them a clear mandate to forge a no-concessions agreement with significant improve-ments in wages and benefits.  College negotiators knew that a strike was a distinct possibility and that neither this team nor the membership were about to back down.

Congratulations to the team and especially to the support staff leadership and membership who gave them the tools and support to bargain hard and achieve a good deal.

It is a three-year agreement.  Wage increases are from 11.6 percent to 12.7 percent, depending on classifi-cation.  Support Staff use a pay-band system that slots jobs into categories or pay bands.  A new pay band –15 – was added to the top of the scale that will up the earnings of persons in high-end or high-tech positions.  This will make the Colleges more com-petitive with private-sector employers.  A new step was added to all the grids so that staff gain a fourth year of increases rather than being "maxed out" after three years.
Initially, management were proposing a raft of take-aways. All of their remaining concessions were dropped from the table in the last two days of bar-gaining. One item dealt with "term certain" employ-ees.  The Colleges were proposing to create a new category of employees hired for a fixed term.  They would be excluded from nearly all of the protections of the collective agreement, similar to  sessional teachers. This was removed from the proposal. A joint committee will be established to explore the creation of a new type of short-term position for special ventures.

The current Support Staff Agreement has a letter of understanding ensuring that, in the event of contracting out of services, any affected employees will be guaranteed a position with equivalent salary and benefits.  The Colleges wanted to delete that letter, but the Support Staff team insisted that there would be no agreement under those circumstances, and so the letter is updated and remains in force.
A further commitment has been won to address the circumstances of employees who might be negatively affected by program relocations, new joint college restructuring initiatives, mergers, or the creation of new colleges.

The vision-care benefit was upped from $200 to $300 every two years. Sick-leave entitlement was increased from 8 to 10 days per year.  Most signifi-cantly, the total accumulated number of sick-leave days that can be carried forward from year to year was increased from 57 to 130.
These are just some of the highlights and not all the improvements.  This membership showed what can be accomplished with resolve on the part of the team and the members.  It is often not a strike itself but the readiness and the willingness to strike that produces results.

It is a strong agreement, one that support staff should be pleased with and that their team should be heartily congratulated for.  Of course, they did not get everything they had wished for, but they have a settlement that is an achievement in itself and a solid base for future rounds of bargaining.

Once again, the senior managers demonstrate that their idea of quality educa-tion consists of stuffing classrooms like sardine tins. It isn’t pedagogically sound, and it may violate the building and fire-safety codes.

Last semester, one manager suggested that a faculty member seat some of her students at desks in the hallway to alleviate her overcrowded classroom. Aside from marginalizing the students, such a "solution" would have vio-lated the safety code which requires all hallways to be free of obstructions.

So, how much is too much? And what can you do about it?  Here are two things you can do.

Check Occupancy Limits
First, determine whether your classroom, lab or teaching workshop area is overcrowded.   Union Health and Safety Officer, Malcolm Archer, says that the college appears reluc-tant to post the occupancy lim-its for classrooms that are established by the building and fire codes.  Despite this, Malcolm advises that you can figure out occupancy limits yourself by applying these standards.

• Classrooms with chairs and tables require a minimum of 1.823 square meters or 19.6 square feet per person.
• Labs (such as the Bio-chemistry labs at Seneca@York) require a minimum of 4.6 square meters or 49.5 square feet per person
• Workshops (such as the machine shop at Jane) re-quire a minimum of 9.3 square meters or 100 square feet per person.

Request Revision of SWF
The second action you can take is to ask your supervi-sor to adjust your SWF to accurately reflect the actual number of students you are teaching.  You can require the college to make the necessary change after the last date for withdrawal of registration which is 10 days after the start of the semester.  You can, and should, ask to have your SWF revised to reflect higher numbers, particu-larly whenever you receive revised class lists.

If your supervisor does not issue a revised SWF, you should refer the matter to the Workload Monitoring Group by contacting the Local 560 Secretary, Patricia Clark, by phone at the college at 491-5050, Extension 2208, or by in-ter-office mail at Newnham, or at patricia.clark@senecac.on.ca.

For more information, you can follow the links to the Ontario Fire Code and the Occupational Health and Safety Act in our Local 560 web site.

Of course, the college is free to make such a request, but the Collective Agreement makes it quite clear that you are not obligated to submit a written plan to anyone. Article 11.01 H 3 reads: The arrangements for such professional development shall be made following discussion between the supervisor and the teacher subject to agreement between the supervisor and the teacher, and such agreement shall not be unreasonably withheld.

In addition, Article 11.08 specifies that activities, including professional development, performed during non-teaching, "will neither be recorded nor scheduled", and Article 11.01 G 1 indicates that, where these activities "can appropriately be performed outside the College, scheduling shall be at the discretion of the teacher, subject to the requirement to meet appropriate deadlines established by the College."
Since the CPD claims it wants your plan to guide them in developing relevant curriculum for the coming year, you may wish instead simply to submit a request for the specific types of sessions you would like to see offered through the CPD.

So, as you receive these regular gentle prods from the CPD, remember that your PD plan for the year is simply a verbal agreement between you and your supervisor. You are not obligated to submit a written PD plan to anyone.

This sort of approach may work at fast food outlets where the workers literally sing out the praises of a burger.  Maybe it works at CN Tower-type tourist spots around the megacity.  But here at the megacollege, faculty golf shirts just don’t cut it.  Granted, we become more and more like the fast food outlets, serving up convenience-packaged learning — "Would you like fries with that?" … "Have a nice day," … "Grades don’t matter."

If you seriously want to address faculty morale and improve life in the Colleges for students and staff, review the study done by Dr. Jerry White of the University of Western Ontario, for York University’s Centre for Research on Work and Society.  See what Dr. White found.  It’s at www.opseu.org/caat/voices.htm.

Deal with the very serious issues of declining quality in the Colleges, not with shirts but with real solutions. Stop whining about KPI’s and trying to "fix" the image of the College.  Sure, the  KPI system is completely bogus. Of course Humber and other colleges provide training for students in how to fill out the KPI forms to generate the most financial reward for their College. Of course the Seneca President has encouraged the student councils to ‘get on board’ with similar efforts.

We don’t need more golf shirts.  We need more time to prepare classes and mark students’ work. We need a better student/teacher ratio.  We need time to design new curriculum.  We need more full-time faculty and not more part-time workers.  We need you to understand what it is really like in the classrooms, labs, workshops and offices of faculty. But we got a shirt.  Thanks again for the shirt.

Who Writes for The Local?
Since The Local is written by and for members of Local 560 at Seneca College, we welcome contributions which inform members about education and union-related issues and which encourage participation in our local union activities.

We publish a wide range of material, including reports from officers, news updates, editorial columns, humour, graphics, and letters to the editor.

Please let us know what is happening in your corner of the College. We also welcome members to join our editorial team.
Following the example of the CEP Local 298 newsletter editors, we’re providing below some basic guidelines for individuals interested in participating in the creation of future issues of The Local.

Submitting an Article or Suggesting a Subject
Whether you have an article or just an idea for an article, you can telephone us at (416) 495-1599, write us via inter-office mail addressed to Ted Montgomery at Newnham, or e-mail us at opseu560@idirect.com. If you want us to write the story, please be sure to provide us with all the facts you possess. Although we make no promises, we will endeavor to publish all articles submitted as long as they are relevant, timely, and respectful of union policy.

Deadlines
The newsletter is generally published every four to six weeks, so it’s a good idea to submit new material within a couple of weeks following the publication of the latest issue. We’ll need time to review and edit your article.

Format of Manuscripts
To expedite the reviewing and publishing process, we prefer receiving submissions on diskette or via e-mail, as text, MS Word, or WordPerfect files. Any hard copy should be typed double-spaced on 8 ½" by 11’’ paper. Your name and a telephone number and/or an e-mail address where we can reach you must be included with your proposed article.

Length
Most of our articles fit on one page or less. For instance, an article of 200 - 300 words will fill a half page, while 500 - 600 words will fill a whole page.  A feature article in The Local usually runs no more than 1,000 - 1,500 words.

Photos and Cartoons
Photos and cartoons are a welcome accompaniment to any story. Choose photos with well lit subjects, and be sure to provide the names of the people in the photos. If you are unable to scan your photos, we can do it for you. Your cartoons should be submitted in black ink on white paper or as computer files.

Editing
Almost all articles require some editing, and yours will probably not be an exception. We edit with an eye to factors such as accuracy, libel, length, clarity, style, grammar, and spelling. We’ll also make up a headline if you haven’t.

We’ll always try to consult you about the changes we are suggesting. Ultimately, however, space and layout considerations may require last-minute cuts without consultation.

Credit and Copyright
Although any article you submit is your property, by submitting it to The Local, you are granting us permission to publish it. We’d like to publish your name with your article, but will respect requests for anonymity.

Interested?
Please contact the union office at 495-1599 or at opseu560@idirect.com if you have any questions or if you wish to join our editorial committee or contribute to The Local. 

The demand-setting process is conducted by motions and votes.  Majority rules.  The majority establish what demands go forward and what the priorities are to be.  So, if you have an interest in the next contract and the next round of bargaining, you should make your best effort to be at the meeting.

The Local 560 Demand setting meeting will be held on Thursday November 9, 2000, at the Ontario Federation of Labour Building, room M2.  The meeting will begin at 6:00 p.m. and a light supper of sandwiches and juices or soft drinks will be available from 5:30 onwards.

In the last round of bargaining, we were able finally to get our salary positioned between high school and university teachers.  But we are barely above the high-school level and should continue with increases that will see our salaries at least midway between these groups.
In the last round, Local 560 advanced demands on issues of winning greater control of the academic processes – teaching methodologies, curriculum, evaluation methods, etc.  We proposed several amendments to the Collective Agreement that would dramatically change the hierarchical top-down model to one where academic decisions were made by academics.  Not surprisingly, management was vigorously opposed to our proposals.  As with our workload bargaining in the past, it often takes more than one round of bargaining to make progress in difficult areas. We must continue to press for change and bargaining on these important issues.

Retiree benefits is likely to be another major issue in the next set of bargaining.  We need to position ourselves better to serve these retired members.

"For example, at the Qin Shi Handbag Factory in Sanxiang Town (Zhongshan City, Guangding Province) Wal-Mart manufactures Kathie Lee (Gifford) handbags in conditions you’d find in a Charles Dickens novel from the nineteenth century," Georgetti said. A report released in May  by the U.S.-based National labour committee found the following conditions at Qin Shi:

•  Workers are allowed to leave the factory grounds for only 1.5 hours per day.
•  Shifts are 14 hours, seven days a week, 30 days a month.
•  Average take-home pay is three cents per hour.
•  For a 98-hour week, workers receive $3.10.
•  46% of workers earn nothing at all and are actually in debt to the company for living expenses.

Canadian Actor Donald Sutherland on why he won’t do any more Volvo commercials during the Screen Actors Guild strike.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Lily Tomlin

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The Ontario Secondary School Teachers, Ontario English Catholic Teachers and, most recently, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario have joined the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress.  The ETFO is the largest teacher union outside of Quebec.

Pssst…While on the subject, we have heard that the deal to bring the Canadian Auto Workers, back into the fold of the Canadian Labour Congress is about to be consummated

Computer Haiku

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

•  More than 98% of convicted criminals are bread eaters.
•  Nine out of 10 violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
•  Fully half of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
•  Bread is made from a substance called dough, less than half a pound of which has been proven to suffocate a mouse. The average person eats more bread than that in a week.
•  Tribal societies that do not eat bread have a low incidence of skin cancer, food poisoning and radiation sickness.
•  Bread has been proven to be highly addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water begged for bread after only two days.
•  Bread is a dangerous gateway food, leading the user into consumption of harder items such as butter, peanut butter, jam and even cold cuts.
•  Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 70% water, eating bread could eventually turn your body into a soggy, gooey mass of bread pudding.
•  Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400ºF – exposure to which could kill an adult in less than one minute.
•  Most Canadian bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between a valid scientific study and one that is based on statistical nonsense. 

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